Comment: Enhancing graduate employability through experience

I graduated in Aerospace Engineering more than 20 years ago, so it might surprise you to know that I ended up with a career in biodetection research and technologies. It isn’t an obvious leap.

How I got there was through doing a PhD in computational fluid dynamics. You might ask why did my career diverge and what can be learned from that?

The opportunities afforded to me in my engineering studies gave me insights into the wider application of engineering disciplines, how the fundamentals I had learned were truly translatable beyond the aerospace domain I was working in.

As I became more aware of the engineering aspects underlying numerous environmental challenges, I found myself first pivoting toward systems designed to minimise transport of non-indigenous species around the world by shipping, and ultimately into instruments that monitor for airborne threats to our agriculture and livestock, and ultimately to people too. Throughout this journey the opportunities to collaborate with others enhanced the impact of my work.

That experience is coming in helpful now, in my current role as dean at the University of Hertfordshire. I have a new building on my hands for teaching computer science, engineering, climate science, physics and the STEM subjects. We call it Spectra. It has just opened, and it’s our largest ever investment. At its heart it has been designed with multi-disciplinary collaboration in mind from the outset.

My experience means I can assist others with their future careers.

Everything should be visible

What students of any kind need, engineers included, is the right environment to learn in. It is not just about paper qualifications. Those are important but more than ever, we need graduates who are fit to take up their positions in the UK workplace.

Part of the answer is for institutions like ours to be providing them with a multi-disciplinary environment. Teaching and research should be aligned and our students need to see what is going on if we want them to be inspired by each other.

That’s why I insisted Spectra must be transparent. It generates cross-thinking. It encourages the change of mind I had by chance to be experienced by others more systematically.

It doesn’t matter whether you are doing cutting edge engineering research or pioneering work on artificial intelligence and robotics, autonomous vehicles, climate science or cyber security.

Students can have their ‘eureka!’ moment and change stream if they want to. By taking the roof of the limits of ambition and imagination we ignite the curiosity and fuel the next generation of impactful graduates and postgraduate researchers.

The power of the learning environment

There is another other way we can help our young engineers to grow through how we educate them.

An important space in Spectra is known as CDIO: conceive, design, implement, operate. It is not unique to us, although I’m proud to say we have one of the most substantial offerings you can find with more students studying via this approach than any other institution across Europe.

A CDIO space teaches engineers to manufacture a product from idea to completion, providing a safe place to fail and pick yourself up again, some of the most valuable skills we can teach.

All the technical skills are taught, maybe that is structural analysis and programming, but more importantly, so are project management skills, the use of resources and budgeting.

Students have to cooperate to define the engineering criteria, specify components, cost a scheme, test materials and then create a prototype end product, and we like to add a degree of competition into this end phase to spur them on even further too.

Critically, students need to learn how to work together in teams with dependencies and harness those multi-disciplinary skills I mentioned.

CDIO is the academic equivalent of the modern industrial workplace for engineers, to work together for a common goal.

Learning in a CDIO environment adds value to their technical and scientific education by learning these business skills, ethics, and health and safety.

Working in this way produces a highly employable graduate who has a holistic set of skills when they need to design an aircraft or a swing bridge, calculate the strength of materials needed in construction or the thrust required for take-off.

Get industry on board

Academia does not have all the answers. That is why we must ensure students work and learn alongside industrial partners, SMEs, and major players. It gives me great satisfaction to see our graduates fired up with enthusiasm working alongside industrial partners who may open the door to their future career.

There are hundreds of aerospace companies and products in Hertfordshire alone. What an opportunity they have too.

This exposure to the real world is what drives the take-up of work placements, internships, and job offers. These cross-connections spark research with real-world applications and produce answers for genuine challenges, which go on to change lives. In the end, that is what we are striving for.

It is not enough to have the best technology and equipment, even if you are fortunate to do so. The computer scientists, physical scientists, and engineers we need for the future of our economy and our lives must be built through the way they learn, and the environment they learn in.

Professor Daniel McCluskey is Dean of Physics, Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire