The Timing of First Professional Experience and Engineering Careers: Evidence from Random Assignment

Kevin Boudreau and Matt Marx

No 26013, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Engineering students specialize before experiencing the work they train for. Students were randomly assigned a professional work term six months earlier versus later, with similar total training. Through five years after graduation, earlier exposure raises graduates’ share of years in engineering by 3.6 percentage points and their probability of working only in engineering by 7.1 points. We examine whether earlier practice improves learning, strengthens networks, or informs specialization choices. We find no lasting performance advantage and modestly larger networks. Evidence is clearest for earlier sorting: departures from engineering during training follow exposure, consistent with information arriving while specialization remains reversible.

JEL-codes: I21 J2 O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-lma and nep-ure
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