Entering the Engineering Pathway: Student Veterans’ Decision to Major in Engineering

Abstract

As the engineering community seeks to widen the pathways toward engineering education, hundreds of thousands of military veterans are initiating their college studies at universities across the U.S. Given this trend, it is essential to better understand the factors that lead student veterans to choose to major in engineering.We are conducting a comparative case study at four institutions enrolling undergraduate student veterans in engineering (SVEs). In this paper, we draw upon in-depth interviews conducted with SVEs at two of these institutions to: (1) better understand the factors that shape SVEs' decisions to major in engineering and, (2) determine whether and how the military influences student veterans' decisions to major in engineering. Our work provides insights into the timing of the decision as well as the extent to which military training and experiences provide a direct, or indirect, pathway into engineering.We highlight student experiences to advance knowledge about SVEs' educational pathways on several fronts. Methodologically, our in-depth analysis allows us to capture the nuanced nature of SVE narratives that often remains hidden when using other approaches to studying engineering education. Theoretically, we draw from Cognitive Information Processing theory to more accurately reflect SVE decision making about majoring in engineering. Practically, the results can inform military transition assistance programs and improve university efforts to ensure that student veterans experience a successful transition from their military career to higher education and engineering studies.

Beyond pipeline and pathways: Ecosystem metrics

“…FYE programs, for example, help students make informed choices about their majors, resulting in improvements in graduation rates (Orr et al, ). An ecosystem perspective helps institutions demonstrate the need for and capture the effect of specialized programs for historically underserved groups such as military veteran students in engineering (Brawner, Main, Mobley, Lord, & Camacho, ; Ford & Ford, ; Mobley, Camacho, Lord, Brawner, & Main, ; Napoli, Sciaky, Arya, & Balos, ). The emergence of innovative degree programs that allow engineering students some flexibility, embed interdisciplinary perspectives, and explicitly combine the social with the technical suggest that changes are underway.…”

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

“…The establishment of the Military and Veterans division within the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) affirms the growing interest in student veterans in engineering. Prior work describes the various pathways from the military to engineering education [28] and indicates that leadership skills and experiences acquired in the military play an important role in the academic experiences and success of SVEs [29], [30]. SVEs are able to utilize unique military-based problem-solving skills to succeed in variety of engineering classes, including capstone courses [31].…”

Military Veteran Students’ Pathways in Engineering Education (Year 6)

“…During year six, we have continued with the dissemination of research results in a variety of venues for a range of audiences, including engineering educators in the US, engineering educators from across the world, student affairs administrators who work with veterans, the Student Veterans Association (SVA), and the general public [2,3]. In addition to this paper for the 2020 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference NSF Grantees Poster Session, this project has yielded three published journal articles [4,5,6] and seventeen published conference papers [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23]. We did a presentation at the 2019 Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity (CoNECD) conference in April 2019 [24], a poster [25] at a sociology meeting, two conference special sessions at engineering education conferences [26,27] and three workshops for student affairs professionals and engineering educators [28,29,30].…”

“…We delivered an informal session at the 2018 SVA national conference and a presentation at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association [31]. We presented a paper in the inaugural ASEE Military and Veterans Division and received the Best Paper Award during the Division's second year [13]. In addition, one member of our team participated in a panel for this division [32].…”