2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Industry mentors can play a crucial role in facilitating the successful transition of engineering students into the workforce by expanding their professional networks and developing their soft skills. Prior research has shown that peer mentoring helps new students adjust to college life [1], and extending this concept to industry mentors gives students access to valuable professional knowledge and experience, easing their transition into the workforce. Ilumoka et al. [2] demonstrated that incorporating industry mentors led to a 55% increase in student interest and confidence in STEM subjects. Building on this, our project, funded by an NSF S-STEM grant, introduced an industry mentorship program in the third year of the XXXX S-STEM initiative.
The program targets students who have completed the Introduction to Engineering course and are, therefore, established in their chosen majors and becoming interested in internships and career paths. To initiate the program, we organized a forum where the principal investigators met with potential industry mentors to discuss our program expectations and industry’s goals for mentoring. Key takeaways included the importance of developing soft skills such as communication and teamwork, as well as providing students with opportunities to shadow engineers in the workplace.
Subsequently, a meet-and-greet session was held, where students interacted with each mentor, learning about their roles and experiences. After the event, both mentors and mentees completed surveys. Mentors provided feedback on their preferred modes of contact, the number of students they could mentor, and their willingness to host student visits. Students were asked to select five mentors based on traits critical to effective mentoring in the construction industry: being a good listener, willingness to share difficult information, comfort level, and knowledge sharing (Hoffmeister et al. [3]).
Once all the feedback is received, students will be matched with mentors based on their preferences, and the program will facilitate mentor-mentee interactions throughout the semester. Additional feedback from both mentors and mentees will be collected at the end of Fall 2024 to assess the program's impact, with the results to be included in the paper.
Preliminary feedback from students and industry mentors suggests that the industry mentoring program will positively influence student engagement and readiness for the workforce. Some students have already reported increased interest in specific industries or companies after the meet-and-greet event, and mentors have expressed satisfaction in contributing to the development of future professionals. Detailed results and recommendations for future iterations of the program will be discussed in the paper.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) S-STEM grant.
References:
[1] Leidenfrost, B., et al. "The Impact of Peer Mentoring on Mentee Academic Performance: Is Any Mentoring Style Better Than No Mentoring at All?" International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 26.1 (2014): 102-111.
[2] Ilumoka, A., Milanovic, I., & Grant, N. "An Effective Industry-Based Mentoring Approach for the Recruitment of Women and Minorities in Engineering." Journal of STEM Education: Innovations and Research, 18.3 (2017).
[3] Hoffmeister, K., et al. "A Perspective on Effective Mentoring in the Construction Industry." Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 32.7 (2011): 673-688.