Sought-for engineers get jobs – mainly as consultants
One-third of all the new architects and engineers who recently graduated from KTH have found work as consultants. A frequent “entry ticket” to employment goes via their own degree projects. 98 per cent of all had found work after two years at the latest. These are the essentials of KTH´s first ”Career Report”.
– We want to make sure our students find good jobs, says Professor Eric Giertz, KTH Vice-President and head of the Business & Community Liaison unit. Also, we want to maintain contacts with our new-born Alumni, as well as with the companies employing them! This results in more support for KTH from the business sector, both for guest lecturers, degree project opportunities and real-life case studies to learn things from.
The Report lists graduates from the 2004-2005 period; it indicates that a good 40 per cent of the students had actually got employment even before their final exams were completed. Another 30 per cent did find work after three months, at the latest. Only two per cent of the respondents had not established a permanent job for themselves. Others had decided to go into another profession. Eric Giertz continues:
– Our degree projects are an important entry ticket to a professional career. Among our MSc graduates one out of four got their first job via their own degree project, and one out of six in the case of the BSc´s. In view of this fact we must not only guard our connections with the business sector, and the practical implications of these – we must try to strengthen and refine them still further.
Four ex-KTH students out of five said they would certainly choose KTH once more if they were to start a higher education again, today. About ten per cent of the respondents did report they had assumed some kind of executive position just two years after graduation, and nearly half of them were acting as supervisors of other staff. According to another inquiry (by trade magazine Veckans Affärer, last year), the number of Swedish stock exchange company CEO´s with a KTH diploma is larger than that of any other university.
Birgitta Björkskär