2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Biomedical Engineering (BME) programs train students to design and develop technologies and systems to enhance health and wellbeing. Typically, the curriculum for undergraduate BME students is quite demanding and loaded with lectures, labs, and projects. With such a heavy workload, BME students have limited opportunities to reflect on their values and goals, which can play an important role in their choice of post graduation plans. In this paper, we describe an approach we have implemented, which can empower students to identify and pursue post graduation opportunities which align with their personal goals and values. Students find that stepping back and reflecting, adds context and purpose to their education.
Engineering in Biomedicine is a required weekly one-hour seminar course for senior students in BME at our university. The course addresses current topics, emerging technologies, and careers in the biomedical engineering field. The course consists of lectures and workshops given by practicing professionals from medical device, research and development organizations, hospitals and regulatory agencies, as well as alumni from the program. The course exposes BME students to the challenges, opportunities, and trends faced by BME professionals, and practitioners in the “real-world.”

The course supports a University-wide mission to deliver both high value learning and a transformative experience to students. As such, the goal of this course is not to merely expose students to information about job possibilities, but rather, this course teaches students about how to apply their learned engineering skills in a way that contributes to the field and holistically supports their continued growth as individuals and as engineering professionals.

During the recent Summer of 2023 semester, the course instructor partnered with a practitioner within the university’s Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) to give students tools to help them explore their individual post graduation goals. Through guided self-reflection, students were challenged to reflect upon their own identities and to consider the way that those identities shape their values, beliefs, priorities, and/or resource needs within a place of work. During a subsequent interactive workshop, students used the reflection exercise to further explore their workplace needs. With support from facilitators, students reviewed published job postings as well background information about employers to distill and identify a company’s values and culture. Based on this review of the company’s offerings and culture, students assessed how well a given employer aligned with their own values and priorities and discussed how they would approach an interview and job offer from that employer.
Results of thematic analysis of students' reflections from this activity, reveal several human-centric themes among students' responses. Key themes uncovered include “a belief of the necessity of flexibility,” “interconnectedness-connections between people / co-workers / supervisors,” and the “importance of respect.” These results provide evidence that providing students with a space in their curriculum to assess and recalibrate their values and goals, particularly as they near graduation and a major transition into the “real-world” is relevant and valuable. These are important skills which add value and meaning to the students’ careers and life-long learning.