Me as an engineer: career aspirations and expectations of South African first-generation engineering students

Abstract

This paper reports on the findings from a larger project that focuses on the career expectations of a group of first-generation students at a university of technology in South Africa. For many first-generation students, walking the pathway to realising the dream of becoming an engineer involves two new experiences, higher education and the engineering profession. For both these environments, there is no inter-generational experience to tap into. A deeper understanding of engineering, and exposure to the engineering industry, only happens during their studies. The theory of possible selves was used as a theoretical framework for this investigation, drawing on the notion of elaboration, which is the extent to which an individual knows enough about the possible self and the pathway needed to achieve that possible self. Through semi-structured interviews, participants told the story of their journey into studying engineering in higher education and shared the experiences that formed their future selves. The data collected answered the research question: What factors influence the shift from career aspirations to expectations in the elaboration of the possible self for first-generation students? The data revealed that most students had the aspiration to become an engineer before they completed their high school. This aspiration was, however, moulded by limited information on what engineering is, the qualifications required to enter the workforce at the professional level they desire, and the period of time it would take them to realise the vision they have for themselves as a practising engineer.