Engineering Professionals’ Expectations of Undergraduate Engineering Students

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a study that sought to identify constructs that engineers in academia and industry use to describe attributes they consider important for undergraduate engineering students to possess. We explicitly targeted the attributes of leadership, recognizing and managing change, and synthesizing engineering, business, and social perspectives. Our findings indicate ways that engineering students can engage in technical and nontechnical activities that enhance their undergraduate engineering experiences. The final goal of this ongoing effort is to develop, validate, and implement a tool that examines undergraduate students’ embodiment of the three targeted attributes.