Preliminary Results from a Study Investigating the Transition from Capstone Design to Industry

This study investigates engineering students’ transitions from academic to professional environments by examining the role capstone design courses play in preparing graduates for the workplace. To better understand how capstone design experiences contribute to graduates’ professional preparation, we are collecting data from participants from four different institutions with project-based capstone courses as they begin post-graduation positions in a variety of engineering workplaces. Through quantitative and qualitative methods, our study is designed to collect insights from participants in their first 12 months on the job. Currently we are collecting and analyzing data from the first of two planned cohorts of participants. Preliminary results for the participants in the first cohort point towards interesting trends regarding participants’ frequency of activities and perception of their preparedness. Professional skills such as team meetings were listed most frequently as activities engaged in by participants, and while there were particular areas such as budgeting where participants felt less prepared, overall their perception of preparedness indicates that capstone design courses and the larger engineering curriculum they are housed within are preparing students for professional careers

New Engineers’ First Three Months: A Study of the Transition from Capstone Design Courses to Workplaces

In preparing engineering students for the workplace, capstone classes provide unique opportunities for students to develop their professional identities and learn critical skills such as engineering design, teamwork, and self-directed learning (Lutz & Paretti). While existing research explores what and how students learn within these courses, we know much less about how capstone courses affect students’ transitions into the workplace. To address this gap, we are following 62 new graduates from four institutions during the participants’ first 12 weeks of work. Participants were drawn from three mechanical engineering programs and one engineering science program. Women were intentionally oversampled in the study, with 29 participants (47%) identifying as female. Weekly surveys were used to collect quantitative data on what types of workplace activities participants engaged in (e.g., team meetings, project budgeting, CAD modeling, engineering calculations) and qualitative data on what challenges they experience in their early work experience. In this paper, we present a descriptive analysis of the data to identify patterns across participants. Preliminary analysis of the quantitative data suggests that the most common activities for our participants were team meetings and project planning (mentioned by \u3e70% of participants) compared to formal presentations and project budgeting (mentioned by The results are intended to inform both capstone faculty and industry to identify areas of strength and improvement. Our recommendations target current practices in capstone education including course design and structure as well as industry onboarding practices

It’s a Context Gap, Not a Competency Gap: Understanding the Transition from Capstone Design to Industry

This paper describes the completion of a multi-year, multi-institution study to explore students’ transitions from capstone design courses into engineering workplaces. Numerous studies and industry reports point to gaps between school and work with respect to engineering practice. Such misalignment poses a serious challenge to the professional formation of engineers within the academy. Industry-oriented capstone courses are key opportunities to bridge these gaps. These courses provide a direct connect to industry, and faculty view them as vehicles to help students synthesize prior coursework and engage in real-world projects. Yet few if any studies have examined the effectiveness of capstone courses in the context of the transition from school to work. Most research focuses on course structure, pedagogy, assessment, and end-of-course outcomes. To address this gap, we recruited graduating seniors two years in succession from four different institutions and followed them through their first year of work. Of the 140 participants interviewed prior to graduation, 75 remained in the study for the full year. Data collection included weekly quantitative and qualitative surveys during participants’ first 12 weeks of work, followed by semi-structured interviews after approximately three, six, and twelve months of work. In addition, 15 self-identified women participated in interviews near the end of their second year of work. The study focused on four primary research questions. RQ1: What skills, practices, and attitudes fostered through the capstone experience do individuals draw on or apply in their early work experiences? RQ2: What differences do individuals identify between their capstone design and early work experiences, and how do those differences help or hinder their school-to-work transition? RQ3: What specific pedagogical practices or aspects of the capstone course do students identify as helping or hindering their transition? RQ4: In what ways do individuals perceive themselves to be underprepared in their early work experiences? All data from the project have been coded to address the research questions. In this paper, we summarize the answers to these questions, drawing on published journal articles as well as manuscripts in the final stages of development. In short, participants identified significant transfer across four domains: teamwork and communication, self-directed learning, technical engineering work, and engineering identity. Each of these areas posed significant challenges for participants as they entered the workforce, but each also represented areas in which they were able to draw on their capstone experiences to navigate their learning. The industry-orientation of their capstone course played a key role in this transfer. At the same time, participants identified multiple contextual differences between school and work that made the transition more a process of adaptation rather than direct translation of skills and practices. Participants were able to draw on their capstone experiences to develop strategies for navigating their new work contexts