2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Recent years have seen a growing interest among engineering education researchers in studying and improving engineering students’ mental health. A picture of the state of engineering students’ mental health has begun to emerge, and it is clear that there are many unmet needs among this population. Aspects of engineering education that undermine students’ mental health have been identified, along with implications for engineering educators and administrators. In this paper, we turn to another aspect of the system: counseling and disability service centers. Based on interviews with undergraduate engineering students at five universities in the United States who had a variety of mental health diagnoses, we explore the challenges they encountered when trying to access counseling and disability service centers. The stories students shared bring to light important challenges and deeper insights into the experiences that characterize barriers previously identified.