Introduction

Undergraduate engineering education has a responsibility to support equity in career attainment, or the acquisition of employment in a chosen field, of its students. Such support can broaden the participation of women and historically marginalized groups in engineering careers. While current engineering program enhancements are focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives to increase gender and race parity, for example, underrepresentation in engineering careers remains an issue. For example, the proportion of women graduating with engineering degrees from U.S. institutions remains at about 20% [1], while those who are considered historically marginalized in engineering only comprise 6% of the engineering workforce [2]. Furthermore, for equity within a pluralistic society it is important that all citizens receive equitable opportunities and that historic and current systemic challenges that marginalize those from particular demographics are remediated.

A comprehensive approach to DEI is needed to accomplish greater parity in engineering [3]. Currently, DEI in engineering education is primarily approached by separately addressing various milestones along the pipeline. For example, DEI in the K-12 engineering education system [4] is addressed differently than it is within engineering undergraduate programs, where the focus is on recruitment, retention, and success [5]. Additionally, DEI efforts after graduation include supporting career entry, retention in careers, and improved climate in the workplace [6, 7] as well as continued professional development and support throughout an engineer’s career. While more effort is needed in all places along the engineering pipeline, transitions to the workforce from undergraduate engineering education are under-investigated (e.g., [8]). Without accounting for DEI during this transition, equity across engineering will remain elusive.

While a multitude of factors are known to impact equity, less is known about how these factors affect the pursuit of careers from a student’s perspective. In order to make access to engineering careers more equitable, further research is needed to better understand how students approach the process of attaining a career in engineering. This study begins to address this inequity through a qualitative approach exploring the supports and barriers experienced by engineering undergraduate students in the pathway to career attainment at a large Midwestern University. We aimed to identify the types of contextual factors that impact career attainment as well as how engineering students’ positionality and other personal elements establish these factors as either a support or barrier. We defined our domain of study to include undergraduate engineering students’ employment opportunities during and/or immediately after undergraduate education. We also explored the differences with regards to these factors by engineering discipline for biomedical engineering (BME), mechanical engineering (ME), chemical engineering (ChE), and materials science and engineering (MSE), which are also the majors that BME students typically transfer to. Identifying potential diversity-oriented elements of students’ positionality and identity and major-based inequities could provide further insight for how to improve retention and maintain appropriate pathways into the growing engineering workforce.

Background

Engineering Workforce Pipeline and Climate

There is a high demand for engineers in the workforce to meet the growing needs of the changing economy [9,10,11], with an estimated growth of 6% by 2030 [12]. However, industry demand is not equal across all engineering disciplines. The traditional engineering fields (e.g., civil, mechanical, electrical) and the fastest-growing fields (e.g., computer science) maintain higher demands than other disciplines (e.g., BME), according to job recruitment analyses (e.g., [13, 14]) performed by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (e.g., [12]).

Despite this growth, industry demand for BME and other emerging disciplines remains at one-tenth of the demand for the traditional and fast-growing fields [12]. For example, at our institution, interest in directly entering industry upon graduation has been shown to be the lowest in BME students compared to other engineering majors [15, 16]. Even though the workforce demand is lower than that of other engineering disciplines, there is a growing interest in the BME major. Employment in BME was forecasted to grow 23% between 2014 and 2024 [17] and is currently expected to continue growing at 6% between 2020 and 2030 [18].

Although universities are making efforts to increase and diversify the engineering workforce, inequities continue to exist with respect to an engineer’s major, gender, race, social identities, and other personal factors. Of the women and historically marginalized students who do pursue engineering degrees, many prefer to enroll in certain engineering majors more than others. This discrepancy could be attributed to differences in how each engineering discipline traditionally presents and engages students with its technical content. For instance, Knight et al. [1] found that women students preferred engineering fields that cultivate multidisciplinary approaches, engage in real-world activities, and emphasize systems thinking. This may explain why majors like BME often enroll higher percentages of female students, while traditionally fundamental and theory-based disciplines like mechanical or computer engineering remain male-dominated [2].

During the career attainment process, company hiring representatives’ knowledge of the engineering field is one particular concern for students. Company hiring representatives may be more familiar with traditional disciplines (e.g., chemical engineering or mechanical engineering) because of the more consistent curriculum across different universities [19]. However, these company hiring representatives may lack understanding of BME, likely because the BME curriculum has more recently emerged, has evolved quickly, and often depends on the research expertise of the program’s faculty, which leads to variation in core coursework across BME programs [20]. These factors may contribute to uncertainty around industry representatives’ understanding of the role and capability of BMEs [19]. Unfortunately, this lack of understanding impacts the ability of students in BME and other emerging engineering majors to attain employment. One study observed lower hiring trends for undergraduate BME students pursuing industry relative to other engineering majors [21]. In our study, the number of companies interested in a major was different between majors. Our evidence from the larger study, as well as substantial anecdotal evidence from students and colleagues across the field, indicate that companies have a higher preference for some engineering majors over others.

