2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Engineering graduate education has been the machine keeping research and development afloat for decades. There have been recent efforts to increase the number of students from underrepresented backgrounds admitted to doctoral programs. However, after admission, the problem of retention becomes salient for underrepresented minority groups (URMs) in academia [1]. As young Black engineers continue to enter advanced graduate studies, it becomes important to examine factors that impact how they enter and ultimately decide to leave the institution. In this work, we used the autoethnographic method to share our experiences and illustrate the issues faced by Black PhD students at elite research institutions. We relate our experiences chronologically starting with the expectations from peers once arriving on campus, moving into the expectation of solving a university's equity problems, and ending with the mental burdens of coping with an unhealthy work environment. All of these become factors that can impact whether or not Black PhD students decide to leave the program before completion.

Doctoral education begins with the submission of a strong application. While many resources lay out how to tailor an application to increase a student’s chances of acceptance, there is little criticism of the existing rhetoric surrounding doctoral programs and what they may offer a student long-term, especially in terms of education quality and support systems in place to ensure student retention. Once admitted to the graduate program of their dreams, challenges of identity alignment with peers can make integration a burden for minoritized groups like Black PhD candidates [2]. This integration struggle bleeds into the lab setting, which lacks proper internal oversight. A lack of emphasis on selecting PIs who are well-equipped to lead supportive and diverse laboratories coupled with a lack of diversity in the researcher and PI populations frequently leads to a toxic work environment that Black PhD students have the burden of navigating through during their entire doctoral program. We hope that sharing our experiences will serve as a reference point in the reformation of the graduate engineering education system. By challenging biases and fostering a more inclusive academic space, we aim to see an improvement in the graduation rates of Black doctoral candidates.

REFERENCES
[1] A. K. Shaw et al., "Differential retention contributes to racial/ethnic disparity in U.S. academia," PLoS One, vol. 16, no. 12, p. e0259710, 2021, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0259710.
[2] T. Schmader and C. Sedikides, "State authenticity as fit to environment: The implications of social identity for fit, authenticity, and self-segregation," Personality and Social Psychology Review, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 228-259, 2018.