THE LEGACY OF DESIGN: WHAT CONTRIBUTION DOES A DEGREE MAKE TO YOUR FUTURE DESIGN CAREER?

Much research has been conducted into the content of design curricula yet limited research has been undertaken into how early career design professionals view their undergraduate studies, and in turn if this experience adequately prepares them for entry into the design industry. This paper explores the relationship between product design curricula and the professional practice of design. The authors consult with early career design product design professionals to understand the perceived link between their undergraduate studies and the everyday practice of the design industry. Specifically, this paper reports upon the realities of working in the design industry and explores the extent to which their undergraduate training supported the transition from designer-in-training to design professional. Data was gathered via semi structured interviews with early career design product design professionals. The findings of the research indicate that although there is a gap between undergraduate studies and the design industry, and graduates do find the transition into their professional career challenging, on balance graduates feel that a university design education prepares them reasonably well to begin their career as a design professional. The research indicates that an undergraduate design education is perceived as the start of a journey in a professional design career

Computer-supported laboratory for production-oriented electrotechnical systems

At the electrical engineering department of the K.U.Leuven an education research project was started in October 1997. The target is to develop a powerful environment to teach students to solve practice-oriented problems as they will encounter them in industry furtheron in their career. In order to give a wide use to the developed environment, a close collaboration has been established with three polytechnical engineering institutes. Self-dependence has to be stimulated by creating possibilities for real “hands-on experience”. Such an educational environment implicates time-problems, high investment costs and last but not least safety restrictions. The project contributes to the solution of these problems by using simulation- and softwareenvironments, without loosing the real hands-on feeling

A Comparative Qualitative Case Study About The Role Of College Debt And Personal Finances In Career Experiences Of Higher Education Professional Staff

As the cost of higher education has risen, partly due to the embrace of neoliberalism in higher education, students and families have faced a growing cost-sharing burden. Along with an increased demand for graduate education credentials, this trend has led to the growth of student loan debt in the United States. This narrative case study researched how personal finance situations have impacted the career experiences of people aged 28-40 who work as professional staff in higher education. Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Model guided the design and analysis to capture the dynamics between the policy realms, institutional and industry career development provisions, and individual experiences. The data sources included two interviews per participant, participant resumes, a participant-drafted artifact depicting their career trajectories, and publicly available institutional HR policies from the participants’ current employers. Findings included the importance of family support and structure throughout one’s life in terms of financial knowledge and resources. Also discussed in the findings was the role of higher education institutions as places of learning and employment in shaping personal finance situations and career experiences. Additionally, time, in terms of length of engagement with an experience and the broader time in history that engagement occurs, was also found to influence individual’s experiences. Finally, recommendations for research, theory, policy, and practice were addressed. The practice recommendations focused on policy leaders, institutions, and people

Strategic factors for implementing a multiple career path construction doctoral program: a mixed methods study

2022 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.According to the recent literature, a notable percentage of STEM doctoral graduates prefer employment in non-academic career paths such as industry due to diminishing opportunities in academia. However, the doctoral education in the U.S. is designed to prepare graduates to become researchers and teachers for careers in academia. There is limited training available to Ph.D. students related to their training for non-academic career paths. Construction Ph.D. programs are designated as STEM programs and are no exception to this changing career preferences of Ph.D. graduates. Given the changing career landscape of doctoral graduates, it is important for construction Ph.D. programs to prepare doctoral students for success in diverse career paths (academia and industry). A large share of the current research in doctoral education primarily focusses on engineering disciplines, and very limited knowledge is available related to preparation of construction focused Ph.D. graduates effectively for multiple career paths. The broad research objective of this study is to develop strategic factors for construction Ph.D. programs to prepare students for diverse career paths. To achieve the research objective, the study explored the factors that influence construction Ph.D. students career choices through social cognitive career theory theoretical lens, competencies required by construction Ph.D. students for careers in academia and industry, various ways construction Ph.D. programs can prepare students for diverse career paths, and benefits of preparing construction Ph.D. students for various career paths. The study adopted a mixed methods approach, where 38 qualitative interviews were conducted and a quantitative survey was developed and administered (329 responses) with construction Ph.D. students, construction Ph.D. graduates working in the industry, construction faculty, and construction industry professionals. Results indicate that construction-focused Ph.D. students are equally interested in industry-related career choices alongside academia. Factors such as interest in teaching and research, passion for student mentoring and engagement, flexibility in working hours, support from an advisor, unawareness about non-academic opportunities, and satisfaction obtained from teaching influence construction Ph.D. students towards academic careers. Factors such as better salaries, ability to make a difference and advance construction industry, disinterest in academic culture, lack of enough academic jobs, no support from an advisor, and competitive academic funding climate influence construction Ph.D. students towards non-academic (industry) careers. Written and oral communication, problem solving skills, and critical independent thinking competencies are critical to employability success of construction Ph.D. students in both academic and industry career paths. Opportunities to complete industry internships, performing research relevant to construction industry's challenges by balancing both theory and practice, support from advisor related to either of the career choices, networking with both academic and industry professionals are important strategies to prepare construction Ph.D. student for diverse career paths. Preparing construction Ph.D. students for diverse career paths not only improves employability of Ph.D. students but also enhances university-industry research collaborations and improves the ability of construction industry to constantly innovate, adopt technology, and gain access to university research relevant to their needs

