Improving Minority Students’ Career Readiness Through Enhanced Senior Design Experiences

Hua Li; Ricardo Miguel Garcia Pineda; Kai Jin; Jaya S. Goswami

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Gulf Southwest Annual Conference
Location: Prairie View, Texas
Publication Date: March 16, 2022
Start Date: March 16, 2022
End Date: March 18, 2022
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 7
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--39186
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/39186
Download Count: 225

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Paper Authors

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Hua Li Texas A&M University - Kingsville orcid.org/0000-0002-7306-8298

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Dr. Hua Li, a Professor in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, is interested in sustainable manufacturing, renewable energy, sustainability assessment, and engineering education. Dr. Li has served as P.I. and Co-P.I. in different projects funded by NSF, DOEd, DHS, NASA, USDA, etc.

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Ricardo Miguel Garcia Pineda Texas A&M University Kingsville

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Kai Jin Texas A&M University - Kingsville

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Dr. Kai Jin is a Professor of Industrial Engineering and Co-PI of the MERIT project. Her research interests include Sustainable Energy, Green Manufacturing, Quality Control, and Multi Objective Decision Making and Optimization as well as Engineering Education. She has served as PI and Co-PI in several NSF, NIST, DoEd, NASA, USDA and industry sponsored projects.

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Jaya S. Goswami Texas A&M University-Kingsville

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Abstract

The pathway to graduation can become confusing and lack the support needed for minority students to navigate their career goals successful and gain the types of experiences that foster a successful career upon graduation in STEM majors. Capstone design course is a critical component in most engineering and science undergraduate curricula to preparation senior students for their future STEM careers. Capstone design courses at this minority serving institution always involve capstone design projects, while each project team consists of 3-6 senior students. However, the quality of capstone design projects does not always meet the expectation due to the limited resources and support at the minority serving institution. Due to the changing of educational standards and of credit hour shrinking for undergraduate degrees, the practical and hands-on aspects of engineering and science (such as design and experiment) have been gradually deemphasized, and nowadays curriculum is focused more on theory, less on practice and real-world problem solving. To bridge the gap between concept and practice, engineering and science undergraduate programs have been pushed to incorporate capstone design courses in their curricula, where senior students can put their knowledge to practice through team projects. Although capstone courses are now standard in engineering and science programs across the US, the associated required logistics and the availability of project ideas have not reached an optimum - particularly for small engineering and science programs, and for programs with limited ties with the industry. It is known that the educational quality of the senior capstone design experience is dependent on the possibility of validating and testing the prototypes designed and built by students. In this paper, it discusses the impacts of different enhanced activities on senior students’ capstone design experience. Three major activities were provided to selected capstone design teams, including mini grants, professional development training, and financial literacy training. The program design and survey results will be discussed to share the experience on improving minority students’ career readiness through the three major activities.

Citation
Format

Li, H., & Garcia Pineda, R. M., & Jin, K., & Goswami, J. S. (2022, March), Improving Minority Students’ Career Readiness Through Enhanced Senior Design Experiences Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Gulf Southwest Annual Conference, Prairie View, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--39186

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - The pathway to graduation can become confusing and lack the support needed for minority students to navigate their career goals successful and gain the types of experiences that foster a successful career upon graduation in STEM majors. Capstone design course is a critical component in most engineering and science undergraduate curricula to preparation senior students for their future STEM careers. Capstone design courses at this minority serving institution always involve capstone design projects, while each project team consists of 3-6 senior students. However, the quality of capstone design projects does not always meet the expectation due to the limited resources and support at the minority serving institution. Due to the changing of educational standards and of credit hour shrinking for undergraduate degrees, the practical and hands-on aspects of engineering and science (such as design and experiment) have been gradually deemphasized, and nowadays curriculum is focused more on theory, less on practice and real-world problem solving. To bridge the gap between concept and practice, engineering and science undergraduate programs have been pushed to incorporate capstone design courses in their curricula, where senior students can put their knowledge to practice through team projects. Although capstone courses are now standard in engineering and science programs across the US, the associated required logistics and the availability of project ideas have not reached an optimum - particularly for small engineering and science programs, and for programs with limited ties with the industry. It is known that the educational quality of the senior capstone design experience is dependent on the possibility of validating and testing the prototypes designed and built by students. In this paper, it discusses the impacts of different enhanced activities on senior students’ capstone design experience. Three major activities were provided to selected capstone design teams, including mini grants, professional development training, and financial literacy training. The program design and survey results will be discussed to share the experience on improving minority students’ career readiness through the three major activities.
AU  - Hua Li
AU  - Ricardo Miguel Garcia Pineda
AU  - Kai Jin
AU  - Jaya S. Goswami
CY  - Prairie View, Texas
DA  - 2022/03/16
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Improving Minority Students’ Career Readiness Through Enhanced Senior Design Experiences
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/39186
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--39186
ER  -