2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Sustaining Graduate Student Professional Development with Near Peer Group Led Activities

Presented at GSD Session 1: Professional Development

Students pursuing interdisciplinary STEM research and degrees may feel unique or isolated within their degree programs because they miss out on a coherent academic community and identity that most scientists and engineers take for granted. A U.S. Public University's interdisciplinary graduate engineering program has successfully addressed some of these challenges with a two semester sequence of one credit courses focused on professional development topics. This course’s goals continued to receive support for another academic year through a follow-up near-peer led group comprising students who had previously completed the course. These students designed and implemented continued professional growth activities among the PhD and Masters seeking group members for one academic year. This study explores the potential benefits of this student-led group. At the end of one academic year, a focus group was held for leaders of the post-course cohort, and a second for the remaining members. Transcripts were coded using the college student thriving frameworks of Coe-Nesbitt et al. and Schreiner, and emergent themes were noted. Most, though not all, members articulated descriptions of thriving that were consistent with several aspects of the two thriving frameworks. We explored two research questions. First, how do interdisciplinary graduate students in a near-peer led professional development group describe thriving in graduate school? We also explored how the near-peer led professional development group experience factors into the students' self-descriptions of thriving or not thriving within their graduate program. We found that both near-peer leaders and other members demonstrated group agency in seeking support from within and beyond the group. We provide suggestions to transfer these to other graduate programs.

Authors

Ms. Susan Wainscott http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9994-0956 University of Nevada - Las Vegas [biography]

Susan Wainscott is the Engineering Librarian for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas University Libraries. She holds a Master of Library and Information Science from San Jose State University and a Master of Science in Biological Sciences from Illinois State University.
Prof. Satchi Venkataraman http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9217-2170 San Diego State University [biography]

Satchi Venkataraman, Ph.D., is a Professor of Aerospace Engineering. He has served as Graduate Advisor for the Aerospace Engineering program (17 years) and as an Associate Director at the Computational Sciences Research Center at San Diego State University (11 years). His expertise is in computational mechanics and optimization applied to design of lightweight and durable composite aircraft structures. He has extensive experience in developing programs for student professional development and broadening participation (co-PI and PI on three NSF S-STEM grants).
Ashley Schwartz San Diego State University
Dustin Thoman San Diego State University [biography]

Dr. Dustin Thoman is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Center for Research in Mathematics and Science Education at San Diego State University. He also serves as California Research Director for Motivate Lab. His scholarship is grounded in social psychology, diversity science, and a social contextual framework of motivation. He studies how motivation can be supported or disrupted by the social and cultural contexts in which interests are sparked, developed, and ultimately become (or not) lifelong pursuits. He and his team utilize insights from motivation science to identify and remove institutional and social-contextual barriers that impede the development of educational and career interests for students from marginalized and historically underrepresented backgrounds. Improving equity and inclusion is at the heart of his team's research and translational work to support research on equity and inclusion in STEM education.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 21, 2026, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 24, 2026

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