2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The research paper discusses how higher education has responded to the existing gap between employers’ expectations and qualifications of recent college graduates in professional skills reported by national surveys of employers. During the last decade, the National Association of Colleges and Employers has been reporting that less than 50% of employers evaluate college graduates as proficient in the competencies such as professionalism/work ethic, oral/written communications, teamwork/collaboration, leadership, and other related skills.
The paper presents a two-fold analysis of Engineering/Industrial/Operations Management undergraduate programs offered by Colleges of Engineering in the higher education institutions in the United States. The analysis includes a review of the programs’ curricula and published course catalogs to determine the degree to which professional skills are incorporated in these programs. Another facet of the analysis includes review of literature related to the initiatives the engineering colleges pursue to address the gap in student professional skills.
The paper includes discussion of the higher education trends and their match with the rapidly changing workforce arena with prognoses for the future of engineering professions. It also provides best practices and benchmarks of the Engineering/Industrial/Operations Management undergraduate programs which successfully address the workforce requirements and needs. The authors outline recommendations for strategic changes in the programs/curricula for successful fulfillment of the mission of higher education to prepare highly qualified graduates and to address the human resource development challenges.