2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Fostering an understanding of the breadth of available professional pathways is a crucial component of preparing engineering students for post-graduation. This can be accomplished through a variety of programmatic offerings, including specific opportunities that promote collaboration between academia and industry, which is critical for supporting the majority of engineering undergraduates’ career development. Through a content analysis of in-depth interviews with thirteen professional staff members including academic advisors, directors of undergraduate programs, and career service staff across eleven departments in a college of engineering at a large midwestern university, this paper discusses multiple approaches that are currently utilized to facilitate students’ career development.
In addition to traditional senior design projects and company recruitment during university-sponsored career fairs, this paper highlights several nontraditional approaches that expand collaboration between the university and industry, including company visits, industry-sponsored events, specialized workshops, alumni visits and workshops, and events developed and facilitated by student organizations. These approaches create multiple, diverse opportunities for students to engage with potential employers and explore a variety of career paths.
This project identified innovative collaboration strategies for universities with large enrollments in undergraduate engineering programs and industry partners to enhance students’ career readiness. It also provides a case study of prevalent and effective programmatic c efforts and rationale for support of such programs and events. By combining traditional and innovative career development approaches, universities and industries can collaborate more effectively to support undergraduate engineering students' career development.