University Resources that Promote Engineering Career Attainment

Universities provide a variety of resources to promote more equitable access to career opportunities, connect students with employers, and support engineering students’ career attainment. These resources often include courses and workshops, academic advisors and faculty mentors, engineering career services, career fairs, and engineering student organizations on campus. One study found that a course on career planning in STEM positively impacted students’ career search efficacy, with no variation by race, gender, ethnicity, or first-generation status [22]. However, performing a career search is only one part of the career attainment process.

Academic advisors and faculty members are often the first connections an undergraduate student might access for opportunities and resources towards career attainment. These individuals may distribute announcements and/or encourage their students to participate in career development opportunities. The ability for an academic advisor or faculty member to provide individualized, with respect to the student’s professional development and interests, and equitable, with respect to the student’s positionality and background, career support, however, is often limited by the faculty members’ own professional experiences and the student-to-faculty or student-to-advisor ratios within a given course or program.

Career services available to students on campus may include resume workshops, mock interviews, and career assessments. On-campus career fairs, often organized by career services, provide an opportunity to connect engineering students with industry representatives for co-op, internship, and full-time employment opportunities. However, career services professionals' beliefs about their role in supporting students range from providing one-on-one counseling and support throughout the students’ academic career to offering optional services for which students must be empowered to utilize [23]. Further, the career assessments used within this context lack participation of students from underrepresented backgrounds in the assessment development process [24], thereby creating an unbalanced perception of students’ needs and services offered to support career attainment.

Discipline-specific engineering societies, like the national Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) and American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), provide services to support members in the career attainment process. For example, the BMES Career Center [25] provides a platform for employers and job seekers to post and apply to discipline-relevant career opportunities. Similar opportunities exist through national gender-, race-, and ethnicity-specific societies, such as the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). These professional organizations and societies typically provide resources to the university via the establishment of on-campus student chapters.

By studying differences in the career attainment processes experienced by students during their undergraduate education, there is an opportunity to develop and provide universities with emergent, evidence-based interventions that could better support the inclusion and persistence of women and racially minoritized groups in engineering, as well as those from disciplines that face specific workforce challenges. This in turn would help support a larger and more diverse population ready to enter the engineering workforce.

Theoretical Framework

To support this research, we use social cognitive career theory, SCCT [26] as our theoretical framework. SCCT aims to explain the processes and mechanisms through which career and academic interests are developed, career-relevant choices are forged and enacted, and performance attainments are achieved [26]. The central idea of SCCT is that cognitive processes, such as self-efficacy and outcome expectations, are important to a person’s motivation to achieve a certain career outcome. In the context of our research, we used the Model of Career Choice [26] to represent our domain of study due to its explicit inclusion of the role of contextual influences, such as supports and barriers, which are capable of moderating students’ choices that impact their career attainments in engineering (see Fig. 1). Supports are considered factors that facilitate the process of career attainment while barriers are factors that impede access to resources and information that enable the career attainment process [26].

Fig. 1
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SCCT's model of career choice [26]

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Contextual influences include the motivating supports or hindering barriers along the path toward a student's goal [26]. Contextual influences can be either documented (e.g., parents' or siblings' careers) or perceived (e.g., industry biases against recruiting a certain engineering major) aspects of the environment. It is possible that undergraduate engineering students experience contextual influences in differing proportions that strongly contribute to workforce inequities, such as limited guidance or hiring bias related to major, gender, race, etc. It is also probable that students make decisions about their career goals and actions to pursue their career goal based on these contextual influences. Knowing more about what influences behavior within the career attainment processes can inform the extent to which students are impacted by workforce inequities. Therefore, using SCCT to frame our study allowed us to elicit the contextual factors within the career attainment process as well as how these contextual factors are experienced by students as a support or barrier.

Research Questions

To understand the dynamics of factors impacting undergraduate engineering students’ career attainment, we sought to answer the following research questions:

RQ1. What contextual factors are identified by engineering students as supports and barriers to engineering career attainment?

RQ2. How are engineering students experiencing inequities in their processes toward career attainment?

Methods

We used qualitative methods to elicit the supports and barriers undergraduate engineering students face with regards to the career attainment process. We conducted six focus groups, grouped by student demographics (described below), and thematically analyzed the transcripts to determine the supports and barriers experienced across the demographic groups. All data were collected through an approved Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocol, and consent to participate was obtained from all participants. Additionally, we referenced the Q3 framework [27] throughout data collection, analysis, and reporting to ensure quality throughout our research processes.

It is important to note that the data collected is part of a larger study. The purpose of that study is to develop a validated instrument to measure supports and barriers within the career attainment process for engineering students, which is currently in progress. The focus groups were conducted to explore participants’ experiences with supports and barriers in the career attainment process to inform the development of the instrument. During our exploratory focus group data collection and analysis, we found more insights from the participants’ experiences than would be captured in an instrument. We wanted to share these participants’ stories separate from the instrument validation, as they present unique, standalone findings.

