[SEFI AC] Attractiveness of young people to engineering and Student Career Guidance

Attractiveness of young people to engineering and Student Career Guidance: Outcomes and experiences from the Symposium organised by the Board of European Students of Technology

G. Bosic1, B. Kerper1, N. Briski1, V. Savin4 1

Board of European Students of Technology, {gorana.bosic, balazs.kerper, nina.briski, vasilij.savin}@BESTorg.eu

Abstract Raising attractiveness of young people to studies in the scientific and engineering fields is one of the essential issues for the Lisbon strategy. The economy does not benefit sufficiently from present research potential and encouraging students to participate in Research and Development can change this.

Student Career Guidance (SCG) during secondary education is a way to offer information and counselling about faculties in the field of science and technology, thus to attract more young people to them. During tertiary education, SCG can have key role in gathering feedback from students and implement them into university programs. It can also influence the integration of graduates into professional life. As a bridge between industry and universities, SCG can offer more information about the labour market, internship opportunities and required soft-skills.

Members of the Educational Committee of BEST [2] strive to present students’ perspectives by sharing the outcomes and conclusions from the work developed in BEST Symposium on Education that took place in Iaşi, Romania, July 2008. The main subjects discussed in the Symposium were “Attractiveness of young people to engineering and SCG in secondary and tertiary cycle of education and its implementation, and the role of SCG in transition of young people from university to labour market”.

Keywords: student input, labour market, research and development, Board of European Students of Technology

1. INTRODUCTION Lisbon strategy brought the need for various changes and modernisation in European education. In order to make European Union economy more competitive and to achieve full employment new goal was set – to attract more young people to studies and career in science, engineering and technology fields. [3] BEST through Event on Education in Iasi, Romania during July 2008, had the opportunity to receive students’ views on Attractiveness and Student Career Guidance, and to identify the implementation of such programmes all over

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Europe. There were 22 participants in total and following countries were represented during the symposium: Croatia, France, Italy, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine.

Main impression of students was that information about opportunities for their future studies and career is rarely offered through official guiding systems. It is more often available through experience of older students (alumni) or it is scattered on various websites. The way this information is offered to students influences also the attractiveness of the studies. Most often the only approach in raising the attractiveness of studies is better promotion of studies, mainly through different media.

Better understanding of what attractiveness actually is and which steps should be taken is a first step in raising the attractiveness of studies. Career guidance programs should be developed not only to offer counselling to students but also to help raising the attractiveness of studies.

2. BEST AND BEST EDUCATIONAL COMMITTEE 2.1 BEST Board of European Students of Technology (BEST), is a non-profit, non-representative and non-political student association. Since 1989, BEST provides communication and cooperation possibilities for students all over Europe.

79 Local BEST Groups (LBGs) in almost 30 countries form a well organized and powerful student network.

BEST seeks to assist European students of technology to become more internationally minded and tolerant to other cultures by providing opportunities to work in international teams. Additionally, through BEST academic and nonacademic courses and educational symposia students are given opportunity to meet and learn from each other.

2.2 BEST Educational Committee BEST Educational Committee (EduCo) is an international team, responsible for the Educational Involvement of BEST, which takes an active role in raising awareness of educational matters, related to the educational world of the modern engineer.

Students’ feedback, experiences and opinions gathered in BEST Events on Education are considered quite relevant and valuable by different engineering education associations (such as SEFI, CESAER, FEANI) and European Thematic Networks that seek to develop the European dimension of engineering education and improve its quality (ESTIA-EARTH, ERABEE , TREE, ReVE, EIE-Surveyor, SPUTNIC, VM-BASE).

3. BEST EVENTS ON EDUCATION BEST Events on Education (EoEs) are events where engineering students together with other educational stakeholders exchange knowledge and discuss specific topics in the field of education. Two types of such events exist: • BEST Symposium on Education (Symposium); • BEST Academics and Companies Forum (BACo).

Symposia objective is to increase the awareness of technology students on educational issues. During BACo Forum the topics to be debated are related to the corporate world and presented from three perspectives, students, academia and industry.

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A BEST Event on Education consists of three to seven working days attended by twenty two to thirty students from different European countries. During selection of participants, a special emphasis is put to maintain gender balance and cultural diversity. The structure of the working days includes topic presentations performed by professors or other experts in the field, discussion groups which treat the topics from various aspects in order to bring to light all the full potential of the participants, and sometimes more interactive sessions like open space technology or learning café. The students participating are selected so as to ensure variety of backgrounds and knowledge about educational matters. Cultural and academic diversity provides the proper environment to analyse the topics from different points of view.

Outcomes of working sessions are gathered by BEST Educational Committee members and compiled into reports which are published through website and presented to European Higher Engineering Education stakeholders as student input on the topics presented during the event. The goal of a report is to aggregate students’ ideas and feedback on the process of developing and improving Higher Engineering Education at a European level.

4 SYMPOSIUM FINDINGS 4.1 Student experience and impression about attractiveness The unwritten rule in most of the countries is that the best students choose engineering, while the others are not expected to do so. Decision to choose engineering is also based on good financial perspective of engineers either in own or some foreign country.

Outdated topics, too many compulsory courses, old fashioned and teacher-centred teaching have negative influence on student motivation. Professors often fail to give feedback on students’ work for the faculty projects and there is no continuous evaluation of work, which could bring more interactivity in examination and marking process.

Science, engineering and technology (SET) universities in Poland, Portugal, Spain and Turkey are promoted through campaigns in secondary schools done by the university representatives or students who are studying at these universities. Universities also organise open days during which secondary school students can visit them and become aware of many fields in education. A good tool, which is also implemented in schools in Portugal, is the cooperative laboratory work with students from university and secondary school. Unfortunately in some countries not so many tools are implemented and students can not easily understand the concept in all educational fields.

