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Comparison of the social focus of commercial engineering degree

programs in the UOH, UCH and USACH:

Institutions of higher education need to focus on the social environment around them. As
time goes by, social contexts become more difficult to cope with and thus to meet the needs
of the population as well as to recognize them, which is why universities should focus on
subjects that provide a basis for future professionals.

Introduction
Based on what we know the commercial engineering of other institutions do not have so
much social focus, their approach is more economical. (MOVE1 STEP2) Paredes and López
(2007) found a way to analyze the commercial engineering career meshes, in order to define
the career mesh at UCH (MOVE 1 STEP3) but, in addition to being at different times, the
approach is more general and not social. (MOVE 2 STEP 1A) For this reason we decided to
investigate to confirm the information we have through a comparative study of the curricula
of only three universities. (MOVE 3 STEP1A).

Review of literature
We began this project with a review of past studies of the “curricular reform of commercial
engineering in the UCH”, where 10 universities were compared in order to determine the
curriculum for the commercial engineering career.

Changes are needed

According to Olavarría, in the curricular reform of commercial engineering in the UCH, june
2015. The recent reform applied by UCH explains to us, there is a relationship between
having less economic subjects and more humanist subjects manage to shorten the degree
program and make the elective space more flexible for allow students integrated access to
diverse knowledge and disciplinary approaches, this is one of the significatives needs of the
change, because humanist subjects allow students to realize there is more than only
numbers on theirs careers.

Is it necessary to know what we understand by social Focus ?

There are not many studies about the social approach, but we have defined this as the
social role that universities must fulfill, that is why we use the definition of public role that
"the strategic development plan" (2021, Universidad de Ohiggins) of the UOH offers:
"improve social mobility make people more supportive and give them greater opportunities to
develop a life they value by motivating the search for knowledge and development that
contribute to the understanding and solution of the main problems of the region and the
country"
The UOH has a significative social Focus, teaching and training their students on by part of
the nearby parts of the region, demonstrating the importance of relationships with
surrounding communities.

Method:
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In Chile, business degrees have a bigger economic focus, but they are trying to change this
at their own rhythm. That is why we made this study, it was based on a comparison of the
thematic of their program degrees.

Participants
We made a comparison, this was conducted of colleges degrees, of three important
universities of Chile, they are Universidad de O'higgins(UOH), Universidad de Chile (UCH)
and Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH)

Data collection and analysis

The comparison took place from late August 2022, the participants were observed and the
data was collected form the degree programs of each university, in case of UOH program
degree of 2019, Usach program degree form 2022, and finally UCH 2020 program degree

Results

Description of social subjects

Using the comparison, we developed the social subjects based on the descriptions of the
subjects of each college. We found a few common subjects and placed them to be
compared.

The comparison show us there are six social subjects, this are:
● Introduction of social science: on this subject students learn about how people
traded, from the early stages of humanity, through barter, to the use of coins.
● Regional social science: on this subject students learn about the nearby
communities, how they live, what's are theirs needs and issues.
● Political economy: on this subject students learn about how and why people live on
communities how theirs organized them and how they trade with others communities.
● Social practice: on this subject students help nearby institutions (Red Cross,
DIDECOs, children gardens,...) Learn how they work and try to help them.
● Territorial social project: on this subject students help nearby organized
communities.
● Insertion and territorial development workshop: on this subject students help
other students of different careers with their entrepreneurship or business ideas.
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Table 1.

As shown in table 1, universities are trying to get more social focus by making their students
apply social subjects to their degree programs. The social subject shared by the three
universities is “political economy”, but UOH has the highest number of social subjects.

Figure 2.

As shown in figure 2 UOH has a bigger quantity of social subjects.

One interesting finding was the difference between the universities where the commercial
engineering degree is placed, while commercial engineering degree is placed, at the
administration and business school of USACH and UCH, in contrast at UOH commercial
engineering degree are placed at the social sciences schools.
This findings may help us to understand why at the UOH has a large percentage of students
subscribed to gratuity

Conclusión
Our comparison confirms our hypothesis that most universities do not have enough social
focus. The commercial engineering of University of O'higgins has a more social focus in
comparison to the other Universities, having 6 subjects in its meshing.

References
1. https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/646/64602303.pdf
2. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Vicente-Olavarria/publication/
321245092_Reforma_Curricular_de_Ingenieria_Comercial_en_la_U_de_Chile_Abri
mos_o_no_abrimos_la_mirada/links/5a16c759a6fdcc50ade4ab5e/Reforma-
Curricular-de-Ingenieria-Comercial-en-la-U-de-Chile-Abrimos-o-no-abrimos-la-
mirada.pdf
3. https://www.uchile.cl/carreras/4966/ingenieria-comercial
4. https://admision.usach.cl/carreras/ingenieria-comercial/
5. https://www.uoh.cl/universidad/plan-de-desarrollo/
6. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/piq.20055 texto de la profe
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