Authors’ Positionality

As a research team, we embrace the perspective that positionality impacts research in complex ways beyond quality where selection of research topic, epistemology, ontology, methodology, relation to participants, and communication are also impacted [28]. In addition to including elements of the positionality of each author, we describe the process we used to leverage positionality as an asset in this research. We sought to include “full accounts of the ways in which the researchers' identities may have impacted the research process and outcomes” rather than only “abstract discussions or delineations of the research team's specific identities” [28, p. 20]. As such, we are a team comprised predominantly of women (6 out of 8) and people of color (5 out of 8). Three of our team members were also first-generation college students, who experienced limited knowledge on how to approach university success. As such, we can each recall supports and barriers based on our identities during our engineering career attainment processes leading to our selection of this topic and research questions. Navigating our positionalities in this research provided a high level of integration between the research team and the research process, and framed positionality as necessary for understanding research context and complexity. For example, we were cautious and considerate in our selection of focus group moderators, selecting individuals from our team whose positionality aligned with the focus group participants as best we could to support a sense of safety and belongingness within the discussion. This and other elements of our positionalities highlight our team’s understanding of how individuals must navigate environments where diverse perspectives are valued at varying degrees and students can often either be discriminated or privileged as a result. Our motivation to center these experiences as well as model the use of diverse perspectives in the research was central in ensuring that we produced high-quality research.

Recruitment

We recruited participants within a large Midwestern University who were enrolled in the BME major, as well as participants from three other majors that are the most frequently preferred for those transferring out of the biomedical engineering major: ChE, MSE, and ME [15]. These three additional majors were also selected to compare trends between newer engineering majors (i.e., BME and MSE) and more traditional engineering majors (i.e., ChE and ME). It is important to note that, as typical with many BME programs, the BME major at the university where this study was conducted has attracted a higher enrollment of women students, such that women represented 44.88% of the BME major compared to 24.18% of the University’s College of Engineering undergraduate student population in Fall 2021 [29]. Additionally, this BME program has enrolled approximately the same percentage of historically marginalized students as the University’s College of Engineering (9.31% and 11.38%, respectively) in Fall 2021 [29].

In order to recruit participants from the four identified majors (BME, ChE, MSE, and ME), we sent email invitations to academic advisors within each department to distribute to their students, as well as visited high-enrollment courses (e.g., introductory courses and capstone courses) to provide a short overview and invitation to participate. Students could complete a recruitment survey to indicate their interest in the study, which captured their demographic information, including gender, race/ethnicity, year in school, and major.

The intent of the study was to understand the shared experiences of participants, including how a student’s experiences with the career attainment processes differed based on major and other demographics. We therefore chose to conduct focus groups rather than individual interviews of the participants. Focus group participants were chosen from the recruitment survey using purposeful sampling, a technique which utilizes specific criteria to intentionally select participants [30]. The criteria for each of our focus groups were purposefully chosen so that the researchers could discern differences between gender, race, and year in school. Additionally, forming focus groups based on demographics also created a space in which participants of similar demographics could feel comfortable discussing their experiences in-depth while allowing the researchers to hear about shared and collective experiences among the group.

To define our criteria, we determined gender based on the students’ self-identified gender on the survey. We also used the students’ self-identified race/ethnicity, classifying the focus groups as “majority” or “minoritized” based on the University’s College of Engineering’s definition of historically marginalized in the annual statistical report [29]. Per the definition, we classified “minoritized” as Black or African American, Hispanic or Latinx, American Indian, Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander, and those that identify as two or more races including at least one of the previous categories. We defined “majority” as all other races/ethnicities not included in the historically marginalized definition, which in our study includes White or Caucasian and Asian. Lastly, we grouped year in school by early year and late year, defining “early” as second-/third-year undergraduate students and “late” as fourth-/fifth-year undergraduate students. Therefore, the participants were selected for each focus group based on whether their demographic information matched the pre-determined criteria for gender, race/ethnicity, and year in school. This purposeful sampling process resulted in a set of 6 focus groups with 3–7 participants each, summing to 30 participants. The focus groups’ characteristics are provided in Table 1. Note that because of the low number of recruitment survey respondents who met the historically marginalized definition, focus groups 3 and 4 were divided by gender but not by year in school.

Table 1 Focus group characteristics
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Data Collection

A semi-structured protocol was used to conduct the focus groups (see “Appendix 1”). Each focus group was facilitated by two members of the research team: a primary facilitator leading the questioning, and a secondary facilitator to take notes and ask follow-up questions. We sought to align facilitator positionality (race, gender) with those of the focus group as best possible. The protocol was structured into five primary categories of questions to elicit the participants’ experiences, focused on the supports and barriers faced within the career attainment processes: (1) career aspirations, (2) the context for career decisions, (3) actions taken to reach career goals, (4) supports received to assist with achieving career goals, and (5) barriers experienced during pursuit of career goals. The semi-structured protocol facilitated a group conversation that was allowed to meander to provide rich detail and scope, but also constrained and directed by the facilitators to remain within the context of career attainment processes and undergraduate education. Each participant received pizza and a $20 Amazon gift card for participation.

