What Do You Want to Do with Your Life? Insights into how Engineering Students Think about their Future Career Plans

This research paper describes findings from a qualitative analysis of engineering students’ selfreported future career plans on the 2015 Engineering Majors Survey (EMS). The EMS was designed to examine current engineering students’ career goals, especially surrounding innovative work, and is based in the theoretical framework of Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT). With the open-ended responses on the EMS, we can develop a deeper understanding of students’ plans in their own words, providing insights into how they think about their careers and why they want to go down a particular career path. The primary research questions for the present study are: 1. What are the different ways students think about their future plans? 2. What are the motivations that drive students to choose a particular path? 3. Are there significant differences between how men and women think about their futures? The EMS survey was sent to engineering juniors and seniors at 27 schools in the spring of 2015; a total of 7,197 students participated. Included on the questionnaire was the open-ended question, “We have asked a number of questions about your future plans. If you would like to elaborate on what you are planning to do, in the next five years or beyond, please do so here”, which elicited 1,848 responses. Responses were varied, and were coded by emergent themes. Ten main emergent themes were identified; examples include whether or not they intended to stay in engineering after graduation, mention of the industry they intended or would like to go into, and explanation of their motivations. Findings point to three main ways that students think about their career plans: by identifying a specific company they want to work for, by identifying a specific industry they want to work for, and by seeking a job with a certain trait. Students’ motivations included wanting to help people, a desire to combine engineering with another field, an inherent love of doing engineering, and doing engineering as a means to a secure future. Some motivations varied by gender: men were more likely to discuss a desire to travel, while women more often considered childbearing and family factors in their career plans. These findings have several implications for educational research and practice in engineering. Understanding more about students’ motivations helps researchers and practitioners to think more comprehensively about the persistence of different students in engineering post-graduation. Our findings suggest that some students might plan to leave engineering because of wanting to go to medical school, start a family, work for a non-profit, or become a teacher not because they do not enjoy engineering. These insights can help engineering educators at all levels as they strive to make content relevant and meaningful to their students, ideally helping students connect what they are learning to their future goals. This information also can lead to recommendations for future survey questions that more fully capture the range of students’ actual perceptions, worries, hopes, and plans about their futures.