Conference Session

Graduate Student Experiences

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Stacy Eisenman, University of Maryland; George List, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

any decisions about whicharea of research to pursue students should talk to faculty and other graduate students tohelp increase their knowledge of various areas of study. Incoming graduate studentsshould also read a variety of research papers (journal articles, dissertations, etc.). Even ifthe student does not understand all the content in the papers, they will be able to identifywhich problems they are most interested in and those that they had less interest in.The school is an important choice because it defines the graduate students livingenvironment. The size, location and personality of the school should all be consideredbefore choosing a school. Research programs also vary from school to school. Someprograms are more competitive than

Conference Session

Graduate Student Experiences

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Anderson Prewitt, University of Florida; Wanda Eugene, Auburn University; Shaundra Daily, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

students with an engineering family member or friendhad chosen engineering by their sophomore year in high school. Only 26% of the students whohad no engineering family member or friend had done so by that time. A disproportionateamount of African-Americans tend to select occupations and pursue careers in which they hadcontact with successful role models15. In addition to choosing engineering as a major in the firstplace, quality interactions with engineering faculty can have a significant impact on a student’sdecision to pursue graduate education, since such interaction provides the student with effectiverole models and mentors. Minority students perceive the status and environment of these rolemodels and use them to gauge how they themselves