2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The Iron Range Engineering (IRE) STEM Scholars program is supported through NSF S-STEM award (Award #2221441). Over its six-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 120 full-time students pursuing a BS in Engineering at Minnesota State University, Mankato (MSU). The IRE STEM scholars program provides a financially sustainable pathway for students across the nation to graduate with a BS in engineering and up to two years of industry experience. Students typically complete their first two years of engineering coursework at community colleges across the country. Students then join IRE and spend one transitional semester gaining training and experience to equip them with the technical, design, and professional skills needed to succeed in the engineering workforce; it is during this semester that students receive financial support through the IRE STEM Scholars program. During the last two years of their education, IRE students work in paid engineering co-ops, while being supported in their technical and professional development by professors, learning facilitators, and their own peers. Additionally, the project provides personalized mentorship for IRE STEM scholars throughout their pathway to graduation.

Currently in its third year, the project has supported 47 students, including 4 graduated students. All IRE students have completed survey data documenting their co-op experiences, engineering identity and engineering sense of belonging. Additionally, we have qualitative data, through interviews, from select IRE STEM Scholars on the aforementioned constructs, and the impact of those experiences on thriving, specifically their identity, belonging, and subjective well-being (mental and physical health). As part of a larger concurrent mixed-methods research study, we are exploring the following research questions: RQ1: How do undergraduate students’ engineering identity and belongingness develop over time in a co-op-based engineering program? RQ2: How do undergraduate students’ motivation and identity connect to overall wellbeing in a co-op-based engineering program?

In this paper we present data on IRE STEM scholars’ co-op experiences (co-op attainment, income, company information) and compare that to all IRE students using descriptive statistics. We found high co-op attainment rates and a strong sense of engineering identity (5.2 out of 6) and belonging (5.5 out of 6). We present initial thematic analysis of n=6 interview data and open-ended survey questions that show the connection between engineering belonging and co-op experiences. Future work will utilize these values to identify ways to better support the IRE STEM scholars’ identity development as they move into their first co-op experiences.