Data Analysis

Analysis of the focus group transcripts occurred in two phases: (1) developing an initial codebook of theory-driven and data-driven codes; and (2) creating a coding tree to identify themes in the data. We developed the codebook following the procedures recommended by [31]. This phase was iterative, such that an initial codebook was determined, the data were analyzed using the initial codebook, the codebook was refined to reflect the data through discussion within the analysis team, and the data were reanalyzed with the updated codebook. The second phase analyzed the data with the final codebook and determined the resulting themes. All coding was completed using NVivo software and the codebooks were developed in Microsoft Excel.

In Phase 1 of the analysis, we developed the initial codebook by identifying both theory-driven and data-driven codes [31]. To do so, we first generated codes from the SCCT framework (e.g. [32,33,34]), other studies that expanded SCCT’s supports and barriers (e.g., [35]), and engineering education research that previously utilized SCCT (e.g., [36]). Initial definitions for each code were also created based on the literature. Continuing to follow the procedure by DeCuir-Gunby et al. [31], the analysis team developed data-driven codes by noting which portions of the data were not captured by the theory-driven codes. To develop these emergent data-driven codes, we used descriptive coding [37]. Because descriptive coding is used to identify and inventory the topics in the data [37], this was an appropriate method for capturing data-driven codes. Once the initial codebook was determined, the analysis team independently coded the data using that codebook. After this initial coding, our team then met to refine the codes using the context of the data, which included updating codes and their definitions, and identifying example quotes from our data for each of the codes. The authors reanalyzed the data using the refined codes to ensure that the codes and definitions appropriately captured the data. After this second round of coding, the authors determined that no more changes were needed and declared the codebook finalized with 37 codes.

In Phase 2, the final codebook was first used by all authors to analyze the data. The authors examined the data and their codes to create a hierarchical coding scheme that organized similarly coded data into categories and the categories into overarching themes [37]. For example, the data that were coded with support from faculty, support from family, support from friends, support from peers, and support from staff were all clustered under the category we named support from others. This step, conducted in NVivo, resulted in 15 categories of codes. The authors also allowed for passages to be coded with more than one code, identifying overlaps and connections between codes. To determine the resulting themes, the authors exported the coding tree from NVivo to Excel and performed another round of clustering by examining the coded excerpts in more detail to group categories that were alike. For example, the categories mentoring experience, role of social media, role models, and role of others in the field were grouped under the theme implications of interpersonal relationships. The final codebook and descriptions organized by themes and categories are available in “Appendix 2”.

By grouping the data into themes that represent the contextual factors, we were able to explore the data in further detail to understand how the participants experienced each of these factors as a support and/or barrier to their attainment of a career. During this process, we leveraged our positionalities and lived experiences to interpret and make sense of the data. Memos were created for each theme to include the excerpts with relevant codes from each of the focus groups. Each excerpt was read carefully to identify whether the participant was describing a support or barrier. Sub-themes also emerged from the data, under which we identified commonalities and differences across the focus groups. Ultimately, these memos were used to synthesize the data, define the theme, and describe the experiences of the participants. This analysis resulted in five themes, which are presented in the “Results” section along with excerpts to highlight the participants’ experiences.

Limitations

Limitations exist in the study design with regards to sampling and context of the study. While efforts were made to capture the voice of both majority and minoritized students, the focus groups with racially minoritized students (focus groups 3 and 4) had fewer participants. This is due to this population’s limited enrollment in undergraduate engineering at our university. Conversely, there was an overrepresentation of women (n=21) in the focus groups compared to men (n=9). Furthermore, while the four majors of interest (BME, MSE, ChE, ME) were purposefully sampled, it is important to note that other factors may emerge if all engineering disciplines were included. Within this research we did not attempt to systematically reveal all possible supports and barriers throughout our analysis; we focused on those that were salient to the members of our focus groups. Lastly, because the study was conducted in one context at a large, Midwestern University, and centered only four majors within engineering, the transferability of results to other contexts may be impacted. For example, regions with more robust BME industry sectors and other institutions with a different configuration of majors may require additional contextualization.

Results

The data analysis resulted in five primary themes representing the contextual factors undergraduate engineering students experienced as supports and barriers to attaining a career in an engineering field: (1) implications of interpersonal relationships; (2) implications of institutional infrastructure; (3) implications of academics; (4) implications of social identity; and (5) implications of out-of-class experiences. As SCCT’s model of career choice posits, we found that these themes could act as both a support and/or a barrier to students’ choice goals and actions depending on personal factors, which we define as background, identity, positionality, personality, or other characteristics about the student. Personal factors may manifest in ways such as bias associated with race, gender, major, or year in school, which could either benefit or hinder a student’s process towards career attainment. Drawing on an SCCT perspective, the excerpts presented below demonstrate the overarching concept that personal factors have implications on the ways in which supports and barriers impacted the career attainment process for students. This is not to suggest that an individual student is in direct control of the extent to which each factor is manifested as a support or barrier, but rather that lived experiences, professional development and support, and opportunities for discrimination or marginalization can shift any of these factors from a support to a barrier, or vice versa. To organize our results, we answer RQ1 through the identification and definition of each of the contextual factors as themes; we answer RQ2 through the presentation of the excerpts that identify how students experienced inequities within each of the themes, where the theme has manifested as either a support or a barrier. We identify each excerpt with the focus group in which the student participated, rather than individual participant, to showcase the trends and shared experiences related to that focus group’s characteristics, as well as to protect the privacy and confidentiality of our participants (from Table 1).

