International Experiences as one of main Elements in Quality Education

One of the basic duties of universities is to educate broad-minded, enlightened and versatile people, that is to prepare highly qualified professionals in diverse domains of social life. The modern job market, first of all, it is globalization modern technologies, rising clients’ requirements and the omnipresent change. New challenges are just in the face of technical university graduates; an engineer should possess wide and continuously updated knowledge concerning own domain and other specialities. To obtain success in the job market, technical university graduate has to possess special skills and competence. The engineer profession becomes more often a self-employed professional. Technically educated people become experts for hire for a limited period of project realisation. The modern recruitment methods are aimed at searching and checking competences of job candidates. The competence are combination of knowledge, skills and motivation, that is elements which give university graduates a chance to achieve success at work. Theorists of organization and management reduces competence to a triad: talent, style and passion. A number of organizations present an iceberg as a model of an ideal professional engineer, where a small part visible above the water line represents technical skills and knowledge concerning specific domain (easy to change, form and identify) and under the water line there are competence and features of personality. One of the basic tasks of universities is educating people who are broad- minded, smart and versatile, i.e. preparing highly-qualified specialists in different fields of social life. The international labor market, most of all, amounts to globalization, modern technologies, growing demands of customers and omnipresent change. The graduates of technical universities are the ones who are to face new challenges. Polish engineers ought to possess wide and up-to-date knowledge of their own and other specialties. The graduate of the technical university, to achieve success on the international labor market must have specific skills and competences. The profession of an engineer is more and more frequently a freelancing job with no limits. People with university degrees in technology become professionals for rent for a specified period of the project implementation. Recruitment methods in Poland and abroad are directed to searching for and checking competences of those applying for a post. Competences are the combination of knowledge, skills and motivation, i.e. the elements which cause that university graduates have opportunities to succeed at work. The theoreticians of organization and management bring competences to the triad: talent, style and passion. A number of well-known corporations present a model of the sought specialist engineer as an iceberg where there is only a little tip noticeable on the surface– representing technical skills, knowledge in a specific field – easy to change, create and relatively easy to identify, and below, there are competences and features of personality. The considerations discussed in the paper are an attempt to find an answer to a range of questions, among others: what graduates, with what (mostly “soft”) competences are being searched for by employers on the international labor market now, what characteristics, skills, qualifications the graduate of the technical university, looking for a job both in Poland and abroad, should have, what changes and new directions of education, specialties should be introduced to improve the quality of education and the conditions of the university education etc. In the paper, there will be underlined the role of such engineering competences as: creative thinking, analysis and critical evaluation of data, the ability of appropriate problem identification and definition, reasons or results of activities. To interpret data it is necessary to access them and therefore the ability of accessing information coming from different sources, ordering, interpreting and processing it, also with the application of electronic data, is very important. It is also the ability to see problems in their broader context, as a part of the larger whole, the systems. The ability of managing changes, understanding what factors influence changes (including not only technological development, but also global, international trends – e.g. environmental protection, energy saving, customer requirements, advancement of competitors, requirements of capital markets) is also important. The most important competence, the mostly appreciated by international employers is motivation, readiness for constant development, initiative and passion. The paper is both theoretical and empirical in nature.