Abstract— Studies have shown that engineering graduates benefit from work place experience
gained during college, including development of practical intelligence, increased career decisionmaking self-efficacy, and more career progress and job satisfaction. Benefits are found to be
more pronounced when work experience is related to student's field of study. This paper explores
the impact of gender and ethnicity on benefits of work experiences. We used data of almost 900
graduating Penn State seniors from five semesters who participated in a senior exit survey. We
compared three levels of quality of work experience: no work experience, non-credited work
experience, and work experience credited through the optional Cooperative Education and
Internship Program. We compared these three student groups on base starting salary of their post
graduation job and on three job opportunities variables, numbers of on-campus interviews
attended, number of on-site interviews offered, and numbers of fulltime job offers. Besides group
differences on these variables, we also looked at gender and ethnicity differences. Since the
number of minority participants was very low, we conducted separate analyses to test for
ethnicity differences for exploratory reasons. We did not find statistically significant differences
between majority and minority students. Students with credited work experience reported a
higher base starting salary than the other students. There was no gender difference. Students with
work experience reported more on-campus and on-site interviews, and more job offers than
students with no work experience. Female students tended to benefit more from work experience
than male students, especially when it involved credited work experience. This interaction effect
was only statistically significant for the number of on-campus interviews attended, however.
Practical implications of these results will be discussed.


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