Theme 1: Implications of Interpersonal Relationships

The first theme, implications of interpersonal relationships, is defined as the impact of others on the students’ career or major choice. This theme includes the factors that impacted student choice to pursue a major, such as having parents that were engineers, as well as those that dissuaded them from a major, such as senior peers or professionals they know in the field. In this theme, students described seeking advice from family, friends, peers, graduate students, postdocs, professors, or mentors in industry and academia. Furthermore, making connections and establishing networks to pursue career goals are also key aspects of this theme. The career attainment outcomes of this theme include finding internships through networking, realizing that personal networking is more important than the career fair to find an internship or full-time job, learning to use social media to network, and finding that it is important, although sometimes challenging, to be yourself when making connections. However, students also found that it is difficult to establish connections if you do not have a parent or mentor in the field to provide access to relevant networks. Students also described both positive and negative experiences with mentors in their internships, labs, classes, and other spaces that impacted their career choice. Examples of each of these thematic elements are provided in Table 2.

Table 2 Description of Interpersonal Relationships Theme
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The interpersonal relationships that students develop, including networking connections and mentors, has impacted students’ career attainment processes in the ways highlighted in Table 3.

Table 3 Representative Quotes for Interpersonal Relationships Theme
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Upon a holistic review of the excerpts, we found that connections, or meaningful engagement with others and building a strong network, provide opportunities and access that can be extracted to further students’ career attainment. Whether these connections were perceived as a support or a barrier depended on the students’ personal factors, such as personality or background. For example, when learning how to make connections within the workplace during their internships, a person with a confident, outgoing nature perceived themself to be more likely to build connections on a day-to-day basis. On the other hand, someone who lacks confidence or does not feel like they belong is less likely to develop the connections they need to support their career attainment.

Another key experience described across multiple focus groups was the utilization of familial networks, which depends on the amount of social capital held by the close familial figures. For example, if parents are connected within the field of engineering, the students can utilize their parents’ network to obtain career opportunities. However, networking through parents presents as a barrier when the student’s parents do not have connections within the field or lack social capital. In this case, the student must navigate career attainment processes independently, and as a result work harder to establish their own connections and career opportunities.

Students also mentioned the impact of role models and mentors, including postdocs, graduate students, upperclassmen, and managers and colleagues at internships. Here, the attitudes, comments, and/or actions of the role models (whether intentionally or unintentionally) can impact a student’s perception of a career path and their choice in major. If the undergraduate student has role models that are motivated and passionate about their work, then the student can also become motivated about the work and may select a similar career path as the role model. However, if the student sees their role model as dispassionate about or disconnected from their career or receives advice from the role model to not pursue a certain career, then the student may be dissuaded from a major or career path they were initially interested in pursuing.

Within this theme, students have also recognized the power of making connections and actively taking action to build their network within their career attainment processes. If a student looks positively at making connections, then they are interested in taking actions to promote their own career. However, if a student is coming from a marginalized background, they must put more effort into creating connections, such as networking beyond familial connections. While some students from marginalized backgrounds discussed that they do not like pursuing connections, they discussed the ability to sometimes persevere within this task because of the recognized benefit to both their own career and the future careers of others from similar backgrounds.

Theme 2: Implications of Institutional Infrastructure

The second theme, institutional infrastructure, is defined as the resources available to the students at the university that either enable or hinder their perceptions of decision-making within and approaches towards the attainment of a career. This includes both student-led organizations and university-provided resources. The student-led organizations range from affinity groups, such as SWE and NSBE, to club sports, such as racket ball club. The university-provided resources include academic advising resources (which can vary by major), career fairs, the career services office, and other job searching resources. Students recount the resources that they utilize, the challenges with finding appropriate resources, and the reasons they may or may not utilize the available resources. Participants also explain how these resources either supported or provided a barrier within their career attainment processes. Examples of these categories are provided in Table 4.

Table 4 Description of Institutional Infrastructure Theme
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Excerpts related to how the institutional infrastructure impacted engineering students’ career attainment are shown in Table 5.

Table 5 Representative Quotes for Institutional Infrastructure Theme
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Within this theme, students expressed how the institutional infrastructure and university resources either supported or were a barrier towards their career attainment. For example, some students’ strategies were to utilize as many of the university resources as possible to explore their career interests and seek employment opportunities. Others found the multitude of available resources to be overwhelming. Students described supportive academic advisors as well as those that were not helpful. Some found their internships or full-time jobs at the career fair while others found the career fair intimidating, and some described how participation in certain student organizations helped prepare them for the career fair and in career attainment more broadly. Despite the level of preparation, some students described facing discrimination due to their age, gender, or race when speaking with industry recruiters. These types of challenges made the career attainment process more difficult.

