<![CDATA[ABSTRACT: Fresh graduate scholars of Guidance and Counseling face considerable pressure upon entering the workforce, including job mismatches, high workloads, and the implicit expectation that, as graduates trained in mental health, they should be better equipped to manage stress. This study aims to measure the level of work stress among fresh graduate scholars of the Guidance and Counseling Study Program at Sanata Dharma University and to identify which items of the work stress scale are categorized as high, so they can be proposed as guidance topics. This study employed a descriptive quantitative design involving 53 employed fresh graduate scholars of the Guidance and Counseling Study Program. Data were collected through a survey using a work stress scale comprising 44 valid items across three aspects: physiological, psychological, and behavioral, and analyzed descriptively using categorization based on theoretical mean and standard deviation. The findings indicate that the majority of respondents (53%) fall within the moderate work stress category, while 4% were very high, 8% high, 23% low, and 13% very low. Item analysis showed that 50% of items were categorized as very high and 32% as high, with none falling in the low or very low categories, indicating that although overall stress levels are moderate, specific psychological and behavioral dimensions are felt intensely. These findings imply the need for career guidance programs covering anxiety management, emotion regulation, procrastination handling, performance optimization, sleep hygiene, and work-life balance for Guidance and Counseling students preparing to enter the workforce.]]>
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