Preliminary Employment Trajectory Findings from a Pan-Canadian Survey on Career Motivations and Aspirations of Undergraduate Engineering Students

Engineering students have varied vocational motivations and aspirations. Clarity regarding these factors, how they can be nurtured, and how they can impact attrition from the profession can help foster retention and diversification. A survey was deployed in 2023 at six Canadian schools, garnering about 2500 responses. Approximately 45 questions examined demographics, motivations for choosing engineering, engineering identity, personality characteristics, career aspirations, and influencing factors. We focus on three research questions in this study: 1) to what extent do students self-identify as engineers (in training), 2) do students have preferences concerning the types of organizations they aspire to work within, and 3) do students have preferences concerning the types of work (or employment trajectories) they aspire to pursue. Responses were examined across gender, year of study, and institution, and were characterized using descriptive statistics, significance testing, and ANOVAs. Initial results provide a rich picture of student career interests, varying by demographics.