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Title:
Exploring professional skill opportunities in an integrated engineering program: A TRACER-funded case study 

Abstract: 
Professional skills are highly desirable for an increasingly interdisciplinary, globalized engineering profession. Through this TRavel for CollaborativE Research (TRACER) funded project, our team investigated how the Integrated Engineering Programme at University College London (UCL) integrates professional skills into their foundational undergraduate curricula. The study, a comparative case study, was guided by the question, how does an integrated engineering program—like that of UCL—facilitate engineering students’ career development compared to non-integrated programs? While at UCL, I collaborated with the Centre for Engineering Education to distribute the Professional Skills Opportunities survey—an assessment instrument that examines the frequency that students’ can access professional skill opportunities during their undergraduate degree. Additionally, I collected rich data on the student and educator’s perspectives on professional skill opportunities and assessments by interviewing students and faculty across the engineering departments, conducting classroom observations during problem-based assessment week, and examining programmatic structures through document analysis. Findings from this novel, cross-national research may inform future avenues for integrating professional skills into to curricular settings within the U.S. 

Biography 
Adrian Nat Gentry is a Ph.D. candidate in Engineering Education at Purdue University. They received a bachelor’s and master’s in materials engineering from Purdue. Gentry utilizes quantitative and qualitative methods to study engineering students’ social capital and career development, including examining career development supports in students in work-integrated learning programs and developing a framework for understanding nonbinary engineering students access to identity-based supports. Gentry is the recipient of Purdue’s TRAvel for CollaborativE Research (TRACER) grant and Bilsland Dissertation Fellowship.