Engineering Students’ Career Choice and the English Teacher's Profile in Romanian Higher Education

Abstract

Due to an increasingly globalized and technologically developed society and to growing professional expectations from higher technical education systems in view of meeting the demands of a competitive multicultural labour market, the English teacher's profile becomes a prerequisite for the prospective engineers’ choice of career and occupational opportunities. It is worth mentioning that career choice is a complex decision for engineering students since it determines the kind of profession they intend to pursue in life. As students try to make career choices while in tertiary education, they have to match their career choices with their abilities, professional performance as provided and ensured by a series of factors such as the English teacher's profile. A key observation is that a good quality English teacher will not only assist engineering students, anticipating graduation, in their career decision-making process but also ensure a more flexible and smoother professional insertion worldwide. Hence, both personal and professional personality of the higher education teacher is regarded as one significant motivational factor for engineering students. The current research follows up previous studies on the same topic conducted during 2012-2014. Therefore, on one hand, the present research aims at analysing the importance of the English teacher's profile, as a driving force for language performance, engineering career choice and employability assurance. On the other hand, it deems fit to correlate the engineering students’ expectations from English teachers in higher education with their career choices.