Practicum placement for engineering graduates

Running head: ENGINEERING PRACTICES
ENGINEERING PRACTICES
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author note

1ENGINEERING PRACTICES
Engineering graduates require gaining some practical knowledge on their subjects so
that after completing their courses they easily get employed in different firms. Practicum
placement serves as a medium for the students to gain appropriate subject specific practical
knowledge. These help in improving the academic grades by providing a better understanding
of the theoretical knowledge attained in classrooms. Computer Science engineering is one of
the streams in the engineering curriculum and with the increasing use of computer systems in
day to day life, students are taking interest in the technology and pursuing the course. A
professional engineer needs to be a logical thinker and curious to know the reason behind
anything technical happening around1. Good communication skills and problem solving
ability also define a professional engineer. The other important qualities that a professional
engineer should have are paying attention to intricate details of the tasks and bringing in
creativity in the same. Studies suggest that practicum placements help in improving the
academic grades. Practicum placements are an effective means to integrate academic studies
with the prevalent work practices. The time duration of practicum placements varies as per
the courses. This provides the students with an opportunity to be a part of paid work
placement during their ongoing courses. The positive impacts of practicum placements have
been the reasons behind their implementation in the universities. Practicum placements
provide the students with the opportunity to understand the work culture and enhance their
communication skill at the same time. The company chosen for the practicum placement is a
software development company specializing in three dimensional software for designing,
analyzing and constructing. The company was looking for students who could do C++,
OpenGL or Computer graphics work for the CAD applications. This was the opportunity for
1 Grant-Smith, Deanna, and Paula McDonald. "The trend toward pre-graduation professional
work experience for Australian young planners: Essential experience or essentially
exploitation." Australian Planner 53, no. 2 (2016): 65-72.

2ENGINEERING PRACTICES
me to get a better understanding of my engineering curriculum and thus I undertook
practicum placement under this company. Computer-aided design interested me and this was
the opportunity to apply my concepts of C++ to CAD applications. The five main skills
required to work in engineering workplace are technical, communication, interpersonal,
critical thinking and problem solving skills. Other workplace behaviors that are important are
enthusiasm, motivation along with commitment2. Technical skills are what the recruiters look
for. Though practicum placements are for enhancing the technical skills, to be eligible for this
some basic technical knowledge form the course needs to be there. An engineering graduate
is expected to have some basic levels of technical skills acquired from the practical
laboratories. Practicum placement helps in sharpening these skills and provides a chance to
showcase the technical skills learned in the course. Engineering are considered to be
information heavy and thus engineers are expected to be capable of handling various mode of
communication that include technical and non-technical, online or in person and written or
verbal. Communication skills are required for team work that include brain storming,
problem solving and project meetings. Engineering professionals need to participate in multi-
discipline team work where as positive attitude is required to interact with the other members
of the team. Practicum placement provides students with the opportunity to interact with
experienced persons in this field thereby helping them to cultivate their interpersonal skills3.
Handling a work or a project involves technical problems and misunderstandings which
makes problem solving and critical thinking important soft skills for the engineers.
Enthusiasm to learn new things, motivation to apply the theoretical knowledge and
2 Blicblau, Aaron Simon, Tracey Louise Nelson, and Kurosh Dini. "The Role of Work
Placement in Engineering Students' Academic Performance." Asia-Pacific Journal of
Cooperative Education 17, no. 1 (2016): 31-43.
3 Edwards, Daniel, Kate Perkins, Jacob Pearce, and Jennifer Hong. "Work Integrated
Learning in STEM in Australian Universities: Final report: Submitted to the Office of the
Chief Scientist." (2015).