The Entry-Level Engineer: Problems in
Transition from Student to Professional
SUSAN M. KATZ
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
ABSTRACT
When students enter the workforce, they must make a transi-
tion from an academic to a professional role. This study, based
on interviews with professional engineers in supervisory roles,
suggests that many basic skills required in the workplace,
including the ability to work on a team and to communicate
with one’s peers and supervisors, are missing or insufficiently
developed in recent college graduates. Many employers have
programs to overcome these deficiencies, but we should also
consider what we as educators can do to better prepare stu-
dents for their future roles, and what students themselves can
do to ease the transition.
I. INTRODUCTION
One of the main goals of any academic curriculum is to pre-
pare students for their future—to give them a foundation on
which they can build throughout their lives. In engineering,
most of this preparation involves teaching students basic theory
and skills in science and technical subjects; but a secondary
concern is the professionalization of students. We all recognize
that there is a difference between being a student and being a
professional, but are we doing all we can to prepare our stu-
dents to make the transition from the academic to the work-
place environment?
To further my own understanding of the transition from
student to professional, and as preparation for extensive
research into the communication demands in engineering envi-
ronments, I recently conducted a series of interviews regarding
the role of the entry-level engineer. In these interviews I began
by explaining my interest in what is expected of a newly-gradu-
ated engineer during his or her first year on the job. To get a
multiplicity of perspectives within a specific field, I talked with
undergraduate and graduate students in environmental engi-
neering, three of their professors, and three professional engi-
neers who are potential employers for these students. My
intention was to see if a match exists between the academic
and workplace views of the entry-level engineering position.
What I discovered was that, while students and professors
answered my questions directly, all three of the professionals
began by talking about the problems they have with new
employees.
© 1993 American Society for Engineering Education. Reprinted from Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 82, No. 3, July 1993.
The professionals work in the three general categories of
engineering that are open to students in environmental engi-
neering: industry (I talked with a manager for a large manufac-
turing company), consulting (my contact is vice-president of
operations/engineering for a “small-to-medium sized” consult-
ing firm), and government (I interviewed an associate director
of a state health department).* In talking with these profes-
sionals about the role of the entry-level engineer, I found that
they share the belief that today’s students are insufficiently
ready for that first job:
The person coming out of school—unless he’s had either a
co-op program or fairly extensive internships in the sum-
mer—doesn’t know what industry is all about. (industry)
The undergraduates are not well prepared for a job mar-
ket. . . . They may understand some of the general principles
in engineering, but they have difficulty in applying them
from a practical standpoint. (consulting)
My problem has always been . . . that public health and
the engineering curriculum don’t really match in the first
place. . . . Most of them [new engineers] would interview for
a public health job . . . without really knowing what it is.
(government)
These professionals are not talking about the idiosyncracies
of specific organizations; they recognize that “every company is
going to have their own culture and their own styles of doing
things, their own way of doing things” (industry) and that new
employees cannot be expected to know those details. As one
professional told me, “I would expect that someone going into
a regulatory agency or someone going into a design firm would
have significantly different experiences. But [if] you look for
the common principles, I’ll bet you’ll find a lot of common
principles” (industry). It is these “common principles” that
form the core of an academic engineering curriculum, and per-
haps some of them are not sufficiently stressed in today’s over-
burdened programs.
II. WHAT DO THE EMPLOYERS SAY IS MISSING?
In reviewing what these professionals told me about entry-
level engineers, I have compiled a list of characteristics that
they see as lacking in these new employees, many of which
echo the concerns of the engineers and managers interviewed
*In this paper I will reference my conversations with the professionals by citing
the type of organization—industry, consulting, or government—rather than
the actual names of individuals.
Journal of Engineering Education 171
recently by ASEE PRISM.(1) All of the items on this list were
mentioned by at least two of the three professionals and would
seem to be common to most if not all engineering jobs.
A. Ability to Work on a Team
Teamwork is a well-recognized fact of engineering life. All
of the students I spoke with expected that they would be work-
ing on teams throughout their engineering careers; their pro-
fessors stressed that the entry-level position would probably be
as a junior engineer on a team; the professionals described a
variety of situations, all of which involved cooperating with
individuals either in a formal or informal team. However, most
academic situations don’t foster teamwork. As one graduate
student explained to me:
[As a student] you’re not encouraged to do too much team-
work. . . . You work on your own, what you learn is on your
own, most of your research is on your own. . . . Now that
we’ve all been, like, competing against one another, now we
all have to be friends and form a team. And nobody’s really
done a lot of that.
