ABSTRACT
Graduate education is a formative time in the career of young engineers and future faculty members. In this chapter, focused predominantly on the context of US graduate engineering education, we begin by presenting an overview of available data about graduate education, its contexts, and the gaps in what data are available. This chapter discusses topics that span students’ graduate school experience, including motivation to pursue graduate studies, skills development, and identity development, as well as career preparation, decision-making, and transitions to the workforce for different sectors of postgraduate employment. The authors examine institutional practices that affect aspiring and current graduate students, such as the recruitment of diverse students and why it is hard to change graduate education. Finally, the chapter identifies gaps in the literature and proposes new directions for future research, including a greater focus on master’s-level engineering education, retention of graduate students from marginalized backgrounds, students’ perspectives of the decision to accept an offer when choosing between graduate programs, as well as comparative research that considers graduate education research from around the globe.
