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LINKING ACADEMIC AND LABOR TRAINING IN FINALIST GRADUATE SUBJECTS: A STRATEGY TO IMPROVE STUDENTS TRANSVERSAL COMPETENCES
Universitat Politècnica de València (SPAIN)
About this paper:
Appears in: INTED2019 Proceedings
Publication year: 2019
Pages: 3809-3812
ISBN: 978-84-09-08619-1
ISSN: 2340-1079
doi: 10.21125/inted.2019.0966
Conference name: 13th International Technology, Education and Development Conference
Dates: 11-13 March, 2019
Location: Valencia, Spain
Abstract:
The second semester in the last course of a bachelor degree is the end of an important cycle in the students` life. They have been long working hard to pass the career they decided to study and now a wide range of possibilities appear. Now, their corresponding decisions and future professional development will make sense of their university studies, as well as continuous training will help them to become excellent professionals.

Additionally, nearly all the Degree students consider the chance of doing internships in a company while they are conducting their Final Degree Project (FDP). There are also a large majority of students willing to specialize by means of a master's degree. On the other hand, a minor part of the students decides to apply for a job and try to combine both working and studying a specialization course. Unfortunately, despite the specific university education received and even after the incorporation of transversal competences to their curricula, there are gaps in the strategies and tools necessary to appropriately approach our students to the labor market.

Nowadays, most of the relevant universities have developed their own specific employment services, managing practices and jobs for students and postgraduates. Actually, these services are conducting an excellent task although they remain out of the scope of the students as they do not have time enough to attend to other aspect different than their own studies and pass their exams.

In this work, authors suggest the integration of this training for occupation into finalist subjects. Specifically, contents and activities of the optional subject "Organic electronics and processes in electronic design" are reformulated to make room for training oriented to the active search of employment (or practices) and how to deal with the first contacts in the workplace.

The aforementioned subject belongs to the last course in the Engineering Degree in Industrial Electronics and Automation. Traditionally, the subject had been focused in the study of all the design steps of an electronic product, from its conception to its public exposure for commercial purposes. Training seminars on advanced technological subjects (such as organic electronics) are included. It is in this field in which strategies are proposed to facilitate the students to get a job or practice.
Keywords:
Labor training, engineering degrees, students, transversal competences.