This lack of experience at working in teams becomes a
problem in the workplace. As one of the professionals told me:
We spend a lot of money every year [on seminars to
improve people skills]. Not only are you dealing with external
clients, but you’re dealing with members of teams here. You
have to be able to listen and communicate and coordinate
your tasks with the other disciplines. (consulting)
In addition to working with a formal team for a specific
project, there are aspects of teamwork that arise in other work-
place situations:
One of the important things in this early entry-level peri-
od is for individuals to learn how to take their skill and
interact with somebody who has the hands-on skill but can’t
talk their language—and make it work. (industry)
The necessity of working as part of a team is one of the
most dramatic differences between the role of the student and
the role of the professional engineer. Given that students have
spent at least sixteen years of their lives working primarily as
individuals, it is not surprising that the shift to teamwork is
problematic.
B. Ability to Communicate
The importance of communication skills in engineering has
a long and well-documented history (for example, see refer-
ences 2-5), but the professionals I spoke with do not see entry-
level employees as coming in with the required skills.* Their
problems with written communication are serious: “Engineers
are probably the worst writers that we’ve seen” (consulting). In
addition to problems with writing, there are problems with oral
skills: “Most of them [entry-level engineers] come to us with-
out a good ability to deliver a presentation . . .” (industry). In
*There is also significant documentation that agrees with these professionals;
for example, see references 6-8.
172 Journal of Engineering Education © 1993 American Society for Engineering Education. Reprinted from Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 82, No. 3, July 1993.
the world of consulting, this problem can have a real impact on
business:
Their communication skills are not good—they’re less than
not good, they’re really bad. In most cases, they’re not strong
communicators, and that is a problem because we’re trying to
get some of our technical people to participate in [client] pre-
sentations.
The professors I spoke with were aware of this problem; one
of them told me that for the past fifteen years he has incorpo-
rated extensive preparation for videotaped oral presentations
into his coursework. He further told me that he has heard from
alumni that this experience has been invaluable to them when
they enter the work force.
Although the students I interviewed were less likely to
understand the importance of communication, one graduate
student (who had taken a lot of undergraduate courses in the
arts and humanities) told me that when she looks around at her
fellow engineering majors, “some people who have really stayed
in the sciences and engineering—and have not really ventured
outside of their chosen field—are lacking in terms of writing
and just some of the basic communication skills that you just
have to have.”
C. Awareness of Workplace Expectations
When I ask students about their perceptions of entry-level
positions, they talk about specific tasks they can see themselves
doing—things like on-site sampling, reading and summarizing
documents for upper-level engineers or managers, gathering
and analyzing field data. They seem to have a narrow view of
what the job involves. The professionals talk about the entry-
level position as a learning experience—they talk about things
like working with a mentor, taking courses, recognizing that
you can learn from the “people you serve—[for example] the
guy that you’re inspecting” (government), learning regulations,
coming to “an understanding of what [the company] is all
about” (industry). The professionals say that new employees
need to learn “how to take a problem and correct it. . .how to
engineer” (government), and that “they’re not aware of what
engineering is all about” (consulting). Being more specific, this
group of professionals say that today’s students “are learning
design and construction, and they’re really not learning about
surveillance and oversight over that process” (government);
that they need to know about budgets, ethics, and liabilities
(consulting); and that they don’t even know what their profes-
sional options are—such as the differences among process,
product, and project engineers (industry).
III. WHAT IS BEING DONE ABOUT THESE
PROBLEMS?
Employers recognize that the university does not, in fact,
cannot, teach engineers everything they’re going to need in the
workplace. Thus, all three organizations represented in this
study assist in the education of engineers through on-the-job
training programs for new employees. Their educational pro-
grams range from informal encouragement to learn from those
who are more experienced (government), to a “mentor/buddy A. What We Can Do in the Classroom
system” and occasional workshops (consulting), to a formal
To prepare students for the workplace, we have to find ways
two-year training program (industry). The goal of this on-the-
to incorporate teamwork and communication skills into our
job training is to take someone who is technically proficient
technical and academic curricula. Ideas for accomplishing this
and help that person fit into the role of engineer as defined by
are not hard to find, but do require rethinking the structure of
that organization. While these programs demonstrate the need
some courses.*
for education in engineering environments, we as educators can
1. Integrating Communication into Existing Courses
learn more about what we can do by taking a look at what
There are many ways to integrate communication skills into
these organizations do for student engineers.
