How self-identification and views of engineering change with time: a study of students and professionals

Engineering identity has been linked to both educational and professional persistence, but little has been reported on the views of professionals. The purpose of this study was to understand the relationship between engineering identity for students and professionals and how self-identification as an engineer changes over time and with certain key experiences. We surveyed a cross-section of undergraduate engineering students and alumni, within 10 years of receiving their undergraduate engineering degree, from the same institution during the spring of 2009. The survey yielded over 700 student responses and over 500 responses from alumni, and the differences in terms of who self-identifies as an engineer and what factors are viewed as most critical to engineering are reported. It was found that for both students and alumni work experiences are critical to self-identification but that gender was significant only for students. Finally, alumni were almost universally more selective in defining what factors (behaviors, experiences, etc.) are necessary to be considered an engineer. The one notable difference was in establishing relationships with fellow engineers in which a much higher percentage of alumni than students recognized it as necessary to be considered an engineer