2017;

Benefits of one-on one resume advising for undergraduate engineering students participating in a summer research program.

C Hill, K Luchini-Colbry

UIID-AD: 4819

Abstract

Whether they choose to pursue graduate school or employment, many rising college seniors are faced with completing applications for post-graduation experiences. A resume is an essential component of these applications, and in an effort to support students in creating strong resumes we developed (1) a professional development seminar and (2) an advising intervention. These resume development activities were deployed during a ten-week engineering summer research program serving more than 90 undergraduates at Michigan State University. A subset of 26 rising seniors was identified from the summer program as the treatment group for this project. The "initial" resumes that these students submitted as part of their application to the summer program were evaluated, and the 13 students with the lowest scores were invited to participate in a thirty-minute, one-on-one advising session. 11 students participated in these advising sessions, and then all 90 students in the summer research program participated in a ninety-minute professional development seminar focused on creating effective academic resumes. Students submitted "revised" resumes after the seminar, and comparing the "initial" and "revised" documents indicated that while most students' resumes improved over time, there was a stronger improvement in the treatment group (who received individual advising). © American Society for Engineering Education, 2017.

Publication Types

• Conference Proceedings