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Assessing the Impact of Engineering Undergraduate Work Experience: Factoring in Pre‐work Academic Performance
Author(s) -
Schuurman Mieke K.,
Pangborn Robert N.,
McClintic Rick D.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of engineering education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.896
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 2168-9830
pISSN - 1069-4730
DOI - 10.1002/j.2168-9830.2008.tb00968.x
Subject(s) - graduation (instrument) , salary , affect (linguistics) , work experience , work (physics) , psychology , medical education , mathematics education , engineering , medicine , political science , mechanical engineering , communication , law
This paper examines how undergraduate work experiences affect engineering graduates' post‐graduation starting salary, their cumulative grade point average upon graduation, and their likelihood of receiving a job offer prior to graduation. This study contributes to the field of undergraduate work experiences uniquely by taking into account academic performance prior to work experience, including the exact number of work experiences, and examining how gender interacts with work experience to affect the measured outcomes. The results show that more experience results in a higher post‐graduation starting salary and an increased likelihood of a job offer prior to graduation. Increases in cumulative GPA upon graduation were only marginal. Furthermore, undergraduate work experience affected female and male students as well as students from different majors similarly.