Embedding professional experiences and employability into Engineering Sandwich Degrees

Employers of graduate and placement engineers require the students to demonstrate a level of competency in key technical and employability skills in their placement/graduate applications. Therefore any employability development learning in any engineering courses needs to be supported by engineering professionals with commercial/professional knowledge and appreciation of organizations/recruitment processes. Also, provide a learning experience and opportunities that enable students to self identify, reflect and articulate their relevant engineering and employability skills required for placement and graduate roles. Is embedding employability into the curriculum design the solution to the problem? If, ‘yes’, how effective is such an approach in providing an authentic and supported employability learning experience? This paper will present an example of an embedded employability curriculum design solution applied to engineering courses. In the first year of implementation the student engagement in the placement process increased by 8-fold, less than 6% of students in 2009-2010 were registered as not engaged, in comparison to the previous year where 50% were not engaged in the voluntary non embedded employability sessions. However, from the student’s perspective can this success be attributed to the embedded curriculum design solution? This paper presents the quantitative and qualitative results of the student perspective and experience of the curriculum design solution and whether it has had a positive contributing factor on their employability.