Engineering as a Pathway to Reintegration: Student Veterans' Transition Experience into Higher Education and Civilian Society

Abstract

Peter Tkacik is an Associate Professor of mechanical engineering within the motorsports focus area. His largest area of research is in the engagement of military veteran students and early career engineering college students through hands-on learning activities and exciting visual and experiential research programs. Other research activities are related to the details of the visual and experiential programs and relate to race car aerodynamics, vehicle dynamics, color-Schlieren shock and compressible flow imaging, and flows around multiple bodies in tandem.

The benefits of ethnographic research in exploring new intervention in STEM higher education programs

“…a way of seeing the experiences and perspectives of program participants that allows us greater depth in understanding program benefits and constraints that lead to stronger programs, better resources, and increased equity in STEM. Our endeavor is supported by other researchers in engineering education who continue to report woefully limited understanding about veterans' college transition experiences and perspectives and the particular resources and support that support such transitions (e.g., Lim et al, 2016).…”

Institutional Agents' Roles in Serving Student Veterans and Implications for Student Veterans in Engineering

“…Between August 2009 and December 2013, slightly more than 18,000 student veterans used their Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits to earn an engineering or engineer-related degree [25]. Lim and colleagues [26] revealed that "student veterans saw engineering as a bridge that connected their prior military work and their post-military professional aspirations" (p. 10). As such, engineering is a "successful transition pathway" into higher education and beyond [26, p. 13].…”

Veteran Student Leadership Skills in an Engineering Technical Writing Course

“…Finding ways to unite this group of students with traditional students in the classroom can be difficult [16]. Veteran and active duty students bring persistence and mental toughness for academic work stemming from their goal-oriented work ethic in the military [17], [18]. Some of these veterans and active duty students initially entered college after high school, performed poorly due to a lack of mental toughness and persistence, and then entered the military [19].…”