Greg Rulifson
Over the last decade, universities have worked at improving engineering education to train engineers to better respond to global challenges and address the mismatch in engineering graduates/professionals and the demographics of the U.S., among other reasons. Popular terms, tools, and programs include, but are not limited to: service-learning, NAE’s Grand Challenge Scholars Program (GCSP), The Engineer of 2020, T-shaped graduate, social entrepreneurship, and Engineers Without Borders (EWB). These efforts have created a large pool of motivated, passionate, and qualified graduates who are not consistently finding jobs or careers within the engineering profession aligned with their excellent, engaged education.
This workshop invites participants to design pathways as groups in the areas of international development, humanitarian response, peacebuilding, and environmental advocacy through government, academia, industry and non-government sectors to:
• Identify entryways and barriers to high-impact careers for engineering graduates
• Create new positions in organizations that allow graduates to be more satisfied
• Consider the many jobs that graduates may have over 10 years following graduation
This experience will allow us all to consider more deeply where the students will go as they transition out of our universities, as they are the changemakers on a much larger scale than any of us can do individually.
Workshop outline
5 minutes: Motivation – losing some of the highest potential engineers because of culture, alignment, and false promises.
5 minutes: Based on 10 months in Washington, D.C. talking with various academic, NGO, government, and corporate entities about where humanitarian engineers could work, present some of the common ideas.
10 minutes: Get into groups of 3-4, each person shares a two-minute biography along with motivations for career choices since graduation.
25 minutes: Work on one specific career pathway over 10 years for a student graduating from one of our programs; be specific about this students’ education, interests, and passions.
15 minutes: Share out and discussion from the groups’ experiences.