As of 2022, one third of college students in the United States are first-generation students (FGCS), with a significant number pursuing engineering degrees. This research focused on understanding and addressing the unique challenges and needs of FGCS in engineering, emphasizing the importance of career and professional development. FGCS often face…

There is an ever-increasing demand for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to engage with the challenges of the changing labour market contexts and trends, such as the Fifth Industrial Revolution and the new normal. However, a major criticism is that higher education institutions do not often prepare graduates for real-life contexts. For that…

Young people in the Nordic countries have many options and face obligations to participate in career guidance and counselling (guidance). In Finland, young people are subjected to multiple institutionalized guidance practices especially in educational transition phases. Guidance has various objectives as a public policy, thereby setting a…

Lack of university funding and support of experiential learning programs reduces opportunities for meaningful employment for culturally diverse students. Economic conditions foster a university's ability to fund experiential programs, and lack of funding places experiential learning programs (ELPs) at risk of being cut, impacting student…

There is a widening gap between traditional higher education and the needs of the industry workforce. Higher education has lately been criticized for having too few voices playing a role in most curricula development, with the voices being used consisting largely of career academics (Nature Editorial, 2023). Both industry and academia have found a…

This study examined higher education workforce development practitioners' views on incorporating innovation ecosystems into workforce models to address U.S. workforce pipeline gaps and evolving labor market needs. While current programs have some success, they often fail to prepare graduates with knowledge and specific skills for rapid entry into…

Purpose: Graduates' employability has been recognised as a complex and multidimensional phenomenon in the theoretical literature. However, some critics have emerged around the lack of relation between structural, contextual and individual dimensions that have been acknowledged as relevant for the understanding of graduates' employability. This…

Contribution: This article demonstrates and illustrates the implication of design-based learning (DBL) and plan, do, check, and act (PDCA) methodology to foster creativity, critical thinking, collaborative decision making, and communication skills ("C4") with realistic constraints, theory, and practical implementation in higher…

FinTech refers to a set of new technologies employed to improve and automate the delivery and use of financial services. This study aims to provide some insightful information to: (a) universities on how to offer their FinTech education, and (b) graduates so that they can make an informed decision on whether they should start their FinTech career…

This paper compares the employment outcomes of liberal arts graduates from Dutch university colleges with those of their peers who pursued conventional, subject-specific bachelor's degrees. Using data from the Dutch National Alumni Survey, the analysis includes 14,933 respondents who completed a master's programme at a research university, with…