Abstract

The U.S. must find ways to engage all of its population in advancing scientific and technological work. This must include efforts to admit and educate a more diverse array of students in terms of pre-college opportunity and preparation, as well as provide supportive environments and experiences to help these students succeed. For these efforts to be effective, it is important to hear directly from a diverse cohort of engineering students themselves. In an effort to gather first-hand data, forty-six students at the undergraduate, master’s, PhD and post-doctoral levels from across the nation participated in a virtual Listening Session in October 2022. This session was co-sponsored by the NSF-funded Engineering Research Visioning Alliance (ERVA) Project (Award #2048419) and the ASEE-National Academy of Engineering NSF-funded BPE Project “Conference: Weeding In Not Weeding Out in Engineering (Award #2232103). The findings from the Listening Session include activities that many schools already utilize, such as the need for application and project-based learning, but there are also suggestions that may challenge traditional approaches to supporting student success, including access to mental health resources and addressing housing and food insecurities.

DOI: 10.18260/3-1-1153-36079

Full-text PDF

Authors

Jenna Carpenter