Similar to the first theme, whether institutional infrastructure acted as a support or a barrier within the career attainment process depends on students’ personal factors. If a student is willing and able to dedicate time and effort to engage with available resources, such as participating in clubs, opportunities to talk with faculty/administrators, or serving as a tutor, then the student may collect more information that supports their career attainment. Contrarily, a student may have had a negative experience that inhibits their motivation to find or utilize available resources, which could impact their acquisition of certain career attainment-related benefits.

Theme 3: Implications of Academics

The third theme, implication of academics, is defined as the impact of the classes in which the students are enrolled, the importance of grades, and the bias associated with major, rank, and gender. Students explained the impact of both in major and elective classes on their choice of major and career, and how the importance of grades decreases as they moved later into their academic career, especially once they progress through their major’s courses. This theme highlights how BME students experience more barriers to their career attainment than other engineering majors. For example, students indicated how they experienced academic major biases, such as BME not being viewed as a real engineering major and how there are not as many opportunities at the career fair for BME majors. Academic rank bias manifested as companies not hiring as many early year-undergraduate students because they do not have as much applicable experience, such as coursework, internships, or leadership in student organizations, as the students who have been enrolled longer. Examples of each these thematic elements are provided in Table 6.

Table 6 Description of Implications of Academics Theme
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The structure of academics at the university has impacted students’ career attainment, particularly depending on their major, as seen in the representative quotes in Table 7.

Table 7 Representative Quotes for the Implications of Academics Theme
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Our data indicated an academic major bias between students of different engineering fields when job searching. If a student is majoring in what is perceived to be a more broadly applicable engineering major (e.g., ME), then they feel they can explore a larger breadth of course electives and internship sectors without experiencing a negative impact on their future career prospects. However, if a student is in a more specialized major (e.g., BME), then they described feeling the need to compensate by choosing to build depth of knowledge and skills within a single specialization, like biomechanics or biomaterials, in order to be viewed as competitive with mechanical or materials science engineers in career attainment. Additionally, students of these specialized engineering majors expressed how they were told by peers that their major is not a “real” engineering major. Companies at the career fair are hiring certain types of engineering majors, and often not hiring BMEs, even being told by recruiters that they do not have the necessary skills.

Students also experienced academic rank bias. Companies at the career fair were perceived to be not as willing to hire students in the first or second year because they do not have as much experience. Therefore, these students needed to put in more effort to find companies that would consider hiring a student of early academic rank. Additionally, students found that their GPA matters less as they progress through their major. For example, students found that company recruiters began to care more about the student’s prior internship or leadership experiences than their GPA as they progress through undergraduate education.

Beyond GPA, the classes in which the students are enrolled, whether in major or elective classes, impacted the students’ pathway towards career attainment. Some students found that they did not gain interest in or an accurate understanding of a major until they completed a course within that topic, sometimes leading to a change in major or career goal focus. However, if a student was not interested in or found a course too difficult, then they may be persuaded to pursue a different career pathway or engineering major or may even transfer out of engineering altogether.

Theme 4: Implications of Social Identity

The fourth theme that emerged in the data was implications of social identity. This theme includes students making career choices based on their socioeconomic status (SES), race, sense of belonging in engineering, the community they have built on campus, and how their identity (including race, gender, and other elements of their positionality) influences their pathway towards career attainment. Participants provided examples of how they used their SES and minoritized background as a motivation to pursue higher education, including the encouragement and support they received from their family or community. Students experienced their identities as a benefit, such as when joining an organization on campus with those of similar identities. Identities were also recounted as a challenge, such as when experiencing racial bias in the classroom or not being able to relate to others from similar backgrounds. Students described using their identity, and experiences that were shaping their identity, to make decisions within their career attainment processes. Examples of each of these thematic elements are provided in Table 8.

Table 8 Description of Implications of Social Identity Theme
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Example excerpts showcasing how the students’ experiences with career attainment are impacted by their social identity are available in Table 9.

Table 9 Representative Quotes for Implications of Social Identity Theme
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Within the theme of implications of social identity, students detailed how they leveraged their personal background as motivation to persist toward career attainment in engineering. For some, parents instilled a love of learning about race and heritage, and others described an understanding of racial bias, which contributes to their desire to broaden diversity within STEM. Conversely, others experienced their SES background and race as a barrier. Some indicated that they dislike engineering or school in general but felt obligated to persist so they can use their degree to help others from similar backgrounds or pave a path for younger generations to pursue engineering. Others questioned whether they should pursue a major outside engineering that offered more diversity and inclusivity.

Gender bias was also prevalent in the students’ experiences in academic settings. If a student was confident in their abilities, then they did not perceive certain experiences to be gender discrimination. However, some students experiencing gender discrimination in their classes may find it more difficult to join a peer study group. This experience acts as a barrier to career attainment because it makes the student question their choice in career and whether they will continue to experience this type of discrimination in their future jobs.

