Engineering Education, 2018 Exploring Engineering Major Choice and Self-concept through First-Year Surveys 2018-04-30Choosing an appropriate major is an important factor in ensuring a productive and successful college experience.Major choice determines the type of work the students will engage in and the faculty and peers that they will come incontact with, both of which have been shown to impact student learning, satisfaction, and persistence.1 Forengineering students, the selection of a discipline can be an overwhelming task. Many first-year students have onlyvague notions about what engineering is and a limited understanding of the scope of the work that might be typical
with others,talking about cycling on internet forums, or in person, complimenting other cyclists on theirbikes among other practices. The members of an affinity group can be spread across differentregions; the affinity group is based on individuals’ “participation in specific practices” [4].Each of these views of identity is interrelated and support one another. For instance, as a studentat a university, there is institutional-identity imposed by the university as well as affinity-identityif the student takes part in the student activities that are university-related, for instance, sportingevents. Discourse-identity becomes a factor in the interactions and dialogue that occur amongstudents about such events.MethodsThe students whose sketches
theirresidence halls on a Sunday evening and the program starts with a welcome breakfast onMonday morning. The key features of the week include: (a) work sessions and seminars gearedtoward introducing students to campus resources and helping students develop academic,professional and personal success skills; (b) a hands-on engineering design project competition;(c) participation in activities exploring the science and engineering behind select sports (e.g.bowling, biking) and systems (campus monorail system); (d) meet-and-greet from theuniversity’s president and engineering college deans; (e) daily social events that include ateam-building challenge course run and an evening campfire cookout. An overview of theweek’s activities is shown in Table 1 below
aimed at improvingthe engagement, retention, and graduation of students underrepresented in engineering. Thesecomponents include: “intrusive” academic advising and support services, intensive first-yearacademic curriculum, community-building (including pre-matriculation summer programs),career awareness and vision, faculty mentorship, NSF S-STEM scholarships, and second-yearsupport.This work in progress paper describes the implementation of the Redshirt program2 at each of thesix Redshirt in Engineering Consortium institutions, providing a variety of models for how an1 For brevity, we will use the acronyms listed in this table in place of the full names of theinstitutions throughout the paper.extra preparatory year or other intensive academic
willexplore a work in progress in understanding participants’ longitudinal progress to transfer intoengineering majors and degree completion. This discussion will be supplemented withlongitudinal and focus group data to explore the extent to which students were supported by thecomponents of the FYSE program. 2 It has been well documented in previous research that first-year summer programs arebeneficial to the academic, social, and personal development of student participants (Ackermann,1990; Cabrera, Miner, & Milem, 2013; Garcia, 1991; Walpole, Simmerman, Mack, Mills,Scales, & Albano, 2008). First-year summer programs, also known as
Paper ID #21885First Generation Engineering Student Mentoring Program: A Case Study ofa Large Engineering School in the U.S.Dr. Bimal P. Nepal, Texas A&M University Dr. Bimal Nepal is Phillips’66 First Year Engineering Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor in the Industrial Distribution Program at Texas A&M University. His research interests include integration of supply chain management with new product development decisions, distributor service portfolio optimiza- tion, pricing optimization, supply chain risk analysis, lean and six sigma, and large scale optimization. He has authored 41 refereed articles in
international experiences including study abroad, internships,volunteer work, and faculty-led study tours. Western faculty plays an active role in their student’slives, not only in the classroom but also through advising student groups, supporting individualstudent career aspirations, and mentoring programs. The Engineering & Design Department atWWU is a new department formed in 2014 out of the former Engineering Technology departmentas part of a state-funded effort to transition the engineering technology programs to accreditedengineering programs. The department offers five undergraduate-only programs withdistinguished faculty in each program; the Electrical Engineering (EE) program, theManufacturing Engineering (MfgE) program, and the Plastics
describes the influence of inputs and environment on outputs. The inputs include astudent’s high school GPA, SAT or ACT score, and his/her demographics. These inputs areuseful in making admissions decisions. The environment describes the institutional policies,engagement opportunities, and student body. A student’s involvement in purposeful andappropriate activities in his/her environment is a key factor in degree completion. The outputsare the institutional measures of retention and graduation rates. An academic advisor canserve as the communication channel for identifying appropriate and purposeful activities inwhich a student may engage.This study explores quantitative data on student behaviors, actions, and engagement. Data pointsinclude course
. [1 credit hour, elective] E145: Academic and Professional Preparation for Engineers II: Engineering as a field of study and profession. Career and professional development, goal setting, decision making and effective communication strategies. [1 credit hour, elective] E201: Engineering Transfer to Success: This 8-week course will provide an overview of the NC State University policies and procedures, organizations, and resources available for enhancing the academic success of new transfer students in the College of Engineering. Lectures and discussion from departmental representatives will focus on requirements and availability for financial aid, cooperative education, career services, and campus student organizations
example) that might deriveexplanations for the findings. Bottomley concluded: “Because aspects of personality traits that make up the GRIT scale can, in fact, be taught, first year courses or programs to enhance student retention might be able to make important and impactful changes. Secondly, if GRIT is sufficiently predictive, as some earlier results suggest, some aspects of GRIT might be used to impact admissions or placement decisions, allowing students who are not able to show their capabilities on standardized metrics to have an additional input to the admission decision process.”By contrast, Williamson, Pannizo, Perriakos and
is also studying entry and persistence in engineering of first generation, women, and under-represented ethnic minorities.Dr. Kyle D. Squires, Arizona State UniversityDr. James Collofello, Arizona State University Associate Dean of Academic and Student Affairs Professor of Computer Science and Engineering School of Computing Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering Ira A. Fulton Schools of EngineeringMs. Robin R. Hammond, Arizona State University c American Society for Engineering Education, 2018 Work in Progress: Engineers from Day One: A Pilot Collective Impact Alliance Effort to Foster Engineering IdentityIntroductionThis Work in Progress paper reports on an effort that
experience engineering as an evolving, creative, and interdisciplinary career that impacts global society and daily life. 2. Provide students with the opportunity to develop process-driven problem solving skills that recognize multiple alternatives and apply critical thinking to identify an effective solution. 3. Provide students with the opportunity to integrate math & science in an engineering context. 4. Create motivated & passionate engineering students by challenging them with authentic engineering problems across multiple disciplines. 5. Instill in our students the professional, personal & academic behaviors and common competencies needed to move to the next stage of their
engaged in the project and appreciated the active learning approach. Students hadminimal prior experience with complicated devices and had many concerns about completingthe project. Based on faculty observations and students’ responses on surveys, studentsmaintained engagement in the cardiograph project and experienced a sense of accomplishment,even when they did not successfully produce a working cardiograph.IntroductionIn 2009, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) surveyed 80 ME departmentheads, 1,404 industry supervisors, and 1,198 early-career MEs for their Vision 2030 project.Survey results revealed that the skills managers believed required strengthening in new graduatesdid not match the skills faculty and early-career MEs