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A Wellness Course for Engineering Students

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Conference

2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Portland, Oregon

Publication Date

June 23, 2024

Start Date

June 23, 2024

End Date

July 12, 2024

Conference Session

Cultivating Community, Wellness, and Character Development

Tagged Division

Chemical Engineering Division (ChED)

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/46509

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Paper Authors

biography

Glaucia Prado University of California, Davis Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-9153-5913

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Glaucia Prado is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in Chemical Engineering at University of California Davis. She began her career in food engineering from the University of Campinas (Brazil) before earning a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Alberta. She teaches a variety of courses such as thermodynamics and senior design and developed a new food engineering elective course for chemical engineering students that consists in applying engineering concepts in the context of food processing. Her research interests include students' wellness, scientific history, inclusive teaching, and food engineering. She has piloted a new class that focus on student's well being and success, community building, and providing academic support for chemical engineering courses.

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biography

Jason White University of California, Davis Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-4175-8788

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Dr. Jason R. White is an Associate Professor of Teaching in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of California, Davis. Dr. White has been a faculty member at UC Davis since 2015, and he teaches process design and economics, process safety, bioseparations, and senior laboratory courses. He has helped lead the creation of the CHEM E CAD and Industrial Automation club at UC Davis, and he has sought to develop authentic, project-based learning experiences for his students in his courses. Dr. White also serves as the accreditation lead for the chemical engineering program at UC Davis.

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biography

Sara Sweeney University of California, Davis

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Undergraduate Program Coordinator

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Abstract

Engineering programs are often rigorous, with high expectations and workload. As a result, poor self-care habits might be perceived as part of the engineering identity, where rigor, stress, and suffering are considered norms of being an engineer. This perception has been studied by scientists, and literature data suggests that undergraduate engineering students are less likely to seek help when suffering from a mental illness compared to non-engineering students. Good self-care habits contribute to overall physical and mental wellness, which is correlated with academic success in the context of engineering education. Not surprisingly, higher education institutions have developed and offer a variety of wellness programs. However, engineering students are less likely to utilize such resources due to their high workload and the stigma associated with engineering identity. Prioritizing self-care activities over coursework may be seen as violating a cultural norm within the engineering discipline. This behavior served as motivation for the authors to develop an elective wellness course housed in the chemical engineering department at the University of California Davis (UC Davis). By offering a course where participants allocate time with their engineering peers and faculty to discuss and practice self-care activities, we aimed that participants would experience a decrease in their stress level and gain training in how to care about their overall wellness. The objective of this work is to describe the development, structure, and activities of the new engineering wellness course at UC Davis, which was piloted during the 2022-2023 academic year. The main goal of the class was to guide students to develop and practice good self-care habits. Each class/activity focused on a self-care domain (cognitive, emotional, interpersonal, physical, practical, and spiritual). Additionally, activities were performed to build positive and meaningful relationships with peers and faculty. Students’ feedback indicated that the course helped to decrease their stress level during the quarter, and that the interaction with other students was a valuable part of the course.

Prado, G., & White, J., & Sweeney, S. (2024, June), A Wellness Course for Engineering Students Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/46509

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