Retention, success, and satisfaction of engineering students based on the first-year experience

A project-based course for first-year engineering students, called Engineering Exploration, was created an implemented with the goals of increasing retention, providing professional skills, increasing interest about engineering, and to aide in choosing an engineering major. Over 100 students have taken the course since its inception in Fall 2009. Retention rates, GPA, and opinions of engineering students have improved for the cohort of students who took the course. Minority retention however did not see a steady increase. Female persistence in engineering was also explored in this study. While beneficial for women, the course was not as beneficial for them as it was for their male counterparts. Women who took the course and subsequently recounted reasons for leaving as being primarily due to educational pursuits outside of engineering. Faculty involvement in the first year was crucial in students’ experiences choosing a major. Future goals are to offer the course to more students, continue to fine tune the curriculum to make it more beneficial, increase awareness to faculty members, create an engineering video library for tours and virtual problem solving, and to create a secondary project-based course in the second year, specific to particular engineering majors. In total, Engineering Exploration has proven to be a benefit to the first-year experience for engineering students.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Lydia Q. Prendergas