Career Pathways and Aspirations of Humanitarian Engineering Students
Summary
Humanitarian Engineering (HE) programs aim to train engineers to improve the health, prosperity, and welfare of underserved and historically marginalized communities in America and abroad. These programs are growing throughout the nation and have the potential to recruit socially attentive students and students from underrepresented minority groups to engineering. However, there is limited research on the career paths of Humanitarian Engineering students after admission. We must build an understanding of HE career paths to connect HE programs’ rhetorical aim to HE graduates’ ability to manifest tangible, equity-oriented change in these communities.
Furthermore, movements are rapidly changing the HE sector. Humanitarian engineers are responding to these calls with urgency, and preliminary attempts to decolonize the field can be seen across organizational contexts. This research will determine how movements and value systems contribute to changes in student career aspirations and expectations. Further, we will collect how HE curricular, extracurricular, and internship experiences influence HE students’ career expectations, aspirations, and value systems.
Funding:
- Mortenson Center in Global Engineering Research Grant
- Research & Innovation Seed Grant Program
- Mortenson Center for Engineering for Developing Communities Graduate Research Assistantship
- Beverly Sears Graduate Student Grant Endowment
- Engineering Excellence Fund
Research Questions
What are the career aspirations, expectations, and pathways of (a) HE students and (b) HE practitioners?
(i) How do the career expectations and goals of students (mis)align with practitioner reality?
- How are movements and value systems contributing (if at all) to changes in these aspirations, expectations, and pathways?
- How are aspects of HE curricular, extra-curricular, and internship experiences influence value systems, career aspirations, expectations, and pathways?
Methods
This research project will construct person-centered ethnographies by collecting data through (a) longitudinal interviews with students over one to two years that are informed by (b) survey questionnaires and (c) interactions in a community-centered Discord page. We are partnering with eight other HE graduate programs to collect an array of HE student experiences. In addition, we are conducting interviews with HE practitioners to provide information on the current reality of HE careers and how changes in the sector may be changing HE career pathways. Data collection will be advised by and coded into themes. The outcomes of this research will include improving knowledge of HE student career path and value system development, creating research-based recommendations for HE education, and expanding frameworks for humanitarian engineering.
Working Manuscripts
Career expectations: “Exploring Concerns in Equity-Focused Career Goals Among Humanitarian Engineering Students: Investigating the Influence of Graduate Education”
- Research Questions:
- How are graduate students questioning their Humanitarian Engineering career expectations throughout a graduate program?
- How are Humanitarian Engineering academic and experiential learning experiences prompting students to question these career goals?
Motivation in Humanitarian Engineering Students
- Research Questions:
- How are students’ career goals motivated by value systems?
- What are the barriers and supports for students' career goals?
Community Cultural Wealth: Recognizing Cultural Capital in Humanitarian Engineering Students
- Research Questions:
- What sources of capital are marginalized HE students bringing to their Humanitarian Engineering education?
- How are and are not HE educational programs receptive to and amplifying these capitals?
Self-Efficacy for value systems in Humanitarian Engineering Students
- Research Questions:
- How are HE students practicing employing value systems during HE learning experience?
- What are common worldview shifts, interpersonal communications, community outcomes, and institutional system changes that HE students go through?
- How are HE students practicing employing value systems during HE learning experience?
Effects of Localization on HE Practitioners
- Research Questions:
- How do humanitarian engineers perceive where aid localization?
- How does aid localization contribute to changes in the Humanitarian Engineering sector and Humanitarian Engineering careers?
