Volpe, E., & Polmear, M., & Simmons, D., & Weisenfeld, D., & Carcaba, J. (2022, August), How Undergraduate Students Prepare to Become Engineers: The Role of Out-of-class Activities in Civil Engineering Students’ Career Preparation and Leadership Development  Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41803

\bibitem{asee_peer_41803}
  Volpe, E., \& Polmear, M., \& Simmons, D., \& Weisenfeld, D., \& Carcaba, J. (2022, August), \emph{How Undergraduate Students Prepare to Become Engineers: The Role of Out-of-class Activities in Civil Engineering Students’ Career Preparation and Leadership Development}
  Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Minneapolis, MN.
  10.18260/1-2--41803

Elizabeth Volpe, Madeline Polmear, Denise Simmons, Danielle Weisenfeld, and Jackson Carcaba.  "How Undergraduate Students Prepare to Become Engineers: The Role of Out-of-class Activities in Civil Engineering Students’ Career Preparation and Leadership Development".  2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN, 2022, August.  ASEE Conferences, 2022.  https://peer.asee.org/41803 Internet.  12 Dec, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_41803}
  Elizabeth Volpe, Madeline Polmear, Denise Simmons, Danielle Weisenfeld, and Jackson Carcaba.
  "How Undergraduate Students Prepare to Become Engineers: The Role of Out-of-class Activities in Civil Engineering Students’ Career Preparation and Leadership Development".
  \emph{2022 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Minneapolis, MN, 2022, August}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2022.
  https://peer.asee.org/41803 Internet.  12 Dec, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_41803
author = "Elizabeth Volpe, Madeline Polmear, Denise Simmons, Danielle Weisenfeld, and Jackson Carcaba"
title = "How Undergraduate Students Prepare to Become Engineers: The Role of Out-of-class Activities in Civil Engineering Students’ Career Preparation and Leadership Development"
booktitle = "2022 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2022"
month = "August"
address = "Minneapolis, MN"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/41803}
number = {10.18260/1-2--41803}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - One of the key elements to engineering career preparation is an engineer's leadership development as aligned with the expectations of industry and the profession. There is an urgent call from both academia and industry to define leadership and use it/the definition to understand the specific ways in which engineering students are developing vital leadership competencies. As the job market becomes increasingly more competitive, employers seek students who are prepared with leadership-enabling competencies, emphasizing their importance and the need for their development in the undergraduate experience. Engineering education research has noted the limited exposure to leadership development within the engineering curriculum and highlighted the role that out-of-class activities (OOCAs) (e.g., sports, student organizations, jobs, clubs, internships, etc.) may play in the development of these vital skills.
The goal of this exploratory research was to identify the ways in which a student’s involvement in college aided in their leadership development and how they believed this supported their career preparation. The research question guiding this study was ‘How does a civil engineering student’s undergraduate experience facilitate the development of leadership competencies?’ This qualitative study drew data from semi-structured interviews with 14 civil engineering students (6 women, 8 men) at varying years of study, attending large public research universities across the United States. An inductive analysis approach was used to allow patterns and themes to arise from the data through open coding.
Results indicated that students were relying less on formal classroom instruction for their leadership development and more on their involvement and experience outside of class when describing their leadership development. Participants lamented that their engineering coursework  strongly emphasized technical knowledge, which left them to develop leadership skills outside of the classroom on their own. In line with prior research on the importance of OOCAs, this work highlights how these activities can complement a student’s classroom experience to further aid in leadership development. As an expansion on prior work, this research reveals a need for a better understanding of all the ways that the college experience may prepare students for the workforce outside of just the classroom. Findings also indicated that leadership development appeared to be unique to each individual and that various OOCAs were important to this development. This work provides a novel contribution to the literature, exploring the various OOCAs (e.g., concrete canoe club, study abroad, engineering internships, student veteran’s organizations, etc.) that are supporting student leadership development. Implications from this work outline the need for more encouragement and support from institutions and faculty for students' involvement in OOCAs to complement their technical engineering skill set. This paper also highlights the potential for future research on how to better emphasize leadership development within the engineering curricula as well as best practices to support engineering students’ leadership development through their entire college experience.
AU  - Elizabeth Volpe
AU  - Madeline Polmear
AU  - Denise Simmons
AU  - Danielle Weisenfeld
AU  - Jackson Carcaba
CY  - Minneapolis, MN
DA  - 2022/08/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - How Undergraduate Students Prepare to Become Engineers: The Role of Out-of-class Activities in Civil Engineering Students’ Career Preparation and Leadership Development
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/41803
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--41803
ER  -