Career exploration is understood as a lifelong process involving thoughts and behaviors that help individuals enhance knowledge of themselves and of the external environment to advance career development. Prior studies have consistently demonstrated the important roles of career exploration components in advancing career development across adolescence and adulthood. College students tend to have more opportunities to engage in various career exploration activities prior to the transition to the world of work. However, limited research has explored how career exploration behaviors, such as engagement in these activities, longitudinally change throughout their college years. It is also unclear how engagement in career exploration activities might influence career-related factors, and how these factors, in turn, affect career exploration behaviors across this period. Thus, this study examines how college students' career exploration behaviors are longitudinally associated with academic satisfaction, career decision-making difficulties, and job search self-efficacy. Using data from the 2021-2023 Korean Youth Panel (n = 3,832), we conducted panel data analyses. We found that students with higher levels of academic satisfaction, career decision-making difficulties, and job search self-efficacy are significantly less likely to participate in such activities at an early period. However, students who participated more in career exploration activities appear to have lower levels of career decision-making difficulties at a later time. The findings of this study contribute to our understanding of how career-related factors longitudinally affect the degree to which college students engage in career exploration activities. It also demonstrated how this engagement negatively influences students' career decision-making difficulties. Our findings suggest that higher institutions need to offer more practical opportunities for students to explore an in-depth understanding of themselves and the world of work to better prepare them for successful transitions and career development.