A Question of When Students Select the Civil Engineering Major

Brock E. Barry; Aaron T Hill; Kevin Taylor Scruggs

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Conference: 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Publication Date: June 22, 2025
Start Date: June 22, 2025
End Date: August 15, 2025
Conference Session: Focus on the First Year
Tagged Division: Civil Engineering Division (CIVIL)
Page Count: 11
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/55384

Paper Authors

biography

Brock E. Barry P.E. United States Military Academy

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Dr. Brock E. Barry, P.E., Professor of Engineering Education in the Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York.

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biography

Aaron T Hill Jr. P.E. United States Military Academy orcid.org/0000-0002-2441-4094

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Colonel Aaron Hill is the Deputy Department Head and Professor U.S. Military Academy in the Department of Civil & Mechanical Engineering, responsible for teaching, scholarship, and leadership at the Academy and Department levels. He was commissioned as an Engineer Officer from the U.S. Military Academy in 1997, where he majored in Civil Engineering. He has served in a variety of assignments around the world, including Afghanistan, the Sinai Peninsula, Bosnia, and Croatia. COL Hill served in the department from 2006-2009 and from 2016 to the present. Along the way, he earned Master’s degrees in Engineering Management (Missouri S&T) and Civil Engineering (Virginia Tech) and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (The University of Texas at Austin). He has taught several courses in the civil engineering curriculum ranging from structural engineering and steel design to infrastructure systems and construction management. Each spring, he co-teaches Project Management Professional prep classes to the Department of Defense community. His research interests include topics in structural engineering and engineering education. He serves as the Chair of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Committee on Education Chair and the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) Partners in Education Committee Vice Chair. Additionally, he serves as the Head Officer Representative for Men’s Basketball. He is a licensed Professional Engineer in Virginia and a Project Management Professional.

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Kevin Taylor Scruggs

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Major Kevin T. Scruggs is a Senior Instructor in the Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at the United State Military Academy, West Point, NY. He earned a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the United States Military Academy and an M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas, Austin. His research interests include transportation engineering, concrete materials engineering, and sustainable engineering practices.

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Abstract

On 15 November 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) became public law, providing $1.2 trillion of new funding for all 17 categories of infrastructure detailed in ASCE’s Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. While the passage of this law was a needed investment into our infrastructure's safety and improved resilience, it highlighted a glaring gap in the U.S. engineering and construction workforce. Some estimate that the design and execution of infrastructure under the IIJA will require 82,000 additional engineers! The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics published employment for civil engineers will grow by 6 percent over the next ten years. Universities must attract and develop more civil engineers to meet the needs of society! However, with only 24% of high school seniors in the U.S. proficient in mathematics and 22% proficient in science, civil engineering programs at universities must be intentional about investing both time and resources to attract top talent from a small pool. Further, programs within each university are often fighting for talent as university resources (funding, staffing, and space sharing), especially for those in financial stress, are often tied to the number of students within each program. Thus, for a number of reasons, it behooves academic departments to invest in the process of recruiting students to their programs. Developing an understanding of why students choose a particular academic major and when students make their academic major decisions is helpful for departments to ensure they are investing in effective recruiting activities and the timing of those activities.

Multiple studies have been conducted to investigate the various factors that influence the “why” behind a student’s choice of academic major. Many of those studies have focused on the choice of engineering as an academic major. A prior investigation by the authors of the current study looked at the specific factors that lead students to select the civil engineering major. While the “why” of selection has been extensively studied, the timing, or the “when,” has not been previously investigated within the civil engineering discipline and has seen only limited study within more broadly focused choices of academic majors.

The scholarly paper proposed in this abstract will detail a study structured around the research question of “when do students at one academic institution select the civil engineering major?” This study will build off the previously mentioned study that investigated why students select the civil engineering major. The proposed paper will provide a detailed description of the subject academic institution, the instrument used to collect data, and the student population. Background information and a literature review focused on the research question will be presented. The study’s findings and conclusions will be discussed.

This paper will be of interest to all civil engineering programs who want to ensure that they appropriately time their recruiting efforts to maximize student enrollment.

Citation
Format

Barry, B. E., & Hill, A. T., & Scruggs, K. T. (2025, June), A Question of When Students Select the Civil Engineering Major Paper presented at 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Montreal, Quebec, Canada . https://peer.asee.org/55384

TY - CPAPER
AB - On 15 November 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) became public law, providing $1.2 trillion of new funding for all 17 categories of infrastructure detailed in ASCE’s Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. While the passage of this law was a needed investment into our infrastructure&#39;s safety and improved resilience, it highlighted a glaring gap in the U.S. engineering and construction workforce. Some estimate that the design and execution of infrastructure under the IIJA will require 82,000 additional engineers! The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics published employment for civil engineers will grow by 6 percent over the next ten years. Universities must attract and develop more civil engineers to meet the needs of society! However, with only 24% of high school seniors in the U.S. proficient in mathematics and 22% proficient in science, civil engineering programs at universities must be intentional about investing both time and resources to attract top talent from a small pool. Further, programs within each university are often fighting for talent as university resources (funding, staffing, and space sharing), especially for those in financial stress, are often tied to the number of students within each program. Thus, for a number of reasons, it behooves academic departments to invest in the process of recruiting students to their programs. Developing an understanding of why students choose a particular academic major and when students make their academic major decisions is helpful for departments to ensure they are investing in effective recruiting activities and the timing of those activities.

Multiple studies have been conducted to investigate the various factors that influence the “why” behind a student’s choice of academic major. Many of those studies have focused on the choice of engineering as an academic major. A prior investigation by the authors of the current study looked at the specific factors that lead students to select the civil engineering major. While the “why” of selection has been extensively studied, the timing, or the “when,” has not been previously investigated within the civil engineering discipline and has seen only limited study within more broadly focused choices of academic majors.

The scholarly paper proposed in this abstract will detail a study structured around the research question of “when do students at one academic institution select the civil engineering major?” This study will build off the previously mentioned study that investigated why students select the civil engineering major. The proposed paper will provide a detailed description of the subject academic institution, the instrument used to collect data, and the student population. Background information and a literature review focused on the research question will be presented. The study’s findings and conclusions will be discussed.

This paper will be of interest to all civil engineering programs who want to ensure that they appropriately time their recruiting efforts to maximize student enrollment.
AU - Brock E. Barry P.E.
AU - Aaron T Hill Jr. P.E.
AU - Kevin Taylor Scruggs
CY - Montreal, Quebec, Canada
DA - 2025/06/22
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - A Question of When Students Select the Civil Engineering Major
UR - https://peer.asee.org/55384
ER -