Engineering Careers and Career Engineering: An Evaluation of Undergraduate Professionalism Programming

Co-curricular programming was developed to bridge the gap between undergraduate engineering education and entering professional practice through in-person skills-based workshops and industry events. This paper documents how the co-curricular “professionalism cohort” evolved over five years in response to student needs. A logical model was used to identify inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes, and limitations. However, the emphasis was placed on the activities, which were then categorized into learning modes and traits of career preparedness. The following topics are highlighted: motivations for student involvement via different incentives, refinement of skills-based workshop content, support from external parties, and the relationship between the programming and student career preparedness. Recommendations for future implementations are provided to optimize the cohort. By documenting this program, we hope to inspire educators to examine career-preparedness strategies in their institutions