Self-Reflection on Professional Competences in Chemical Engineering Education

1. Self-Reflection on Professional Competences in Chemical Engineering Education Jetse Reijenga and Esther Vinken j.c.reijenga@tue.nl

2. Industrial Internship • Compulsory for Master’s degree • 3-6 months (fulltime) • Industrial R&D or Production • In the Netherlands or abroad (50/50) • Technical Report • Company Grading Form • Final Presentation • Self- Reflection Report

3. Educational Goals • Orientation on the chemical engineering profession • Gain experience in working as a chemical engineer in industrial working environment; • Solve problems on a chemical engineering level, and thus integrating and expanding knowledge, technical insight, skills  and critical inventiveness • Practice communication in a professional working environment. http://edu.chem.tue.nl/goals

4. Company Grading Form • Attitude • Quality of work • Amount of work • Relation to others • Work independently • Criticize own work • Scientific knowledge • Creativity • Language fluency • Communication, verbal • Communication, written • Overall performance http://edu.chem.tue.nl/6Z001/eval/default.htm

5. Self-Reflection Report – group #1 • Guidelines: “make a 500-word self-reflection report in view of general educational goals of the internship” • Resulting reports were insufficient: more about the company profile and the assignment than about themselves.

6. Self-Reflection Report – group #2 Guidelines: write a 500 word self-reflection report taking into account the following points: • What dit you learn about yourself? • Did you discover unsuspected talents? • Did you meet unexpected challenges? • How did you deal with them • Which personal improvement points remain? • How dit internship broaden your view on career opportunities? • Self reflection should not be about the company, but about you.

7. Self-Reflection Report – group #3 Guidelines (in addition to those of group #2) • Student fills in company grading form before internship • Again halfway through the internship • Again at the end of the internship • Compare 3 self-grade forms with company form as an additional aid in self-reflection

8. Comparison of groups Quality of Self-reflection reports Group size 19, 44 and 36 respectively

9. Results of group #3 in detail

10. Conclusions • Extended guidelines improve self-reflection reports • Additional self-grade forms further improve reports • Even in group #3, only 50% of students make acceptable self-reflections, so: • Further improvement still needed.

11. Recommendations • Further emphasize self-grade forms • Stimulate students to set personal goals, as SMART objectives, before starting internship • Have SMART objectives evaluated before writing self-reflection Drucker, P.F., The Practice of Management, 1954

12. my bottom line……… self-reflection as starting basis for a bright career perspective