Sense of belonging and community building were other elements of this theme that impacted students’ pathways towards career attainment. Some students found groups on campus that relate to their identity, such as NSBE or the SWE, as a support system to connect to and get advice from others from the same background. For example, one student involved in SWE feels a sense of belonging because all the women engineers in that community are supporting each other. However, some have also found these communities to be isolating. Some students expressed that just because they are the same race or gender as others in these communities does not mean that they have had the same experiences. Others found that they are only able to organize into study groups with other minoritized students because other groups do not accept them. These experiences have led to a lack of sense of belonging or community for these students.

Ultimately, the students were developing their identity within these communities and using their identity as a driving force for their career goals and decisions. Some found communities on campus, whether in organizations or with their classmates, and decided that their career goals are going to be related to diversity and inclusion in engineering. Others found that they can also struggle to relate to others in their same community and have had to find other ways to be motivated in their career attainment processes, such as being motivated by the ability to give back to their community once they complete their degree program.

Theme 5: Implications of Out-of-Class Experiences

The final theme, out-of-class experiences, includes students’ experiences with extracurricular (e.g., clubs) and co-curricular (e.g., internships) activities that impacted their pathway towards career attainment. Students explained why they chose to be involved in extracurricular activities, including the importance of having leadership positions on their resume when job searching. However, students also expressed competing priorities between these activities and their schoolwork, making it challenging to become involved. This theme also includes experiences in co-curricular activities, such as internships, and how those impacted students’ pathways towards career attainment. Additionally, students described experiences with gender and racial discrimination within both their extracurricular and co-curricular activities. Examples of each of these thematic elements are provided in Table 10.

Table 10 Description of Out-of-Class Experiences Theme
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Students’ experiences with out-of-class activities and how those impacted their career attainment processes are shown in Table 11.

Table 11 Representative Quotes for Out-of-Class Experiences Theme
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Students who could list extracurricular activities and/or internships on their resumes expressed a more positive response from recruiters during the career attainment process. The recruiters explicitly advised students early in their education to pursue leadership positions as a way to demonstrate time management skills and strengthen their resume. However, some students found it challenging to become involved, for fear of falling behind in their academics. These students therefore prioritized coursework over out-of-class experiences, viewing these activities as a barrier to their academic success rather than a support towards their career attainment.

Students also found that internships and student organization involvement helped inform their choice in career. Some students used these activities to explore different career options. If some students enjoyed the organization or internship, they felt more likely to pursue a related career. Otherwise, they would select a different organization or internship in search of a better career fit. Other students demonstrated a fixed mindset about what graduates of a particular major accomplish in their career and felt disappointed or disillusioned when an organization or internship experience revealed something different.

Students also experienced gender and racial discrimination in the out-of-class experiences in which they participated. However, whether a student was able to turn this discrimination from a barrier into a support often depended on personal factors. For example, one woman student was determined to not let an all-male roster keep her from participating in a club and chose to ask another woman student to join her in attending a club meeting. Others found the engineering environment difficult to navigate and were unsure how to respond in certain situations. For example, one engineering student found it difficult to assert herself when working within a small group of men. Students further discussed how the values within a company, particularly with regards to diversity and inclusion, are an important aspect to consider during the career attainment process.

Discussion and Implications

The five themes that emerged from our analyses (i.e., the contextual factors impacting engineering students’ career attainment processes) may act or be perceived as either a support or a barrier depending on a student's personal factors. These personal factors can include a combination of the student’s demographics, year in school, major, SES, social and/or engineering identity, and personality. We found that the contextual factors also emerge in different forms depending on a student’s personal factors, including those that are innate (e.g., identity) or circumstantial (e.g., parents are engineers), and those that are explicit actions. Explicit actions can include those that students self-initiate to advance their potential for career attainment (e.g., leadership positions in student organizations, attending career fairs), or actions initiated by others (e.g., discrimination, mentorship). Our results indicate that a deeper, more individualized level of understanding of an engineering student’s contextual factors is needed to support their pathways towards career attainment. Each student interacts with the contextual factors through the lens of their unique combination of personal factors. This interaction can lead to the same contextual factor acting or being perceived as a support for some and a barrier for others. We also found across themes that a particular contextual factor that was intended to be a support may inadvertently act as a barrier to populations. For example, an on-campus career fair, which is institutional infrastructure intended to support students’ career attainment through access to company recruiters and job opportunities, may be a barrier to students from nontraditional engineering majors (e.g., BME) when companies attending the career fair do not hire these majors. It may also be a barrier to women engineering students who may experience harassment by the recruiters, to students of color who may face chilly reception within the fair, or to first-generation engineering students who may not know yet how to navigate a career fair. Similarly, a student affinity group, such as NSBE or an automotive club, intending to provide a community and foster a sense of belonging among those with similar social identities or interests, may be isolating for those whose experiences do not align with others in the group, such as having a different socioeconomic background from others or experiencing gender discrimination in a male-dominated club. The idea and nuance that a contextual factor can be both a support and a barrier was pervasive throughout all the themes.

