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). But 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 across 4 institutions during the participants’ first 12 weeks of work. Participants were drawn from 3 mechanical engineering programs and one general engineering program. Women were intentionally oversampled in the study, with 29 participants 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 >70% of participants) compared to formal presentations and project budgeting (mentioned by <30% of participants). Preliminary analysis of the qualitative data suggests that participants’ most challenging experiences clustered into two dominant groups: 1) self-directed learning, and 2) teamwork and communication.
The results are intended to inform both capstone faculty and industry to identify areas of strength within current practices and areas for improvement in course design and structure and/or in industry onboarding practices.
Chris Gewirtz is PhD student in Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. His research interests revolve around how culture, history and identity influence assumptions made by engineers in their design practice, and how to change assumptions to form innovative and socially conscious engineers. He is particularly interested in humanitarian engineering design, where many traditional engineering assumptions fall apart.
Daria Kotys-Schwartz is the Director of the Idea Forge—a flexible, cross-disciplinary design space at University of Colorado Boulder. She is also the Design Center Colorado Director of Undergraduate Programs and a Senior Instructor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. She received B.S. and M.S degrees in mechanical engineering from The Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder. Kotys-Schwartz has focused her research in engineering student learning, retention, and student identity development within the context of engineering design. She is currently investigating the impact of cultural norms in an engineering classroom context, performing comparative studies between engineering education and professional design practices, examining holistic approaches to student retention, and exploring informal learning in engineering education.
Daniel W. Knight is the Program Assessment and Research Associate at Design Center (DC) Colorado in CU’s Department of Mechanical Engineering at the College of Engineering and Applied Science. He holds a B.A. in psychology from Louisiana State Universit
Marie C. Paretti is a Professor of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech, where she directs the Virginia Tech Engineering Communications Center (VTECC). Her research focuses on communication, collaboration, and identity in engineering.
Sidharth Arunkumar is pursuing his Masters in Mechanical Engineering at New Mexico Tech. His key area of interest is solid mechanics, and his research involves the study of conductive layers on wind turbine blades. He has worked on aircraft internal structures and Turbine casings for MNC clients as a Design Engineer, prior to his Masters at New Mexico Tech. He has also been involved as a research assistant, in the development of composite laminates for space applications. He is currently assisting research efforts to study students' transition from School to Work.
Dr. Julie Ford is Professor of Technical Communication (housed in the Mechanical Engineering department) at New Mexico Tech where she coordinates and teaches in the junior/senior design clinic as well as teaches graduate-level engineering communication courses. Her research involves engineering communication, technical communication pedagogy, and knowledge transfer. She has published and presented widely including work in the Journal of Engineering Education, the Journal of STEM Education: Innovations and Research, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, Technical Communication and Technical Communication Quarterly. Julie has a PhD in Rhetoric and Professional Communication from New Mexico State University, an MA in English with Technical Writing Emphasis from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and a BA in English from Elon University.
Susannah Howe, Ph.D. is the Design Clinic Director in the Picker Engineering Program at Smith College, where she coordinates and teaches the capstone engineering design course. Her current research focuses on innovations in engineering design education, p
Laura Rosenbauer is an engineering major and landscape studies minor at Smith College. She is a research assistant on the national and international capstone survey efforts and the development of CDHub 2.0. She is also assisting with a new research collaboration to study the transition from capstone design to work. She was a summer intern at the Urban Water Innovation Network, where she studied the thermodynamic and hydrologic properties of pavements. She is interested in a career in civil engineering.
Dr. Jessica Deters is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical & Materials Engineering and Discipline Based Education Researcher at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. She holds her Ph.D. in Engineering Education and M.S. in Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech.
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