Investigating the Newly Graduated StudentsExperience after University

• Main Authors: Karlson, Max, Olsson, Fredrik
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, Institutionen för programvaruteknik 2019
• Subjects: Software Engineering Education; Software Engineering Challenges; Software Engineer Skills; Software Engineering Curriculum; Other Engineering and Technologies; Annan teknik
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:bth-18133

Today’s labor market is teeming with software development jobs, and employeesare needed more than ever. With this statement, one would believe it is easy fora newly graduated student to start their career. However, according to severalstudies, there are specific areas where newly graduated Software Engineeringstudents struggle when beginning their first job. Currently, there is a displace-ment about what the school should focus on when teaching their students. Thiscauses various challenges to arise for newly graduated students when they areinitially starting their career. To address this issue, this study aims to iden-tify whether or not there exists a gap between the education provided by theuniversities, and what is expected from the industry. In accordance with this,the purpose is also the point out which areas might be challenging for newlygraduated students, and highlight how the school and industry can benefit fromthe results of this study.By conducting interviews with both newly graduated student with one to threeyears working experience or personnel responsible for hiring new employees atcompanies, this study will give an insight on which common areas newly grad-uates may struggle with. Although the result specifies several areas which arechallenging to newly graduated students. The greatest challenges which thenewly graduated graduated students faced were areas revolving around softskills. This was in accordance with the opinions of the recruiters. Insinuatingthat these areas are what the school should focus more on. Other differencesbetween the newly graduated interviewee’s opinions and the recruiters are alsohighlighted in the report Several subjects in school could improve its way ofteaching. Furthermore, there are possibilities for companies to better adjusttheir on-boarding of newly graduated. By addressing the challenges which newlygraduated face they can provide their new employees with a better understand-ing of how to properly work and function in the industry today.