existing coursework, and the following ideas demonstrate a
All three of the organizations which participated in this
variety of effective methods:
study run cooperative education (co-op) and internship pro- ● Students maintain daily or weekly journals of their
grams for college students. Although the number and nature of
responses to classroom activities and materials, ideas for pro-
these programs change from organization to organization and
jects, reviews of pertinent literature, reports of group meetings,
time to time, the benefits remain the same: the students get
and so forth. An added benefit is the creation of a body of
valuable hands-on experience and the employers get high-
review material for the student.(9,10)
quality temporary employees (often used for special, short-term ● Students write short assignments to demonstrate under-
projects) and an unparalleled opportunity for recruitment. In
standing of basic concepts or principles.(11)
addition to traditional programs, however, the government and ● Students work on teams both to produce designs and write
industry participants detailed several special programs that they
final reports for a course which simulates a professional envi-
have run in recent years. A brief review of these programs, all
ronment. This is frequently a capstone design course, but can
of which incorporate teamwork, communication, and profes-
be effective in other design courses as well.
sional practice, will suggest new ways to involve students in ● Students’ writing is graded for effective communication
industry. Further, these programs demonstrate the willingness
strategies as well as correctness of content. This can be applied
of the “real world” to participate in the education of engineers
where writing has always been part of the course—such as
and suggest that there are opportunities for our students which
courses requiring lab reports—or where writing is a newly inte-
we may not have pursued.
● Students and teachers participate in a “summer camp”
grated element.
● Students are required to present preliminary findings or
wherein they are hired to do routine inspections and fill tem-
final projects orally to the class.
porary roles, gaining hands-on experience which sometimes ● Instructors from other departments—such as English,
leads to permanent employment.
● Recently graduated students are hired for specific short-
Technical Communication, or Speech—participate as consul-
tants and provide regular or occasional lectures, individual
term assignments. These usually occur immediately after grad-
assistance, and/or critiques of student work.
uation and last through the summer. These, too, can lead to
2. Special Courses to Encourage Teamwork and
permanent employment.
● Students from a local university receive college credit for
Communication
Chalifoux and his colleagues describe the creation of a com-
participating in a special program designed to meet the needs
pulsory first-year course that provides “direct experience with
of their curriculum and the needs of the employer.
● Students and faculty participate in what is called a
both engineering project design methods and the importance
of written and spoken communication in a technical setting.”(12)
“Practice School.” The practice school, which is actually a
In this course, taught by engineering and language professors,
credit-bearing course for Master’s level students, was described
students work in teams on projects that are not technically
as “a more intense version of a co-op” (industry). In this
advanced, but which allow them to use engineering methods to
instance, a number of students work together for six weeks as a
solve simple problems. They also spend considerable time (two
team led by one of their own faculty members. The students,
hours per week) on the communication skills necessary to
most of whom are planning to go on to Ph.D. programs, gain a
gather and record data and to complete documents such as fea-
brief exposure to the world of work and an opportunity for an
sibility studies. A further benefit of this course is that it has
intense and productive experience. The company gains “high-
been shown to enhance students’ understanding of the role of
powered technical minds” (industry) for projects that don’t fit
the engineer.
into the normal work schedule and/or budget.
Improved understanding of professional practice is added to
the goals of improved teamwork and communication skills in a
program at the Colorado School of Mines. There, professors
from technical communication and engineering or science col-
IV. CONCLUSION: WHAT WE CAN DO TO HELP
laborate with members of business and industry to provide stu-
dents with an opportunity to perform in a workplace environ-
First we need to decide that it is important to prepare our
students for the job market. Although I recognize that there
are those who do not think this is the role of the university, I *Many of these suggestions are similar to those found in cooperative learning
methods. For an introduction to implementing cooperative learning in the
feel that we do our students a disservice if we do not prepare classroom, see D.W. Johnson, R.T. Johnson, and K.A. Smith, Cooperative
them for the realities of the workplace to the greatest extent Learning: Increasing College Faculty Instructional Productivity, ASHE-ERIC
that we can. Higher Education Report No. 4, 1991.

© 1993 American Society for Engineering Education. Reprinted from Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 82, No. 3, July 1993. Journal of Engineering Education 173
ment. The students, working in teams as unpaid consultants, ACKNOWLEDGMENT
must solve an actual problem for their “employer,” and must
write and present memos, reports, and any other pertinent I am particularly grateful to Professor Nicholas Clesceri of
documentation required by the project.(13) the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for his assistance with this
project.
B. What We Can Ask Students and Professionals to Do
One of the most important things that we can do is ask the REFERENCES
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6. Ref. 2, p. 101.
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7. Chisman, J.A., “Helping Students to Speak and Write,” The
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What these suggestions advocate is the formation of an
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goal is achieved: the professional has to spend less time and
10. Ref. 5, p. 656.
money on initial training, the student who is better prepared
11. Ref. 2, p. 102.
has an easier time finding a job, and the university’s placement
12. Ref. 4, p. 308.
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174 Journal of Engineering Education © 1993 American Society for Engineering Education. Reprinted from Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 82, No. 3, July 1993.