WIP: Enhancing Career Preparedness Through a Software Engineering Capstone Course Design

This research to practice WIP paper describes capstone projects in software engineering which effectively combine theoretical education with practical skills, fostering career development in alignment with Career Construction Theory (CCT). This paper introduces a course designed to enhance students' career readiness by incorporating Agile methodologies for soft skills development, proficiency in modern technologies like Large Language Models (LLMs), and targeted career preparation such as resume building. The course's effectiveness, evaluated through CCT adaptability for 42 students, shows a positive impact on career preparedness in three of the four dimensions. This is the first attempt to measure the impact of a capstone course on career development using CCT adaptability. While the initial results are promising, further research is crucial to fully enhance all dimensions of CCT adaptability and to explore the scalability of this study across other engineering fields, potentially transforming engineering education and career preparation on a broader scale.