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Engineering programs in the United States are faced with the challenging problem of decreased enrollment levels at the undergraduate level. This paper explores possible reasons behind this by obtaining feedback from high school students in order to understand their perspective. Junior and senior year high school students are surveyed on what career path they can see themselves pursuing and why, their impression of the nature of work performed by an engineer, their exposure to basic mathematics and physics that will prepare them for engineering, their interest in studying these subjects, their level of motivation to put in the hard work needed to master abstract concepts while studying these subjects, their awareness of the different opportunities for financial aid to support their college studies that they have access to, the requirements that they need to fulfill in order to satisfy admission criteria for undergraduate engineering programs, and the direction and support that they receive from the administration and faculty in their local high school while considering what they might want to study in college. The survey feedback is analyzed, based upon which recommendations are made that attempt to increase enrollment in undergraduate engineering programs.
Author(s):
Niranjan Desai
Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering
Purdue University Northwest
United States
Lucas Neuhold
Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering
Purdue University Northwest
United States