Ozis, F., & Winfree, K. N., & Glass, E. (2021, July), To Infinity and Beyond: Boosting URM Students’ Career Trajectories Through Professional Experiences  Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37913

\bibitem{asee_peer_37913}
  Ozis, F., \& Winfree, K. N., \& Glass, E. (2021, July), \emph{To Infinity and Beyond: Boosting URM Students’ Career Trajectories Through Professional Experiences}
  Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference.
  10.18260/1-2--37913

Fethiye Ozis P.E., Kyle Nathan Winfree, and Elizabeth Glass.  "To Infinity and Beyond: Boosting URM Students’ Career Trajectories Through Professional Experiences".  2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference, 2021, July.  ASEE Conferences, 2021.  https://peer.asee.org/37913 Internet.  17 Apr, 2025

\bibitem{asee_peer_37913}
  Fethiye Ozis P.E., Kyle Nathan Winfree, and Elizabeth Glass.
  "To Infinity and Beyond: Boosting URM Students’ Career Trajectories Through Professional Experiences".
  \emph{2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference, 2021, July}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2021.
  https://peer.asee.org/37913 Internet.  17 Apr, 2025

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_37913
author = "Fethiye Ozis P.E., Kyle Nathan Winfree, and Elizabeth Glass"
title = "To Infinity and Beyond: Boosting URM Students’ Career Trajectories Through Professional Experiences"
booktitle = "2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access"
year = "2021"
month = "July"
address = "Virtual Conference"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/37913}
number = {10.18260/1-2--37913}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - It is hard to deny the importance of experiential learning through internships in engineering
education. Likewise, students may also benefit from professional experiences that are not
traditional internships. From shadowing, to full-blown hands-on internships, experiential
learning provides students with the ability to see the theory beyond classrooms, to learn to
efficiently practice their art, develop transferable skills, and add further value to their academic
career.
Engineering educators, and engineering industry leaders, have long recognized the value of and
the need for “practice ready” graduates. Today, as the world grapples with the work-from-home
and social distancing guidelines necessary to slow the spread of COVID-19; we are in need of
“practice ready” graduates more than ever before. The degree to which engineering graduates are
prepared to perform on the job can be further improved by establishing strong and effective
college-industry partnerships that develop meaningful and diverse professional experiences. The
value of these experiences, resultant of strong college-industry partnerships, include but are not
limited to: refining and expanding students’ professional identity, practice readiness, and
improving resilience.
In this paper, we considered professional experiences from the students’ perspective. The data
were collected by conducting an online survey of all engineering students in the XX College of
Engineering. The survey was scoped to identify the plethora of current experiences of students,
explore related major duties and responsibilities, the types of support mechanisms provided to
them, and self reported holistic competencies. This paper investigated to what extent these
experiences shaped students’ professional identities, practice readiness, and motivated them to
persevere through their studies. In addition, we gained knowledge on how network engagement
can be utilized to continuously improve engineering education to strengthen the competence of
participating students. The findings of this work close-the-loop, and can be utilized to improve
the activities of engineering career development offices across the world.
AU  - Fethiye Ozis P.E.
AU  - Kyle Nathan Winfree
AU  - Elizabeth Glass
CY  - Virtual Conference
DA  - 2021/07/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - To Infinity and Beyond: Boosting URM Students’ Career Trajectories Through Professional Experiences
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/37913
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--37913
ER  -