PBI 1012

ENGLISH FOR PROFESSIONAL PURPOSE

GROUP MEMBERS :
ABDUL RASHID BIN MOHAMMAD (20587)
RASHIDAH BINTI SUREIA @ SURIA ( 28000)
ZAHRAH BINTI ABDUL GHAFAR

(28714)

ROSELINE HII KAI LING

(28035)

INSTRUCTORS NAME :
MR. COLLIN JEROME

DATE OF SUBMISSION :
7th. December 2011

Title

PROBLEMS GRADUATES FACED IN THE WORKING WORLD

Prepared for:
Mr. Collin Jerome
Lecturer
Centre language studies
University Malaysia Sarawak
94300, Kota Samarahan.
Sarawak

Prepared by: Abdul Rashid b. Mohammad

Faculty of Engineering
University Malaysia Sarawak

94300 Kota Samarahan

Sarawak

Mr. Collin Jerome

Lecturer
Centre Language Studies
University Malaysia Sarawak
94300, Kota Samarahan
Sarawak

Dear Mr.
Enclosed is the report you requested in November 7, 2011 at before 5.00 p.m. The purpose of
the report is to identity the problems graduates faced in the working world. The information in
this report came from a questionnaire that has been distributed among the students of faculty of
Engineering, University Malaysia Sarawak. This research is focusing on the first to third year
student.
We would like to thank tor all group members, the instructors class, faculty of engineering
student and everyone who has cooperated in doing the research. Thank you too for the
opportunity to conduct this research. Hopefully, the result of this research will help to solve the
problems that might be related to the issue that has been addressed above.

Sincerely;

sincerely;

sincerely;

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

sincerely;

The main purpose on conducting this report is to find out the problems that most graduates faced
in the working world.50 students from the Engineering Faculty participate in the research and
most agree that communication skills and having no working experience is their problem when
doing internship training. Other than that, respondent also agree that not being able to adapt in
the working place environment can create problems too. While stress or work pressure and time
management is the least problems faced. Some recommendations suggested is to ensure that
student will not only hand in assignment in writing form but to present it too. This will build up
their confidence level and communicating better with others. Besides that, UNIMAS should
allow faculties to collaborate with each other to improve soft skills or communication skills of
the students such as oral classes with the English Department and the Engineering Faculty itself.
For our research a 10 multiple choices is given through a questionnaire to the students.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Letter of Transmittal
Executive Summary

1.0 Introduction
1.1

Background

1.2 Terms of References

1.3 Purpose
1.4 Scope
1.5 Methodology

2.0 Findings
2.1 Section A
2.2 Section B
2.3 Section C

3.0 Conclusions
4.0 Recommendations
References
Appendix A
I.

The Questionnaire

Appendix B
I. Data Analysis and Interpretations

I.0

INTRODUCTION

1.1

BACKGROUND

This study investigated how well civil engineering graduates are prepared for work once they
step into the working world. To this end, 50 respondents from Faculty of Civil Engineering were
selected randomly to answer the questionnaire. According to Randolph (1993), it is difficult for
the young engineer to get a good start in their career if they had the difficulties of changing
themselves to the working world from the world of school and training. As highlighted by Evans
et al. (1993) and Scott and Yates (2002), although open-ended design problems can be used to
improve a students ability in the practice of engineering, it is possible that graduate engineers
leave university with a lack of problem recognition and solution skills since these skills require
practice and experience and improve over time. Engineer should require a set of knowledge
skills and abilities. Technical skills are the foundation of the civil engineers preparation for the
professional practice, but the management, communication and problem-solving skills are
required for success in any profession, and civil engineers must continue to learn in order to
experience a successful and satisfying career (Grigg et al., 2001). Engineers must have good
interpersonal skills that allow them to interact and communicate effectively with various people
in their organization (Moaveni and Sharma, 2011). Quantitative analysis of the questionnaires
data showed that graduates felt that overall, they were well prepared for work in industry. The
following areas of weakness were also identified such as low self-esteem. The study is
contributed to the identification of issues that there was a clear link between the problems faced
and types of skills needed by engineering graduates, a result which has clear implications for the
design of undergraduate engineering programmes.

