Master's and doctoral engineering students' interest in industry, academia, and government careers

Abstract

Background: Graduate education literature tends to focus on faculty careers with little attention to industry careers. However, more than one-third of U.S. engineering doctorates enter industry.Purpose: Our purpose is to understand engineering graduate students' interest in industry, academia, and government careers as it relates to their graduate engineering identities.Design/Method: A total of 249 engineering thesis master's and doctoral students completed a survey about their graduate engineering identities and career preferences. We created regression models to predict students' likelihood of pursuing careers in industry, academia, and government. Then, we used cluster analysis to understand the extent to which students are considering multiple options and used chi-squared and ANOVA tests to compare the clusters.Results: In the regression model predicting an academic career, research recognition and research performance/competence were positive predictors and engineering performance/competence was a negative predictor. Regression models of industry and government described less than 10% of the variance. Four clusters emerged, which collectively demonstrate that engineering graduate students are considering careers in multiple sectors. Students with internships during graduate study were more likely to pursue industry careers.Master's students were underrepresented in the cluster with highest likelihood of an academic career. International students were keeping more options open than some domestic students. There were also differences by engineering discipline. Conclusions: Engineering graduate students are considering multiple career sectors. Advisors and education researchers should focus not only on academic career preparation but also on industry and government career preparation, particularly on preparing for multiple options simultaneously. K E Y W O R D Scareer choice, master's students, PhD students, regression, survey

Inequity in graduate engineering identity: Disciplinary differences and opportunity structures

“…Work on engineering identity and GEI proposes that high engineering identity benefits students, increases the likelihood of degree completion, and should be supported by educators (Berdanier et al, 2020;Choe & Borrego, 2020;Crede & Borrego, 2013;Godwin, 2016;Godwin et al, 2016;Godwin & Kirn, 2020). The work reported here investigates the disciplinary differences in GEI with the proposal that disciplinary differences point to opportunity structures that may harm traditionally underserved students.…”

“…Given this framework's importance, researchers have extended and adapted engineering identity frameworks (e.g., Godwin et al, 2016) to study engineering graduate students (Choe & Borrego, 2019;Perkins et al, 2017). Engineering interest, recognition, and competence combined with interpersonal communication skills strongly predict engineering identity in graduate students (Choe & Borrego, 2020). Further, exploratory work examining engineering graduate students who debated leaving the field demonstrates that factors related to identity are vital in their intentions to persist (Berdanier et al, 2020).…”

Comparative Analysis of Industry Expectations Related to Engineering Graduates in Poland and the United States

“…Engineering programs are preparing graduate for multiple variety of carriers: government careers, academic careers and work in industry (Choe NH and Borrego M., 2020). In the traditional system of training, students mostly acquire theoretical competences.…”

Nonacademic Career Pathways for Engineering Doctoral Students: An Evaluation of an NSF Research Traineeship Program

“…Most participants were considering multiple career options, seeing value in multiple career paths and weighing the pros and cons of jobs in different sectors. Not all non-academic options are similar; several differences exist between jobs in government and industry, and in some ways government research careers are more similar to academic careers (Choe & Borrego, 2020). Participants often compared government and industry as options, showing personal preference based on desired pace of research and amount of interactions with others.…”

“…Students may be unaware of this option as a potential career pathway, or if they are, how to pursue it. Future research should find ways to consider sequential career plans, rather than simply asking students about one alternative over another for their entire career (Choe & Borrego, 2020).…”