PREFER: THE JOY OF CHOICE

EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN FOCUS

Choosing is losing, as the saying goes. As the possibilities for choice increase, choosing becomes more and more difficult. Moreover, you run the risk of making the wrong choice. And for those who want a little bit of everything, it is hopeless. In youngsters’ slang, it is called ‘fomo’ or the fear of missing out. For the future engineers, this will soon change. The Faculty of Engineering Technology is putting the finishing touch to an instrument that may solve this problem.

French fries or salad? Friend or lovers? Right or left? Juliette’s problem is that she is totally incapable of making up her mind about anything. So even at 40, she still asks her father and her friends to choose everything for her. When her love crosses the road of Paul then of Stephen, as charming and different as the other, necessarily, the heart of Juliette swings. For the first time, nobody can decide for her. This is in a nutshell the plot of Eric Lavaine’s film ‘L’embarras du choix’ (The embarrassment of choice) from 2017, starring a brilliant Alexandra Lamy.

“Many newly graduated engineers looking for the job of their life will somehow recognize themselves in this situation”, says doctoral researcher Sofie Craps. “The difference is that they are confronted with a multitude of possibilities in a grab barrel of jobs. The more choice there is, the more important it is to know ‘what type of engineer am I?’ and ‘what am I really good at?’ This is precisely the subject of the PREFER project, an acronym for ‘Professional Roles and Employability for Future Engineers’. This project aims to enhance student’s critical reflection on their professional future by identifying their strengths and growth points and by introducing them to the professional roles they may play as an engineer”.

From roles to competences

PREFER is a project in the framework of the Erasmus+ Programme of the EU. In addition to KU Leuven, TU Delft and TU Dublin are. Engie, Siemens Nederland, BDO Advisory Human Capital and the Irish energy company ESB are the business partners. The professional organizations ie-net, Agoria Flanders, Kivi and Engineers Ireland are also involved, as are the European engineering networks SEFI and FEANI.

In the first part of her research, Sofie identified three categories of professional roles for early career engineers. These are ‘product leadership’ (engineers who focus on radical change), ‘operational excellence’ (engineers who aim for process optimization) and ‘customer intimacy’ (engineers who initially come up with customer-oriented solutions).

“The next step was to test and validate this model”, Sofie continues. “This was done on the basis of a whole battery of interviews and panel discussions with students, alumni and entrepreneurs. At the same time, experts, engineers and HR managers set to work to translate these professional roles into a series of representative competences.

For example, a positive critical attitude and the ability to organize efficiently remain crucial for ‘operational excellence’, creativity and persuasiveness for ‘product leadership’ and customer focus and empathy for ‘custom intimacy’.

Sofie Craps

Prof. Greet Langie and Maarten Pinxten

From competences to roles

“Once the relevant competences had been mapped out, a start could be made with the development of the actual tool”, according to project coordinator Maarten Pinxten. “This consists of two tests in which the interests of the future engineers are linked to the different roles and the students work with the competences”.

The tool itself is a fine example of teamwork. “Together with experts from TU Dublin and BDO we made a situational judgement test with realistic cases that relate to various competences”, says Maarten. “A total of 23 cases were worked out. For each case, the participants in the test are presented four possible reactions to tackle the situation or the problem at hand. On a five-point scale, they indicate how ‘appropriate’ they think each of the reactions is. From this result, it can then be deduced to what extend the student’s response pattern deviates from that of the experts from the engineering practice and in which professional role the participant recognizes him/herself.”

“By the end of 2019, when the project ends, the tool will be validated and is ready to implement in the engineering technology programme”.

From concept to implementation

The academic year 2020-2021 will be the year of truth. Then the tool will be given a place in the faculty’s renewed curriculum, starting with the first bachelor’s stage. Prof. Greet Langie, promoter of the PREFER project, who as Vice-Dean of Education is in charge of the entire operation, already has a clear view of the implementation process. “In the first stage, the emphasis is on raising student awareness. The ‘Day with an Engineer’ is an excellent opportunity to introduce the model. For the first time, the student discovers how varied the engineering profession is. In the second stage, the company visits are an interesting occasion. There we go a step further in the direction of critical reflection. The third stage will be dominated by the concretization of the personal professional role. Thanks to the increasing contacts with the professional field and the implementation of the tests we have developed, we will encourage students to reflect critically on their values, strengths and weaknesses. This will give them an idea of the professional role(s) they feel good about and are therefore best looking forward to when they apply for a job. Finally, the prospective engineer will be able to focus on the competences that belong to the professional role(s) and thus prepare him/herself optimally for professional practice”.

From awkward to fun

Let’s return now to Eric Lavaine’s film from 2017. You don’t need much imagination to transpose Juliette’s heart breaking choice to today and a remake of the movie. In the new scenario, Juliette is a final-year student on one of the faculty’s campuses. During her studies she has been working actively with the new PREFER tool. We follow Juliette in her first steps on the labour market. She has actually already been offered a job during the job fair on her campus, but Juliette still wants to roam around the big market. We will not tell the rest of the story. We only want to share the title. It is no longer ‘The Embarrassment of Choice’. The poster now features ‘The Joy of Choice’.

Yves Persoons

The PREFER project is supported by the Erasmus+ programme of the EU (Grant Agreement 575778-EEP-1- 2016-BE-EPPKA2-KA). More information: www.preferproject.eu