The Effect of Cooperative Education on Retention of Engineering Students & the Transition to Full-Time Employment

What is it about?

This study expands on the findings from an NSF funded study entitled “Pathways to Self-Efficacy and Retention of Women in Undergraduate Engineering” which investigated reasons for low representation and retention of women in STEM fields. In this paper, we report on qualitative analysis from a recent pilot study involving in-depth interviews from five engineering students in their final academic year of study and a set of five engineers interviewed within eighteen months of commencing their first full-time job in an engineering career field. All subjects previously completed several terms of cooperative education (intensive work study) within the same agency.

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