2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

[UNIVERSITY] is a comprehensive university grounded in Catholic mission and a liberal arts core, including four professions-focused schools (engineering, business, education, and nursing/health). Engineering students often come to [UNIVERSITY] with an instrumentalist mentality (i.e., to learn engineering and get a good job) and appear somewhat cynical of the liberal arts core curriculum. In this study, we undertook a systematic, mixed-methods analysis of first-year students' perceptions of their curiosity before and after their first semester of college. Through quantitative surveys, qualitative surveys, and one-on-one interviews, we have developed a set of themes that indicate what engineering students are interested in, what experiences they found engaging, and how their first semester of college may have impacted those perceptions.

The results indicate that students seem socialized to STEM and technical interests, but their curiosity runs more profoundly and comprehensively than surface-level interest in STEM. The students appreciate opportunities for exposure to broad ideas, and the impact is strongest when they participate in a community of peers and faculty that makes curiosity matter. Curiosity among first-year engineering students is most apparent when they gain exposure to diverse and new ideas, people, and activities.

General curiosity should be encouraged at this stage of students' journeys, even though students may not see the benefits of generalized breadth until many years after college. Focusing their curiosity too narrowly and too early might dull it in a way that ultimately does a disservice to career and technical success. One could see this as a short-term versus long-term game.