Are the knowledge and skills achieved by students through the university study congruent with their future career choice?

Engineering professionals work in wide variety of industries and deal with many types of works including design, manufacturing, construction, management of products, processes, services, and supply chains considering the effective and efficient utilization of resources. Unlike other majors, content of engineering major could be very wide and vast and involve day to day real life activities. Engineering students, therefore, need to develop specific types of skillsets and prepare themselves for the real workplace. Although there has been increasing emphasis in the universities to provide more real-life learning experience to their students, there is a lack of studies on the establishment of relationship between students’ career choices and related skills and whether universities are able to provide such skills to their students. No recent study in Australia has investigated whether universities are properly equipping their students with necessary skills and knowledge with contemporary industries. A sample of mechanical and civil engineering students were surveyed using a well-designed questionnaire to address this research gap. Results show that engineering students surveyed intend to pursue diversified professions and they require specific set of skills. It was found that level of skills achieved by the students widely varied- ranging from 40% to 85%. This study also examined the relationships between skill achievement and gender, cumulative GPA, country of origin and engineering majors.