ENGINEERING RESEARCH SEEDBEDS. FRIENDLY STRATEGY TO PROMOTE STUDENT PERMANENCE

Abstract

The new generations that demand educational services at Colombian Universities are increasingly arriving at an early age, while at the end of the 20th century the average age was 18 years, two decades later, the average is 16. In addition to the convenience of neutralizing the tendency to early adulthood, the transition from secondary education to higher education in the final phase of adolescence, demands reflection on basic training, pedagogical and curricular developments at the beginning of the career and accompaniment, since As the literature reports, adaptations and adjustments occur at times of the Lobster Complex.
Given the characteristics and expectations of the new generations, the cognitive demands, orientation towards achievement, development of soft skills in the first year of University, added to the commitment that students acquire with their families; The research hotbeds become flexible extracurricular spaces, for self-training and empowerment, for comprehensive training and interdisciplinarity that facilitate the meeting and accompaniment between peers, networking and horizontal agency of concerns and searches in which science and the solution of problems in context, are motor and impulse.
Although, in the varied typology of Engineering seedbeds in higher education in Colombia, there is a tendency for participation, entry and permanence in these action-research spaces to be favored towards the middle of the career, there are more and more successful experiences on the place and importance of seedbeds at the beginning of vocational training.
The seedbeds in the first year contribute decisively to student permanence given the opportunities to reconfigure themselves, the support and shelter offered by the learning community among peers, access and use of expert knowledge in solving contextual problems and advocacy social, and the freedom to experience a journey of knowledge that is flexible but focused on know-how, where the seed worker goes through the path in conditions of active learning and collective participation.
In addition, continuing this path from the beginning of the career allows the student to better recognize their vocational orientation, explore spaces and resources such as: laboratories, library, room systems and teachers, as well as stimulates the empowerment of women in engineering.
The work shows the impact of the Engineering research hotbeds at the Universidad Autónoma de Occidente, regulated and flexible training spaces in which students from the 14 engineering fields currently offered by the University participate, and that in the case of new generations, In the first year of training, it offers shortcuts to strengthen oneself, to promote collaborative work, solidarity, belonging, self-learning, horizontality and agency among peers, all of which is essential in the complex transition from adolescence to adulthood, and in the singular and promising existential spiral of the new generations.