Positive impact on motivation is realised through financial support from the state or companies offered in the form of scholarships for the best students, lower accommodation prices or even fully paid costs by the state. Opportunity to participate in companies’ internships or special projects in cooperation with universities also has positive impact.

Being an engineer in Serbia and Romania, means higher social status and secure financial future and it is a motivation for students not to drop from their faculties. Mobility and multicultural environment can substantially enhance students’ motivation to learn.

4.2 -Research and development Research and development can be attractive to students because it gives them a chance to work in laboratories with new technologies and to work in a team with the best researchers. Because of stereotype that research and development is difficult, it is necessary to have better promotion with the aim of explaining what it actually is, the intentions and showing the general excitement.

Because of low cooperation between universities and companies in research and development, the state should invest more money into research and development at the universities and to provide more chances for student participation.

Participation of students can be increased through financial support like scholarships. Students’ participation in industry research and development should not be neglected. Companies have to increase funding of research and development in universities, because that is the place where students make their first steps in research. Also companies should be more open to students by finding ways to include them in company projects.

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4.3 - Student experience and impressions about Student Career Guidance Career guidance in Spain and Portugal is usually offered through counselling and psychology testing from the official responsible in secondary schools. The aim is to determine whether students’ skills align with their interests.

Still this is not obligatory in each secondary school and it is done at the end of secondary schools, which is too late and it should start at least at age of 12. Guidance can also be offered through alumni system in high schools and alumni advices and experiences can help students to make decisions about their future profession.

Information on future career opportunities in France, Russia, Serbia, Spain and Portugal are offered during job fairs organised by university or student organisations. In Russia state and companies are also financing promotions of internships, jobs or scholarships at the universities.

Companies in France and Russia offer internships which students can take after graduation. In order to integrate them into working environment they work under surveillance of project managers or special supervisors. Internships usually last from six to twelve months and it is common that after some period of time young graduates are rotated between different departments, which might be even in different countries.

4.4 - Conclusions and recommendations Students see social stereotypes as a main obstacle for having wider participation of women in the field of engineering. Family and professors as educators have a crucial role on contributing to overcome social stereotypes.

Women can be encouraged to choose engineering by better promotion of equality and experiences of women in engineering. New politics can help with having antidiscrimination laws, organising special programmes for female engineers that are mothers and to develop special orientation programmes for girls in secondary schools.

Social status and financial issues are still limiting factors in wider participation of young people in tertiary education.

Proposed solutions are scholarships, from the state or different non governmental institutions, awarded to students with financial problems, special bank credit systems or lower prices for accommodation. What universities can do is to have special no-fee courses or to organise courses in a way where working and studying is possible.

In order to increase attractiveness the improvement has to be made starting from the secondary school, where attractive research projects combined with real needs of the market delegated by companies should give a motivation to students and a chance to come closer to the field of engineering. In order to achieve these, universities should come closer to students from secondary school, even by organising engineering competitions in summer campuses in cooperation with companies and enterprises.

Promoting engineer research in a more adaptive way can raise the number of engineer students. Wider target group in promotion can be reached with the use of powerful tools like media or magazines, and important scientists can become known and admired and as a result become a motivation and inspiration for young students.

In order to build strong and powerful research groups in every level and to have really motivated participants in the projects modern laboratories, well paid recruitment groups, scholarships offered by the government and companies involvement should be considered as necessary.

Students think that guidance should start in kindergarten where children develop abilities and self-confidence, and where they are not influenced any more only by their parents. Special games and tests should be developed in order to discover skills of children. Process of identifying skills and interests should continue in primary school and students should have the opportunity to choose subjects which align with the results of this analysis.

Universities should have more active role in career guidance. They should have own career centres which could offer job fairs, company visits, CV database of students. Also teachers could take active role in these career centres and be support for students. Trade unions should also contribute through making available uniform information about companies and about exchange programs between companies. They can also offer unique database of job offers.

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Student organisations can be a bridge between companies and students. They can organise job fairs to offer students information about job opportunities and to offer place for recruitment for companies. With the support of companies student organisations can also organise engineering competitions or summer schools.

Academic career should be compatible with professional career to fit market needs. It’s important to have the most qualified people creating the engineering curriculum with the balance of industry influence. Some companies can provide specific classes for students in order to gain professional experience. Because nowadays many companies hire experienced professors, students can get the chance to be involved in shaping the engineering curriculum.

Companies’ support in transition from university to labour market can be provided during the studies or after graduation. Presentations about companies, the way they are organised and about the way they work can offer more information to students about future possibilities and requirements needed for future engineering call. Companies can have mentoring system to support new young inexperienced engineers and to guide them through their work.

Trainings with various topics e.g. to learn how to use specific software or acquire soft skills necessary for team work, should be delivered in order to have young engineers adapted to working environment. Companies should also provide opportunity to students to work on the part-time jobs, while they can continue their studies. Evaluation of transition programs’ success can be done through evaluation of performance and evaluation of objectives and goals reached if these are set at the beginning of programs.

References [1] BEST Educational Committee, Report from the BEST Symposium with the topic “Attractiveness to engineering and Student Career Guidance” (*) (In progress), Iaşi, Romania, July 2008.

[2] Board of European Students of Technology. Website: www.best.eu.org [3] Lisbon Strategy http://europa.eu/scadplus/glossary/lisbon_strategy_en.htm (*) The report will be available in the public website of BEST, more specifically at: http://www.best.eu.org/student/education/documents.jsp. Further information may be asked in the email address: education@BEST.eu.org

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