As the pivotal force of a nation, undergraduates bear the immense responsibility of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, known as "Chinese Dream". Their national security awareness significantly determines the survival and future development of the nation. Thus, the cultivation of undergraduates' national security awareness not only related with the personal growth but also profoundly impacts the implementation effectiveness of comprehensive national security concept. Moreover, it is a crucial factor that influences national development, stability, and people's wellbeing. This study was driven by the author's deep concerns about undergraduates' insufficient national security awareness, it combines the global development trends of today environmental situation with the significant urgency of cultivating national security awareness in China. Focusing on the ideology of national security and the actual situation of undergraduates in this regard, we carried out the work with a logic way of "what - why - what to do"; the empirical survey data was thoroughly explored with the aim to discover effective practical methods for cultivating national security awareness among undergraduates. The research on boosting national security awareness among undergraduates calls for a multiple theoretical foundation. This encompasses diverse perspectives such as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the principles of Marxist ideology, and China's rich traditional culture, particularly its national security theories. All these offer valuable insights and guidance for this study. Additionally, China's historic leaders have provided undergraduates with well-grounded ideological foundation for promoting their national security awareness in this field. With the help of literature survey and previous questionnaire findings, a questionnaire on national security awareness of undergraduates was compiled. The task investigates three aspects as observing variables, namely national security cognition, national security identity, and national security action; Concurrently, three dimensions are enrolled as influencing factors, namely crisis, rule of law, and responsibility. The experiment examined the real survey data through reliability and validity coefficients, coupled with the Delphi method for quantitative verification, refinement, and enhancement. This enabled us to achieve high accuracy and precision in the study. A sample of 55 undergraduates was selected for pre-testing the questionnaire, after adjusting and improvements, the final version was obtained. This study employs hybrid research. Firstly, we selected five colleges and universities through stratified sampling for investigation and analysis. Using SPSS26.0, the feedback data was analyzed and processed via multiple statistical methods, including independent sample t-test, one-way ANOVA, correlation analysis, regression analysis, and Mplus-chain mediation model analysis. The research reveals: (1) Undergraduates' national security awareness has reached a "relatively high" level. (2) National security awareness varies among undergraduates, influenced by their diverse backgrounds. (3) Undergraduates' cognition, identity, and actions related to national security significantly and positively impact their national security awareness. Secondly, to address the limitations of the questionnaire survey, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 randomly selected undergraduates. After organizing the collected data into a written format, a thorough analysis of the interview content was carried out using a continuous comparison method. The analysis revealed that several factors associated with the inadequate cultivation of undergraduates' national security awareness, including the virtual-real of network media environment, the imbalance in course supply and demand, the scattered national security education materials, superficial educational resources, weaknesses in fundamental knowledge, absence of interest, and shallow understanding are all responsible for the difficulties in developing national security awareness among undergraduates. Finally, by referring to the domestic and offshore cultivating experiences of undergraduates’ national security awareness, we deeply reflect the current situation in China, and then propose a "trinity" education model that promotes the organic combination of self-education, higher education, and social education, thereby boosting national security awareness among undergraduates. The proposed measures to optimize evaluation and accountability mechanisms at college level, create a healthy social atmosphere at social level, and strengthen self-education at academic level are all crucial steps towards enhancing national security awareness. This study provides a practical solution for cultivating undergraduates’ national security awareness in China and has important theoretical and practical significance for educational administration, colleges and universities, undergraduates, and future researchers.