2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Feeling a sense of engineering identity is essential to becoming an engineer. However, for many women in engineering, developing an engineering identity is challenging. In addition, engineering spaces are often spaces of religious intolerance or indifference, making the melding of identities and feeling able to bring one’s whole self to the profession difficult. This qualitative, phenomenological study – part of a larger, National Science Foundation funded project – is focused on two broad questions: (1) How does an undergraduate college student develop their engineering identity? (2) How does the religious identity of an undergraduate college student influence the development of an engineering identity?

This study represents a deep dive into the lived experiences of one engineering woman college student’s experience. Over a three-interview series, this student’s journey demonstrates how her religious identity and experiences as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) influences her engineering identity. Foundational LDS teachings (e.g. continuous learning, community engagement) have positively shaped her engineering identity. She is devoted to continuous learning of engineering concepts similar to her devotion of LDS teachings. Informed by her LDS religious identity, she believes that she must use the engineering gifts given to her to better the world.

Her religious identity enables her to stay true to her values as she navigates how to engage with both the engineering and her community. She expresses concern about being perceived as using both engineering and her religion (i.e. LDS, a faith that has a complex history of persecution and white supremacy) to become the “white savior” of racially and ethnically marginalized communities. During college, she struggled to see herself as an engineer, but by bringing her full self to the engineering context (i.e. woman, religion) engineering has become a salient part of her core identity and career trajectory.