Pathways from School to Work (PATHS): A Longitudinal Study of Undergraduate Engineering Students from College into the Workforce

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The proposed study takes a longitudinal view of how engineers make the transition from undergraduate to workplace environments, navigate the early career job market, and experience their first professional positions. As part of this investigation, the proposed study will explore such areas as: How students seek out and sift through various career options, and how they finally settle on a particular job offer or course of action; how graduates' early career paths include varying degrees of innovation, entrepreneurship, leadership, business, and/or technical work, in different organizational settings and roles; and how graduates' experience "pushes and pulls" towards and away from engineering in these early post-graduation years.A major element of this work is to develop a set of recommendations that can be immediately applied to academic and industry practice around preparing, supporting, recruiting, and retaining engineering graduates. These recommendations will address how to integrate new insights into career pathways into: Engineering curricula and co-curricula; campus career development centers' resources and processes; and industry/firm-based recruitment and on-boarding practices for new engineering hires. An advisory group composed of academic and industry representatives will be convened to refine these recommendations and consult on how to deliver them to the public with maximum impact. Findings on the details and dynamics of pathways from school to work have the following broad implications for engineering education and the engineering workforce: (1) Engineering students can make better decisions with more clearly mapped post-graduation options; (2) Engineering graduates can be better prepared for the transition to the workplace; and (3) Organizations can better retain their engineering employees and build diversity in their ranks.