The transition from study to work: Early career experiences of recent UCL Integrated Engineering Programme (IEP) graduates

The work reported in this paper is an exploratory study into the early career experiences of recent graduates from the UCL Integrated Engineering Programme (IEP). Semi-structured interviews were carried out with six research participants via the Zoom video conferencing platform. Findings from this study suggest that recent IEP graduates appreciate the depth of technical knowledge they acquired from their studies as well as the team-working and project management skills that they were exposed to. The study suggests that participants were able to use these skills to quickly establish themselves in their work roles. However, whilst participants stated that they had been exposed to most of the basic skills that would be required on the job, they indicated that they were often unprepared for the depth and level to which these skills were required. They were also unprepared for the need to invest further in self-directed informal learning.