Attractiveness of medical disciplines amongst Swiss first-year medical students allocated to different medical education tracks: cross-sectional study

Background: As most countries, Switzerland is experiencing a shortage of physicians especially in general practice and new medical education tracks with respective focusses have been started in response. This study investigated Swiss medical students' career openness and attractiveness of different medical disciplines as well as the concordance of students' career intentions with assigned medical education tracks. Methods: Cross-sectional study surveying first year medical students assigned to four different Swiss medical education tracks with distinctive additional education focuses (ETH Zurich: medical technology and engineering, University of St. Gallen and University of Lucerne: primary healthcare and University of Zurich: no distinctive focus). Results: We surveyed 354 medical students (response rate across all included medical education tracks 71.1%), 64.8% female, mean age 20 years. Regarding career openness, we found that 52.8% of medical students had neither a strong commitment nor a strong reservation for any of the proposed career options and 17.0% had a strong commitment. Among medical disciplines, medical subspecialties were attractive to the largest part of students (inpatient subspecialties attractive for 71%, outpatient for 58%), attractiveness of general practice was moderate (30%), academic (22%) and industrial sector (17%) careers were least attractive. Proportions of medical students attracted to general practice were similar at medical education tracks with focus on primary healthcare compared to other medical education tracks (32.2% vs. 25.8%, p = 0.391). Conversely, proportions of medical students attracted to academic or industry careers were significantly higher at the ETH Zurich compared to other medical education tracks (37.2%, vs. 13.1%, p < 0.001 and 31.9%, vs. 8.8%, p < 0.001 respectively). Conclusion: While most first-year medical students were open to careers in many medical disciplines, attractiveness of disciplines varied strongly. Students attracted to academic or industrial careers accumulated at the medical education track with concordant teaching focus but students attracted to general practice did not accumulate at medical education tracks focused on primary healthcare. For medical education tracks with primary care teaching focus this is both a challenge and an opportunity to specifically counteract the shortage of general practitioners in Switzerland. Keywords: Career choice; Medical disciplines; Medical school; Medical students

Career and Technical Education at a Crossroads: A Delphi Study

Career and technical education in the United States has reached a critical juncture. A three round Delphi method was used to determine a consensus on the future events of career and technical education to better inform educational decision makers. Forty-one individual experts in the field were invited to serve as panelists for the Delphi study and 19 agreed to participate. The first round asked the panel to respond to a general statement about their views of the future of career and technical education. In Round Two, the panel of experts provided feedback by rating each event regarding the time frame in which it will occur, the desirability should it occur and the impact if it does occur. Round Three consisted of reaching a consensus and defending minority opinions. The events for which consensus was achieved led to constructed scenarios of the future of career and technical education. Compilation of expert responses forecast several important events. Among those were the demand for CTE students to exit programs with a nationally recognized industry certification will become the norm. There will be a blending of academic and technical programs of study which will result in an increased interest in CTE. Policy and practice must begin to address the issue of allowing CTE to continue as the dumping ground for students who cannot succeed in the general education classroom. Career and technical education will be called upon to retrain America\u27s workforce as the economy continues to change

A sociological analysis of engineering education

Autoethnography is a social science method that could be described as a combination of ethnography and autobiography, telling stories that connect the personal to the cultural. My personal story is that of a teenager without the prerequisite 'maths and science' profile required for an engineering degree, who left school with no plans for a career in engineering. However, a later series of events led me to into an engineering career through the 'back door', and an engineering degree as a mature student. As someone who worked in industry first and did the degree later, I found that the very quantitative, objective and theoretical world of engineering education, didn’t seem to fit with the qualitative, subjective and applied reality. These were some of the reflections captured in my autoethnography, and exploring engineering education, through the lens of educational sociology, has led me to question the contrast between the skills required for engineering practice, and the skills required to complete an engineering degree. In order to explore why this situation exists I concluded my project with a Bourdieusian sociological analysis, conceptualising engineering academia and practice as Bourdieusian fields, and exploring the habitus, or world view of the members of those fields, and how this informs engineering education. In this paper I will briefly introduce the relevant social science terminology and literature, before using this framework to describe how these concepts may inform the way that the engineering curriculum is conceived. I argue that we need to look to the past, the present, and the future, and reconsider what we think engineering is, in order to design a curriculum that will meet the future needs of industry

Future-proofing career readiness in science graduates: where, when and how?