1.2

TERMS OF REFERENCE

On November 4, 2011, Mr. Collin, our instructor for English for Professional Purpose has
requested us to write a report on the professional needs of graduates from our faculty. The
findings from the report will show the problems faced by civil engineering graduates once they
step out into the working world and types of professional skills that they need to survive. Mr.
Collin requested that the report be submitted on December 7, 2011. We hereby submit the report
entitled Problems Graduates Faced In The Working World, together with our recommendations.

1.3

PURPOSE

The purpose of this report is to study the problems faced by engineering graduates and types of
professional skills they needed when step out into the working world in order to get a job that fits
their qualification.

1.4

SCOPE

The study for this report focused on the view of 50 respondents from Faculty of Civil
Engineering of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS).

1.5

METHODOLOGY

Questionnaire was chosen as the method of data collection for this study. It were used to collect
data, and analyzed quantitatively. Quantitative analysis of these data allowed us to explore links
between different contexts and categories. 50 civil engineering graduates were therefore selected
in order to provide a purposive sample that was diverse with respect to age, gender, and year of
graduation. There is only one section in the questionnaires which include age, gender, problems
faced by graduates once they step out into the working world and skills needed by them to
survive.

2.0

FINDINGS

This is the finding of the problems that fresh graduate students will face in working
world. Some groups might be different from our group as our group use different method in
order to find other students opinion related to this topic. We used questionnaire to complete our
project work. There were ten questions in the questionnaire that consists of two subjective
questions and eight multiplied questions.

2.1

Section A

For this section, there were two questions and the respondents were asked about their
programme they were taking and year that they were in now.
For question one, it could be concluded that all the respondents were from Civil
Engineering. Next, question two was mainly about the year that they were in now. There were 10
(20%) respondents were first year students, 25 (50%) from the second year students and 15
(30%) were the third year students.

2.2

Section B
On the other hand, this section had three questions which revolved around the internship.

For question three, 35% of respondents had done their internship while 65% respondents
had not done their internship. Next, question four, the respondents were asked about the benefits
that they think they would get from the internship training. For question five, no working
experience had the highest percentage which was 30% that consists of 13% male respondents
and 17% female respondents.

2.3

Section C

In this section, there were five questions that consist of two subjective questions and
three multiplied questions. This section focused on the working issue.
Respondents were asked about their own opinion whether they were qualified for the job
since they had that communication skill. Question seven was the subjective question that asked
the respondents opinions of how they could apply the communication skills during working.
Next, question eight, having good communication skills had the highest percentage which was
35% that consists of 17% male respondents and 18% female respondents. Respondents were
asked in question nine whether they would plan to work after graduate. Lastly, question ten was
also the subjective question that asking the respondents opinion about how to overcome the
problems in working field.

CONCLUSION

It shows that most of the respondents choose lack of communications skills as a problem faced
during internship training. Respondent also choose having no working experience before the
actual internship training as their problem when working. This is followed close by unable to
adapt to the working world environment. From the previous studies, it is still relevant to say that
graduates still think that communication is a major problem that they will face when working
and having low self-esteem is inter-related to it. No working experience or unable to adapt to the
working place environment is a new finding but it is understandable since most graduates come
from matriculation and not diploma thus graduates does not have the experience needed during
internship training. In conclusion, lack of communication skills and having no working
experience is a major problem faced by graduates when working.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To overcome this problem, few of recommendations that can be done is to train graduates in
having a better communication skills professionally to adapt the working world. For example,
assigning students projects that not only have to be submitted in writing but also have to be
presented to the class. This is to prepare students with the essential verbal presentation skills that
employers look for when hiring for jobs. UNIMAS should recognize the importance of
communication skill generally and to encourage ongoing skill development not only within
majors but throughout faculties. We suggest that the Centre Language Studies Faculty should
join in collaborating with the Engineering Faculty to improve not only writing but
communication skills of the students. Besides that, participating in more soft skills classes can
also improve graduates communications skills and confidence level.

