This study aims to analyze the level of understanding of final-year Mechanical Engineering Education students regarding career planning and industry insight as cognitive components in preparing for the workforce. The study employed a quantitative approach with a descriptive method involving 58 eighth-semester students who had completed industrial internships. Data were collected using a Likert-scale questionnaire consisting of 20 items on career planning and 18 items on industry insight, and were analyzed using descriptive statistics, including mean scores and percentages. The results indicate that students’ understanding of career planning falls into the high category, with a mean score of 3.78, while their understanding of industry insight is also categorized as high, with a mean score of 3.52. The predominance of responses in the “agree” category suggests that students have developed an initial awareness of the importance of understanding self-potential, job opportunities, and the characteristics of the industrial world. However, a relatively high proportion of neutral responses indicates that this understanding is not yet fully developed and remains somewhat partial. These findings highlight that practice-based learning experiences, such as internships and project-based learning, play a crucial role in shaping students’ career planning and industry awareness. Therefore, strengthening the integration between academic learning and industry is essential through the development of industry-based curricula, improvement in the quality of internship programs, and the implementation of reflective learning. These efforts are expected to enhance students’ work readiness.
Firdausia et al. (Wed,) studied this question.