Abstract:

An experience in which the students conduct activities of the business world has been proposed, so that they see the correlation between what they study and the operations that are carried out professionally. The fundamental idea of the project consists in conveying to Engineering students and potential engineers from the fuel energy sector, in particular; that to undertake (do entrepreneurship) is actually a job opportunity, also in this sector. Through contact between students and professionals in the private energy sector, the aim of this experience is to highlight the importance of entrepreneurship when working in Fuel Technology.

Bringing to the professional field what has been explained in class, knowledge that the student has had to learn to pass an exam, is a very interesting experience from the teaching perspective in which you get not only an improvement of academic results, but a general change of attitude towards learning on the behalf of the student, as well. In addition, it is important to involve a training complement, which many authors recommend as mandatory, especially in the case of engineering students. Listening to experiences, anecdotes, curiosities and situations faced within the company of the sector being narrated by a professional is more encouraging than an example taught in class.

Likewise, it is possible that the participating lectures know the experience of entrepreneurship developed by companies in the energy sector, in order to be able to transmit these experiences to the students, as an option to access the labor market. Through the development of professional activities within the field of Fuel Engineering, developed by students together with professionals from the sector, the relationship between what has been studied and what is done professionally will be transmitted, in order to achieve an increase of motivation.

The key is to emphasize the importance of adopting the concept of undertaking in all the tasks that are carried out as engineers, abandoning the passive attitude of waiting for others to change the employment situation, and adopting a more active attitude of being oneself that can generate employment successfully, not only for themselves but also for others.

In order to develop the experience, three shifts of meetings between students and professionals both from the entrepreneurship sector and of the energetic sector were programmed. The meetings were designed in the way of conferences, workshops and development of practical tasks to make possible a feedback among participants. The content of the meetings has been changing from general aspects in the first meetings, to those related to the energetic sector in the second meetings, and lastly, to the most specific aspects in the last shift of meetings.

The students participating in the experience have been polled, in relation to aspects such as: objectives achieved, degree of encouragement of the acquired entrepreneurship, and earned knowledge regarding job opportunities, among other aspects. As result of the survey, more than 90% of students assign the punctuation most favorable rating to all of its the items. The developed activity has been positively valued beside having achieved the goals that they were trying to reach, and experimenting an increase of the motivation to be able to finish their studies and to start working is hoped to trigger an improvement of the results of evaluation.

Keywords:

Entrepreneurship, Teaching-learning Process, Engineering.