This research aimed to better understand how engineering graduate students entering industry or government careers feel prepared from a skills development perspective. We sought to understand this alignment between graduate education and industry or government positions from two perspectives: 1) experienced engineering professionals who hire new engineering graduate degree holders, and 2) new engineering graduate degree holders in their new roles within the past few years. Our paper reports on findings from five interviews conducted with experienced structural engineering professionals with over 20 years of experience as well as eight interviews with recent alumni of graduate programs who reflected on how their educational experiences prepared them to enter the workforce. Results from the executives’ interviews revealed that a structural engineering candidate with a thesis-based master’s was preferable at some companies compared to a non-thesis master’s candidate because writing a thesis helps graduate students develop critical thinking and communication skills. Structural engineering employers were more skeptical of recent doctorate applicants as compared to recent master’s applicants based on the assumption that PhDs may be overqualified or have too specific expertise that could not be translated easily into industry. From the interviews conducted with recent alumni, our study found that all participants experienced some gap with respect to preparedness for the workforce when transitioning from academia to industry or government. In particular, recent alumni emphasized an opportunity for graduate programs to enhance how they help graduate students develop professional skills such as collaboration and communication.
Authors
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Parker Boggs
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
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David Knight is a Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech and also serves as Chief of Strategy in the College of Engineering and Special Assistant to the Provost. His research tends to be at the macro-scale, focused on a systems-level perspective of how engineering education can become more effective, efficient, and inclusive, and considers the intersection between policy and organizational contexts. Knight currently serves as the co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Engineering Education.
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Maura Borrego is the E.P. Schoch Professor in Engineering, Director of the Center for Engineering Education and Professor of Mechanical Engineering and STEM Education at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Borrego is a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education and currently serves as Senior Associate Editor for Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering. She was previously a rotating program officer at the National Science Foundation, a Vice President and member of the Board of the American Society for Engineering Education, an associate dean in the graduate school, Deputy Editor of the Journal of Engineering Education and Associate Editor for International Journal of STEM Education. Her research awards include U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), a National Science Foundation CAREER award, and two outstanding publication awards from the American Educational Research Association for her journal articles.
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Dr. Jessica Deters is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and Discipline Based Education Researcher at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. She holds her Ph.D. in Engineering Education and M.S. in Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech and her B.S. in Applied Mathematics & Statistics from Colorado School of Mines. Her research focuses on engineering culture, workplace preparedness and career trajectories of undergraduate and graduate students, and student well-being. She is the 2025 recipient of the Harold and Esther Edgerton Junior Faculty Award and the Henry Y. Kleinkauf Family Distinguished New Faculty Teaching Award.
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Gabriella Coloyan Fleming is a research scientist in Virginia Tech’s Department of Engineering Education. She holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. After completing her PhD in the experimental characterization of the thermal properties of nanomaterials, she moved into engineering education as a researcher-practitioner. She has worked as a program manager at the University of Michigan’s Center for Engineering Diversity and Outreach, a postdoc in Mechanical Engineering at UT Austin, and the director of and research associate in the Center for Equity in Engineering at UT Austin. Her engineering education research interests include servingness in engineering; assets-based teaching and learning; natural language processing and generative AI as qualitative research methods; and graduate education, faculty hiring and retention, and career pathways.
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Sydni Cobb is a Mechanical Engineering doctoral candidate and graduate research assistant for the Center for Engineering Education at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the illustrious North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 2015, entered the engineering workforce, and has since enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin to complete her M.S. and PhD in Mechanical Engineering.
Note
The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on
June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4576-2490
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
[biography]