School was something to endure. Many described themselves as “not that smart” despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Our specific finding – students from most undergraduate programs reported that they are exhausted and lack confidence in their abilities, making graduate studies look like “more of the same grind”

At the outset of this project, we heard a common complaint from administrators. “Our students just aren’t that creative.” The assumption was, transformative research wasn’t happening because institutions weren’t able to recruit the right kind of students. Our research counters this notion. We found no shortage of creative energy within this community, it’s just that the student found no way to bring their creative thinking into their engineering education.

Many of them described moving to industry as a freeing experience. It was as if once they were in industry the real fun could begin. This ran counter to so many fields in which industry is seen as a constrained place where the freedom of academia…

Our specific finding – In addition to the difference in financial reward associated with choosing industry positions, many students report that the level and quality of mentorship received in summer internships is significantly higher than in student research or educational advising settings.

Our specific finding – students believe (perhaps correctly) that graduate engineering education will follow along disciplinary lines except in relatively rare cases. This cuts two ways: Students from outside the discipline applying to a traditional department and students not imagining themselves having the opportunity to explore outside their discipline. One administrator specifically acknowledged that there is great demand for this sort of opportunity, but noted that funding such is very difficult and most often occurs only as part of a larger grant or program.

The application process for graduate studies sometimes talks about areas such as social impact, creativity, and interdisciplinarity, but then appears to measure most if not all the value of potential students in very narrow, traditional areas that do not invite or encourage potentially transformative applicants.