2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The Freshman Year Innovator Experience (FYIE) program at The University of X, a Minority Serving Institution (MSI), aims to enhance the freshman experience for incoming students by developing key academic success skills. The program is developing self-transformation skills in freshman mechanical engineering students to help them overcome academic and professional challenges exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. FYIE participants are taking two courses simultaneously: Introduction to Engineering (Course A) and Learning Frameworks (Course B). In Course A, students will complete a 6-week engineering design project, and in Course B, they are completing a 6-week academic career path project. During these parallel projects, timed interventions demonstrate the analogies between the engineering design process and the academic career pathways project. The objective is for students to realize that they can apply the design thinking skills they learn in the engineering design process to solve their academic career challenges. A pilot of the FYIE program began in the 2023 Spring semester, with instructors from Course A and B introducing the parallel projects. The pilot continues in the 2023 Fall semester, with refinements to the parallel projects and the definition of analogy intervention points for self-transformation. The authors of the paper will present the results from the pilot implementations, as well as discuss the challenges and future work. This proposed initiative is designed with the intention of adhering to the ongoing mission of the College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS) at the University of X to 1) increase the number of STEM degrees awarded to Hispanics, 2) broadening participation of females in STEM related fields, and 3) increase the persistence and self-efficacy in STEM fields amid COVID-19. This project is funded by NSF award 2225247.