Shift in Mid-Year Engineering Students’ Perceptions of Their Future Careers Over Time

This full research paper presents a pilot study exploring how mid-year engineering students' perceptions of their future careers shift over one academic year. Perceptions of future careers determine many academic decisions students make, affecting student recruitment, persistence, and performance in engineering. Understanding how students' perceptions of their future careers change will give researchers, practitioners, and academic advisors insight into what influences students' choice of engineering major and what they choose to focus on in their courses. Students in sophomore engineering courses (n=71) took a survey measuring the clarity of and attitude towards their future career goals at two time-points, 2-3 semesters apart. Participants' perceptions shifted between four distinct ways of thinking about the future. Most participants shifted to either a well-defined and positive perception of their future possible career or an ill-defined less positive perception of their future possible career.