Conference Session

College-Industry Partnerships Division Poster Session

Collection

2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David Dylan John, Georgia Southern University; Yunfeng Chen, Georgia Southern University; Shahnam Navaee, Georgia Southern University; Weinan Gao, Georgia Southern University

Tagged Divisions

College Industry Partnerships

qualitative interviews with industrypractitioners’ and college students. The list of skill indicators were then validated with literaturereviews and grouped into 4 factors: Soft skills, Technical skills, and Experience and Managerialskills. The skills and groupings were presented for industry practitioner feedback at a researchsymposium prior to conducting the quantitative approach of this study. A survey was developedand tested with a pilot group of industry practitioners. The survey was improved in alignmentwith the feedback received during the pilot study and deployed for data collection. Eachidentified skill indicator was presented with a Likert scale, for industry feedback on theperceived importance in STEM related industries. The mean value was

Conference Session

College Industry Partnerships Division Technical Session 2

Collection

2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

R. Andrew Schaffer, Purdue Polytechnic Institute; John Carlson, Red Gold

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

College Industry Partnerships

manufacturing at the ASlevel, and a solid grounding in manufacturing supervision and operations at the BS level.Graduates of this program have enjoyed 100% placement within a variety of local companies,although most are placed in the area of automotive manufacturing.ConclusionA common issue emerged when discussing the MDT degree with employers, that issue being theemployers’ desire for new graduates to be stronger in the so-called “soft skills” of oral andwritten communication and working in a team environment. While the technical andmanufacturing-themed courses built into the various MDT plans of study are crucial, thus far thecompanies with which we are working are willing to trade off some technical courses in order toinclude courses and subjects

Conference Session

College-Industry Partnerships Division Poster Session

Collection

2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Marcia Pool, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Madeline R. Darling, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Gabriella Rose Dupont, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Tagged Divisions

College Industry Partnerships

include extracurricular activities completed by thestudent, personal connections to industry personnel, training in soft-skill development, orcompletion of entrepreneurial projects [7].From an advising standpoint, additional insight into correlations between tracks and nextdestinations (graduate school, medical school, industry opportunities) will provide a startingpoint for further discussion on career paths for students. For future studies, we will examinealumni data and obtain qualitative data from industry professionals regarding their perceptions ofthe competencies obtained through a bioengineering curriculum and the different track areas.References1. ABET: Search for Accredited Programs (February 4, 2018) Available: http://www.abet.org2. D