2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

More than ever, the world needs innovative products, services and organizations to help society move forward. Those who will design these advances need opportunities in college to both develop and apply elements of the entrepreneurial skillset in ever-growing ecosystems and new engineering applications. Our Fellows are a select group of students that bring a passion for innovation and entrepreneurship to their academic, career, and life goals.

Believing that entrepreneurial thinking and action can be nurtured and taught among engineering students, Fellows access a flexible yet disciplined pathway to develop a growth mindset, systems understanding, networking and practical skills to build and foster resilient organizations and communities. Each year, ten fellows are selected prior to their first year of college, starting a four-year quest to test and develop their entrepreneurial strengths on and off campus. They are selected through a rigorous process involving essays, interview, and a dynamic assessment. Potential candidates are identified by admissions personnel during the application process and encouraged to submit supplemental essays through the common app to apply to the program. The goal of the extensive application process is to find students who are committed to developing entrepreneurial skills and are up for the challenge of thriving in an immersive program in addition to their academic pursuits. After admission, each cohort accesses eight semesters of intentional education and experiences, exploring their strengths and passions, identifying and pressure-testing interests/ideas in teams, enhancing their creativity and maximizing their extensive opportunities for growth.

The Fellowship is structured to be developmental. Students gain increasing levels of experience, responsibility, and leadership across their four years. Starting with an internal assessment of their own values, interests and heart/head alignment, they learn to think like an entrepreneur, reframing problems as opportunities, harnessing creativity to drive change, and finding mentors and connections in their interested fields. They gain hard skills such as project/team management, financial acumen, systems thinking, communication, and data analysis through coursework and external certification. Then, they have the opportunity to pressure test their ideas in real world settings, including not-for-profit organizations (first-year), commercial enterprises (summer internships and second year), and their own conceived venture (third and fourth years). In each case, fellows are individually aligned to businesses that allow them to showcase their recently acquired skills and entrepreneurial passions. Fellows spend 20-30 hours per month in training and practice, receive a monthly stipend and earn a $4,000 professional development grant during their third year in the program.

Fellows show drive and intrinsic motivation to impact their world, along with a relentless focus on problem solving. Fellows bring high expectations, ambition and the humility to collaborate with others in an authentic and respectful way to achieve exceptional results. By their 3rd and 4th years, they are expected to build or contribute to ventures the couple their engineering skills and mindset to varied fields and interests, impacting diverse groups of people in the academic community and beyond.

This Fellowship is currently in its third year of operation with 25 members across three cohorts. The conference presentation and paper will focus on three main areas of the fellowship:
• Creation of the fellowship: growing pains and lessons learned
• Scaling and integrating the fellowship into the academic ecosystem
• Continuous assessment of the program, fellows, and community impact