By understanding how these intended supports also act as barriers, universities may be able to provide alternative measures to counteract barriers for these students, such as training students on how to navigate a career fair, training recruiters on how to appropriately interact with students, inviting companies to the career fair that will hire a breadth of majors, or offering a broader range of extracurricular or co-curricular activities. While some students may receive these counteractive measures through other means, such as those that learn how to navigate career fairs through seminars in their student organizations, others do not have these same opportunities. Undergraduate engineering programs can further support their students’ success and equity by understanding the nuance of students’ interactions with contextual factors and identifying the supports and barriers faced within their system.

Our results also uncovered three ways students made choices and tradeoffs regarding their career attainment based on their personal factors and perception of the contextual factors as a support or barrier. First, as students advance through their engineering program, they gain a greater awareness of the supports available, the implication of utilizing these supports, and also how to leverage them for career attainment (e.g., attending networking nights with companies prior to the career fair). For example, discriminatory factors are more difficult for early career students to perceive; therefore, students learn more about how to overcome barriers related to discrimination as they mature academically. Students begin to leverage the contextual factors to varying extents as they move through the program and continue advancing towards their career attainment goals. Second, based on students’ knowledge of how to leverage the supports available, some students made conscious tradeoffs in pursuit of their careers. For example, as students progress through their engineering major, they gain a perception that companies value certain items on their resumes, such as leadership positions and internships, more than they do grades. These students must then make a choice between becoming involved with extracurricular activities that offer leadership opportunities or spending their time on schoolwork and grades. Thirdly, there were often barriers to making choices regarding career attainment. For example, students may not know where on campus to get the support needed. Or those who are intimidated by the career fair and/or do not belong to organizations that provide career fair preparation resources may choose not to attend the career fair. A student who perceives contextual factors to not be as important in the career attainment process will choose to spend their time on other tasks to achieve their goals. However, those that perceive activities as providing value for their future career attainment will actively engage in those experiences [38]. Therefore, it is important for universities and companies to clearly articulate the distribution of values placed on various activities so that students may choose to spend their time and effort appropriately.

The results of our study provide direct implications for universities, including administrators, faculty, and staff, as well as indirect implications for students and company representatives hiring engineering students. To start, undergraduate engineering programs should evaluate their methods for supporting students’ ability to attain careers at a more individualized level than at the aggregate, major-based level. Undergraduate engineering programs should also evaluate their programs and other career attainment-related offerings through the lens of a potential barrier to provide additional opportunities to counteract that barrier. For example, programs may add content to their survey, first year, or professional development courses on how to handle bias in student organizations, the career fair, or during their internships. There are also implications for equity in engineering education more broadly. We found that known barriers to employment, such as race, gender, physical appearance, ableness, and social status, continue to perpetuate throughout the engineering field [39,40,41,42] and the contextual factors we studied. Some students have had to learn how to navigate racial, gender, and other biases and discriminations at the career fair, in their classes, during extracurricular activities, or at their internships. For example, some students utilized their parents’ networks to find internships, while others, such as first-generation college students, had to put effort into developing their own networks with varying degrees of motivation and success. It is crucial for universities and engineering programs to continue to identify and dismantle these known barriers. While it is essential that these barriers are resolved with respect to equity in career attainment, it is also important to resolve these issues of inequity in engineering education and the engineering workplace more broadly.

Conclusion and Future Work

Our exploration revealed five themes (i.e., contextual factors) regarding the supports and barriers in the processes towards undergraduate engineering students’ career attainment: interpersonal relationships, institutional infrastructure, academics, social identity, and out-of-class experiences. Our analysis also revealed an additional layer: that a contextual factor may be a support and/or a barrier depending on a student’s personal factors. This finding begins to uncover a deeper understanding of the impacts on engineering students’ pathway towards career attainment and how universities should be supporting students’ career attainment success. Currently, supports for career attainment offered by universities, such as career fairs and extracurricular activities, are targeting engineering students based on major (e.g., undergraduate research, elective course offerings), gender (e.g., SWE), or personal interests (e.g., racket ball club). However, the nuance found in this study reveals a need for career preparedness to be more individualized, acknowledging that an intended support may also be a barrier for certain student populations. The implications of these results impact university administrators, faculty, and staff, including instructors, advisors, engineering career services, and career counselors.

Further investigation is needed to explain the landscape of supports and barriers within the career attainment process for undergraduate engineering students. The results of these investigations will support administrators, faculty, and staff in providing opportunities to students to achieve their career goals, with an understanding of the nuance that a particular opportunity may be a support for some students while a barrier for other students, or simultaneously both. However, there is a lack of existing SCCT-based career assessments in STEM that were developed utilizing underrepresented populations [24]. Trends and similarities in student experiences suggest that an instrument to measure career attainment would provide value. Therefore, the results of this study are being utilized by the research team to design and validate a more comprehensive assessment regarding the supports and barriers to engineering students’ career attainment. By considering the experiences, approaches, and understandings of career attainment opportunities, activities, and processes of engineering students, particularly underrepresented students, universities will be able to provide the tailored and varied solutions needed to support students’ career success.