Resumen de Design Your Future: embedding leadership and career development into a cornerstone design course
Meg H. Handley, Sarah C. Ritter, Dean H. Lang
Engineering leadership skills have been identified as a hallmark of the engineer of the future. In addition, employers seek tohire engineers with not only solid technical grounding but also strong non-technical skills. This study sought to understandwhich competencies of entry-level engineers were sought by recruiters during on-campus career fairs. Themes identifiedincluded participation in meaningful experiences, ability to connect these experiences to potential employmentopportunities, and key behaviors such as strong communication, humble confidence, initiative, and collaborative problemsolving. Beyond simply taking part in an experience, successful engineering leaders should be able to clearly articulate theircontributions to these experiences and how they have solved problems (both technical and interpersonal) as well as aligntheir combined competencies to the potential job. Cornerstone engineering design courses offer students the opportunity todevelop many of these non-technical skills, such as teamwork and communication, through project-based learning inteams. Therefore, these courses are uniquely positioned to impact how a student reflects upon, and ultimately articulates,these experiences. In addition, since these courses often provide an introduction to engineering as a profession, the course isalso able to help the student align their selected experiences to their career path. This paper suggests incorporating a three-part module based on career development theory into cornerstone design courses to better prepare students for their futureengineering careers. In the first module, students develop self- and occupational-knowledge through interviews anddiscussions. The second module allows students to apply the engineering design process to a career problem by developinga career plan. Finally, the third module invites students to reflect on their experiences and plan and deliver an introductoryspeech, as would be expected at a career fair. By intervening early in their educational career, this type of module enablesengineering students to meaningfully design their future.
