Testimonial
[ACT Project] Boundaries encountered in the professional practice by WUR graduates
Between May and July 2024, an Academic Consultancy Training (ACT) team of eight students from different study backgrounds and nationalities investigated the Boundary Crossing challenges recent WUR graduates encountered in their first jobs and which strategies they employed to navigate these challenges.
What struck me most was that every graduate - no matter where they found a job - mentioned they needed to collaborate with other people
The team interviewed 28 recent graduates, representing 13 nationalities, working across the world in academia, NGOs, the governmental and private sector. Key findings indicated that WUR graduates were mainly confronted with challenges related to expectations and standards to fulfill their jobs, but also protocols, procedures, and administrative tasks they were confronted with (43%). Challenges related to interpersonal communication, personal idealism and work-life balance were also found frequently (23%), just like disciplinary (21%) and cultural (13%) boundaries. Most graduates dealt with these challenges by trying to be open and flexible, by communicating about differences and by seeking ways to improve collaboration by active listening, planning and making clear working agreements.
The students designed a poster (see image below) illustrating four boundary crosser personas (or profiles) working at the government, in an NGO, the private sector and in academia. Please feel free to use the poster in your education and let us know how you used the poster in your education.
The ACT team was supervised by Karen Fortuin (Program Director of Marine Sciences and Senior Lecturer at Earth Systems and Global Change Group), and with Perry den Brok (Education and Learning Sciences) as Academic Advisor to the team. To find out more about this research, please contact Karen at karen.fortuin@wur.nl.
If you would like to receive the softcopy of the poster and/or the final report, please reach out to the BC@WUR team at boundarycrossing@wur.nl.