T-shaped engineers: getting ready for employability

Abstract

[EN] Even though knowledge transfer remains the starting point of any career, it is without a doubt that professional success goes beyond the acquisition of sound expert knowledge. In fact, the inevitable challenges of increasing flexibility on the labour market can only be mastered by embracing an interdisciplinary approach when educating future employees to meet the social and environmental standards and demands. In order to pursue a successful engineering career T-shaped engineers need to enter the labour market in order to pave the way to innovation. Based on an online survey among potential industry partners and a follow-up SWOT anaylsis at the faculty, a one-week training course was developed at the department of computing compromising communicative, social, entrepreneurial and innovational aspects – skills that usually go beyond the major classes of the curriculum. The research aims to show how a professionalization of students, being enrolled for a traditional computing degree programme, can make a difference in attaining a successful career and and thus further impact the overall future of employability