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1. Early-career setback and future career impact

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12189-3  

   Wang, Yang; Jones, Benjamin F.; Wang, Dashun (October 2019, Nature Communications)

   Abstract Setbacks are an integral part of a scientific career, yet little is known about their long-term effects. Here we examine junior scientists applying for National Institutes of Health R01 grants. By focusing on proposals fell just below and just above the funding threshold, we compare near-miss with narrow-win applicants, and find that an early-career setback has powerful, opposing effects. On the one hand, it significantly increases attrition, predicting more than a 10% chance of disappearing permanently from the NIH system. Yet, despite an early setback, individuals with near misses systematically outperform those with narrow wins in the longer run. Moreover, this performance advantage seems to go beyond a screening mechanism, suggesting early-career setback appears to cause a performance improvement among those who persevere. Overall, these findings are consistent with the concept that “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” which may have broad implications for identifying, training and nurturing junior scientists. 

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2. Career Certainty: Differences Between Career Certain and Uncertain Engineering Students.

   Schadl, B.; Sheppard, S.; Chen, H. (January 2017, Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, June 25-28. Columbus, OH.)

   To gain a deeper understanding of the career decisions of undergraduate engineering students, this research paper explores the differences between students who show a high degree of career certainty and those who are rather uncertain about what their professional future should look like. These analyses were based on a dataset from a nationwide survey of engineering undergraduates (n=5,819) from 27 institutions in the United States. The survey was designed with an interest in understanding engineering students’ career pathways. For the purpose of this study, students were designated as either “career uncertain” or “career certain” according to their survey answers. Those two groups were then compared against a variety of background characteristics, past experiences and personality variables. The results suggest that career uncertain and career certain students do not differ on background variables such as gender, age or family income. However, when it comes to students’ past experiences, the percentage of students who had already gained internship experiences during their time in college was significantly higher among career certain students as compared to career uncertain students. As expected, seniors were more certain about their professional future than juniors. Similarly, a higher percentage of career certain students reported talking about their professional future with other students or faculty members more frequently. Furthermore, career certain students were significantly more likely to show a higher level of innovation self-efficacy and engineering task self-efficacy. In addition, career certain students were more likely to have career goals that involved innovation and they also considered several job characteristics as more important than did uncertain students. On average, career certain engineering students were also more certain about staying in engineering one, five and ten years after graduation. Overall, the results of this research suggest that more hands-on experiences and fostering stronger beliefs in their engineering skills can contribute to undergraduates becoming more certain about their future professional careers. 

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3. The Design and Impact of Engineering Career Fairs on Professionalization: the Perspective of Career Services

   Wright, Dania; Carberry, Adam; Wetmore, Jameson; Karwat, Darshan (April 2024, American Educational Research Association)
4. Leveraging the ARIS BI Toolkit to Equip Faculty for Career—and CAREER—Success

   https://doi.org/10.54656/jces.v17i2.614  

   Bosley, Jocelyn; Dwyer, Matthew; Gilreath_Mullen, Tisha; Bohlin, Amanda; Tan, Wern Ai; Pelland, Catherine M; Iverson, Ellen R; Meier, Nathan (November 2024, Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship)

   Research development professionals at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) used the Center for Advancing Research Impact in Society (ARIS) Broader Impacts (BI) Toolkit with early-career faculty preparing grant proposals for the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER). This prestigious career-development funding mechanism places unique emphasis on the integration of research and education, positioning awardees to enhance the impact of their research programs through education initiatives like curriculum development, outreach, and community engagement. However, many early-career faculty lack experience or training to develop robust education plans that are thoughtfully aligned with and responsive to their research. With the aim of developing practical ways to help faculty gain these skills, the study team used mixed methods to analyze the integration of research and education in CAREER proposals submitted by UNL faculty. These methods included using the ARIS BI Rubric to evaluate the proposals, convening two panel review discussions, and interviewing principal investigators about their ARIS BI Toolkit use and approach to research-education integration. Case study findings reveal that while effective and impactful integration can take many forms, early-career faculty and those who support them can utilize the ARIS BI Toolkit strategically to strengthen this aspect of grant proposals, positioning faculty to write well-integrated CAREER proposals and potentially contributing to long-term grant-writing and research program success. 

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5. The Impact of a Targeted Scholarship Program on Cybersecurity Career Development: An Analysis Through the Lens of Social Cognitive Career Theory and Career Identity

   Pusey, Portia; Kaleem, Faisal; Swanson, Kyle (October 2025, IEEE CARS 2025)

   The demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals continues to outpace supply, necessitating effective educational and workforce development programs. This exploratory study analyzes the influence of a scholarship and support activities on participants' career development through the theoretical frameworks of Social Cognitive Career Theory and career identity literature. Findings suggest that the Metropolitan State University Cyber Defenders Program bolstered participants' self-efficacy beliefs related to their academic and career pursuits, fostered positive outcome expectations regarding cybersecurity careers, and strengthened their career goals and engagement. The scholarship itself and peer interactions emerged as key supports. While overall results are positive, areas concerning perceptions of diversity within the field and the ease of finding employment warrant further exploration. 

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