BACKGROUND To ensure future career readiness, students must develop a range of skills and capacities including technical expertise, problem-solving abilities, effective communication, social and professional network building, interpersonal and cultural awareness, resilience, and adaptability (Jackson, 2018; Roberts, 2016; Tomlinson, 2017) as well as develop a well-grounded self-identity (Jackson, 2017). Given that careers are continuously evolving and perpetually fluid (Starr-Glass, 2019), graduates also need to critically perceive, engage, and reflect on their own identity and self-efficacy (Sarkar et al., 2016). However, recent research has shown that there is a lack of generic skill development in undergraduate science curricula (Sarkar et al., 2020) and academics have expressed concerns about their ability to provide reflective practice opportunities for students. This project, funded by the Australian Council of Deans of Science, aims to enhance the confidence and capability of academics to enhance their students career readiness; promote collaborative curriculum development between industry partners, graduates, and students; and develop national best practice guidelines for the enhancement of science graduate employability skills. THE WORKSHOP You are invited to join us for a collaborative and interactive workshop to explore where, when, and how employability skills could be implemented within the Sciences curriculum. We have used insights from students, graduates, industry employers and academics to propose possible best practice guidelines. This workshop will specifically road-test the co-created guidelines while also providing an opportunity for participants to further explore the following aspects: development of generic skills identified as more difficult to teach (such as metacognitive and reflective abilities, resilience and adaptability) enhancing the knowledge of career pathways and connecting with employers scaffolding and integration of work integrated learning activities into the curriculum (both in the workplace and in the classroom). REFERENCES Jackson, D. (2017). Developing pre-professional identity in undergraduates through work-integrated learning. Higher Education, 74, 833–853. Jackson, D. (2018) Developing graduate career readiness in Australia: Shifting from extra-curricular internships to work-integrated learning. International J Work-Integrated Learning, 19, 23-35. Roberts, S. (2016). Capital limits: Social class, motivations for term-time job searching and the consequences of joblessness among UK university students. Journal of Youth Studies, 20, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2016.1260697 Sarkar, M., Overton, T., Thompson, C. D., &amp; Rayner, G.  (2016) Graduate employability: View of recent science graduates and employers. International Journal of Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education, 24(3), 31-48. Sarkar, M., Overton, T., Thompson, C. D., &amp; Rayner, G. (2020). Academics’ perspectives of the teaching and development of generic employability skills in science curricula. Higher Education Research &amp; Development, 39(2), 346–361. Starr-Glass D (2019) Doing and being: future graduates, careers and Industry 4.0. On the Horizon, 27, 145–152. Tomlinson M (2017) Forms of graduate capital and their relationship to graduate employability. Education + Training, 59, 338-352

The role of experienced practitioners in engineering education : the end of an era?

Delivering excellence in higher engineering education is dependent on many variables. This includes programme design, delivery and content, university support and the knowledge, experience and enthusiasm of faculty members. Over the past decade there has been a notable shift in engineering faculty recruitment policy. No longer is the professional and industrial experience of the engineering practitioner revered as a co-opted member of the engineering department. Despite their potential contribution as grounded, practical and relevant engineering lecturers, their impoverished knowledge of research funding mechanisms and lack of research capital is an acute disadvantage. This is a discussion paper exploring the marginalization of experienced practitioners in engineering education and the changing role of the educator as a career academic. The career academic is highly qualified and typically well versed in research activity; however, unlike their industrial counterparts they are devoid of any meaningful practical engineering experience. This changing role of the educator in engineering education has far-reaching consequences for teaching and learning and future industry skills. Given the longstanding connection between theory and practice in engineering education, this departure in pedagogical policy arguably signals the end of an era. The systematic fragmentation of engineering theory from industrial practice within higher education institutes arguably needs to be challenged. Recent government rhetoric to focus on the pedagogical aspects through a Teaching Excellence Framework is arguably aiming at the wrong target. Instead, reconstructing engineering programmes fit for the twenty-first century will require alternative teaching strategies, revitalised industrial advisory boards and uncommon leadership within engineering faculties