2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This study explores students’ perceived challenges in their interpersonal interactions with their faculty advisors and peers, and stressors that are perceived to disrupt their ability to perform academically and professionally. Our analysis focuses on the similarities and differences between master’s and doctoral, and domestic and international students. This paper will present identified challenges/barriers and will also serve as a practical first step to developing tailored and effective support structures for different student groups.

It is widely accepted that there is a need to improve experiences among engineering graduate students and to disrupt norms that contribute to the culture of engineering colleges being unwelcoming. Examples of such norms include an advisor-advisee relationship that can be characterized as a supervisor-supervisee relationship, where dominant interactions are focused on academic (vs. psychological and social) matters. Student progress and funding are often closely tied to the advisor’s research, which can also impact relationships. Another norm are the experiences that occur within engineering lab settings. Collaborative laboratory spaces are where many graduate engineering students develop their expertise and acquire knowledge through spending intensive time on collaborative projects with other peers. Peer relationships among graduate students within lab-based disciplines were pointed out as a vital aspect of graduate training that is influenced by the factors associated with lab-based settings, including the lab structure and lines of communication, and departmental culture. In addition to such norms, unique student demographics in graduate engineering education has diversity not only in students’ race/ethnicity and gender but also in their citizenship, which is also known to impact students’ experiences with peers and faculty due to associated linguistic and cultural differences.

In response to these needs, the College of Engineering at a research-intensive, primarily-white U.S. university in the mid-Atlantic US, developed a one-credit seminar course to be completed by almost every incoming graduate student. The seminar course was developed based on an assessment performed by the College of Engineering Dean's Office and the Graduate School that revealed the adviser/advisee relationship was a key area affecting student success. Data were collected from engineering graduate students who have enrolled in the seminar course from Fall 2019 to Fall 2022. Students completed a survey that includes closed-end questions on the perceived academic, social, and psychological stressors, open-ended questions on the perceived challenges in diverse aspects of their graduate experiences (e.g., advising relationship, faculty/peer interactions, perception of inclusiveness in their program, etc.), and a demographic survey. Our analysis focuses on comparing and contrasting the unique challenges and barriers among different student groups (e.g., master’s vs doctoral students, and domestic vs. international students) while considering the unique characteristics of engineering graduate education (e.g., multicultural nature of the environment, advising relationship characterized as a supervisor-supervisee relationship, etc.). Analyzing the responses using a thematic analysis approach is in progress, and we will discuss our findings from the four-year trajectory of this seminar course for over 1,500 graduate students from 12 different engineering departments.