-institutional study of students’ transitions fromtheir capstone (senior) design experiences into engineering work [21-24]. The sections belowdescribe the sites, participants, data collection, and data analysis.Site DescriptionsThe research study involves four different universities: two large public comprehensiveuniversities (one in the mountain west and one in the mid-Atlantic), one small public technicaluniversity in the southeast, and one small private college in the northeast. Three have a year-longcapstone design program and one has a four-semester design sequence that spans the junior andsenior years. All focus heavily on industry-sponsored projects; three also include faculty-sponsored and national-competition projects. All emphasize