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For any student in the first year of an undergraduate program, there are an overwhelming number o... more For any student in the first year of an undergraduate program, there are an overwhelming number of decisions to make. One of the biggest of these is choosing what to study. This choice is influenced by many complex factors and is difficult to predict or fully understand. A better recognition of why a student opts into and stays in a major could yield a deeper understanding into how students choose a major and what they expect from engineering careers. This paper examines students who chose chemical engineering and completed a set of surveys administered during their first year of study. The surveys contained questions that were both quantitative and qualitative in nature. In total, 32 complete response sets were included in the analysis from students who answered all three surveys and chose chemical engineering as their major in any of the three surveys. These responses were selected to investigate the major selection path of students who opt in and stay in the chemical engineering ...
In understanding undergraduate students’success in college, their choice of career path must be f... more In understanding undergraduate students’success in college, their choice of career path must be fully understood. Differentpaths are appropriate for different students, and even a student may not fully grasp what will work best for them.Understanding the mechanisms behind a successful choice in college major is important for several reasons. Retention isnecessary for the continued health of engineering programs. One of the earliest steps in this career path is selecting a major.Research has been done investigating major selection across all majors, and even focusing on STEM careers. This researchhas frequently overlooked the broad variety present in engineering majors with very limited research conducted thatdistinguishes between one engineering major and another. This paper seeks to address this absence by surveyingengineering students from several different majors at three different institutions. The data for this paper was gatheredusing surveys of first year engineers at three di...
For any student in the first year of an undergraduate program, there are an overwhelming number o... more For any student in the first year of an undergraduate program, there are an overwhelming number of decisions to make. One of the biggest of these is choosing what to study. This choice is influenced by many complex factors and is difficult to predict or fully understand. A better recognition of why a student opts into and stays in a major could yield a deeper understanding into how students choose a major and what they expect from engineering careers. This paper examines students who chose chemical engineering and completed a set of surveys administered during their first year of study. The surveys contained questions that were both quantitative and qualitative in nature. In total, 32 complete response sets were included in the analysis from students who answered all three surveys and chose chemical engineering as their major in any of the three surveys. These responses were selected to investigate the major selection path of students who opt in and stay in the chemical engineering ...
In understanding undergraduate students’success in college, their choice of career path must be f... more In understanding undergraduate students’success in college, their choice of career path must be fully understood. Differentpaths are appropriate for different students, and even a student may not fully grasp what will work best for them.Understanding the mechanisms behind a successful choice in college major is important for several reasons. Retention isnecessary for the continued health of engineering programs. One of the earliest steps in this career path is selecting a major.Research has been done investigating major selection across all majors, and even focusing on STEM careers. This researchhas frequently overlooked the broad variety present in engineering majors with very limited research conducted thatdistinguishes between one engineering major and another. This paper seeks to address this absence by surveyingengineering students from several different majors at three different institutions. The data for this paper was gatheredusing surveys of first year engineers at three di...