The Effects Of Instructors' Time In Industry On Students' Co Curricular Experiences

Evidence indicates engineering graduates' skills are misaligned with workforce needs. Are the disjunctions due, in part, to the backgrounds of students' instructors? Using a nationally representative sample of 1,037 faculty and 3,338 students representing 142 programs on 39 campuses, findings indicate that graduates of programs with a higher proportion of faculty with industry experience report spending more time in non-required design activities and competitions than students in programs with more academically oriented faculty. The expectation that students in such programs would also report more time spent in internships and cooperative education experiences and that they would be more involved in student chapters of professional societies was not confirmed.