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Careers Paths in Materials Science and Engineering (cont'd) One major objective of the survey was to obtain information on reasons for people to enter the field. It is commonly believed that most people have no image for the field of materials and thus how people learn of the field and what factors influence them in choice of the field becomes important. The survey group clearly indicates that among the types of influencing sources people are the prime factor. This is shown in Fig. 3 where over 35% of the survey group were influence by some personal interaction. Fig. 3 also shows that there has been very little change in the influencing factors for the recent graduates as compare with the entire group. However, courses both in high school and college were cited more by recent graduates than the entire group while printed materials were less of a factor for the recent graduates. The source for these influencing factors is another area of interest. What stage in their search did the survey group find information about the field? Over 50% of the survey group found information about the field in college with high school sources a distant second at around 20%. Also, family members as a source continue to be a significant source as does employment as shown in Fig. 4. Further, there appears to be no significant change in source areas over the years. |