REFERENCES

Moaveni S., Sharma I., (2011). Engineering Fundamentals: An Introduction to Engineering, (4th
ed). Global Engineering.
Grigg N.S., Criswell M.E., Fontane D.G., Siller T.J. (2001). Civil Engineering Practice in the
Twenty-first Century: Knowledge and Skills for Design Management. American Society of
Civil Engineers, United States of America.

Evans, D.L., Beakley, G.C., Crouch, P.E. andYamaguchi, G.T. (1993). Attributes of engineering
graduates and their impact on curriculum design. American Society for Engineering Education.

Scott, G. and Yates, K.W., (2002). Using successful graduates to improve the quality of
undergraduate engineering programmes. American Society for Engineering Education.

Randolph D., (1993). Civil Engineering for the Community. American Society of Civil
Engineers, United States of America.

APPENDIX

I.1

Questionnaire

1. What program are you from?

(

) Civil Engineering

) Mechanical Engineering

) Electrical/Electronic Engineering

) Chemical Engineering

2. Which year are you now?

(

) 1st. Year

) 2nd Year

) 3rd Year

) 4th Year

3. Have you done your internship?

(

) Yes

) No

4. Please tick ( / ) the benefit that you get from the internship training that you think is the
most valuable.

(
(
(
(
(
(

) Improve communication skill.

) Gaining work experiences.
) Able to handle work pressure.
) Meet new people.
) Gain knowledge that cannot get during lecture.
) Etc. Please state it.

5. Please tick ( / ) the main problem you faced during internship training.
(
(
(
(
(
(

) Communication.
) Stress/Work pressure.
) Time-management.
) Able to adapt working environment.
) No working experience.
) Etc. Please sate it.

6. Do you think with your communication skills that you have now, you are qualified for
this job/post?
(

) Yes.

) No.

* If yes, please go to Question 7.

* If no, please go to Question 8.
7. If yes, how can you apply the communication skills during working?
.............................................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................................

8. If no, what do you think the professional skill that one needs the most to survive in
working world?
(
(
(
(
(
(

) Able to work under pressure.

) Having good communication skills.
) Good time-management.
) Able to adapt with the new working environment.
) Build good relationship with other people.
) Etc. Please state it.

9. Do you plan to work after graduate?

) Yes.

) No.

10. In your opinion, do you think the professional skills can overcome the problems that you
encounter during working? Please give your comment and state your reason.
.......................................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................................

I.2 Analysis

Figure 1
From the pie chart above shows the percentage of students had done and had not done their
internship. It could be seen that only 35% students who involved in answering our questionnaire
had done their internship. On the other hand, 65% students had not done their internship.

The Percentage of Problems That Students Chose Faced During Internship Training

Figure 2
No working experience with the percentage of 30% had become the top chosen problem
that students faced during internship training. It consists of 13% male and 17% female. It
was followed by the lack of communication with the percentage of 8% male and 17%
female who had chose this problem. Others problems were stress/work pressure, timemanagement, the ability to adapt the working environment and others with the percentage
of 8%, 12%, 15% and 10% respectively.

The Percentage of Professional Skills That Students Think Need Most to Survive in
Working World

Figure 3

From the bar chart in Figure 3 above shows the percentage of professional skills that students
think that they needed most in the working world. It could be seen that the vital professional
skill needed was having a good communication skill which was 35% that consist of 17% male
and 18% female. On the other hand, able to build good relationship with other people had
20% of percentage. It consists of 6% male and 14% female. Other professional skills were
able to work under pressure, good time management, able to adapt with the new working
place and etc having 10%, 8%, 17% and 10% of percentages respectively.