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Electrical Engineering (EE) and Computer Engineering (CpE) programs have similar curricula, but different demographics and student outcomes. This paper extends earlier longitudinal studies to a larger and more diverse dataset with 90\,000 first-time-in-college and 26\,000 transfer students who majored in engineering at USA institutions, including students who started in first-year engineering programs, those switching majors, and those transferring from other institutions. Black men and women and Asian men in engineering are strongly attracted to EE when they start in college. Black students and Asian and Hispanic men are attracted to CpE more than other engineering disciplines, but at lower rates than EE. Asian students have the highest graduation rates in EE. EE students are much more likely to graduate than CpE students. Compared to other engineering disciplines, CpE graduation rates are low for women of all races/ethnicities and Black men. Both EE and CpE lose many of those starting the programs, but switchers and transfers compensate for some of the loss. Considering Asian students and White men, switching to EE accounts for the high attrition rate from CpE, but attrition in other populations cannot be explained so easily. Trajectories of student enrollment differ by race/ethnicity. The approach used here could serve as a model for other fields studying their own demographic distributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND Industrial engineering (IE) draws in and graduates women at among the highest rates compared with most engineering majors in the U.S. Popular stereotypes suggest this is because IE is "easier" than other engineering majors. PURPOSE (HYPOTHESIS) This research interrogates prevailing assumptions about industrial engineering to explore why undergraduate women are drawn to industrial engineering over other engineering majors. DESIGN/METHODS Our mixed method approach used three sources of data. Quantitative analyses of a large, longitudinal dataset allowed us to draw empirical generalizations about academic performance, attraction to, and persistence within industrial engineering among men and women. We triangulated this with qualitative focus group data among women majoring in IE. Finally, we used content analysis of university IE Web sites to understand context and discourse. RESULTS In our dataset, industrial engineering is the only engineering major that gains women and men from the third semester through six-year graduation and among all race-gender combinations (except Black men). Women in focus groups reveal that they are drawn to IE for a myriad of social factors including: warmth, flexibility, a sense it is more feminine, and career opportunities, among others. Content analysis of Web sites reveals that IE emphasizes collegiality and leadership opportunities as intrinsic to the discipline. CONCLUSIONS Using a social capital framework, we showed that the context of IE, including prevailing norms and possibilities for networking, promotes ideologies of success that lead to greater attraction to and persistence within the major. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrical engineering (EE) is one of the largest engineering disciplines. Computer engineering (CpE) has a similar curriculum, but different demographics and student outcomes. Using a dataset from universities in the U.S. that includes over 70\,000 students who majored in engineering, this paper describes the outcomes for students matriculating in and migrating into EE and CpE so as to inform the decision making of faculty, department heads, and deans. Although men consistently outnumber women in EE and CpE, the rates of matriculation and six-year graduation vary by race and gender. EE is the most popular choice for Asian and Black students (males and females) at matriculation, but while Asians graduate at high rates, Blacks (particularly males) are not retained. Retention is higher in EE than in CpE despite the similarity of the curricula. Graduation rates are lower than expected for women of all races in CpE and for Hispanic women in EE. By the third semester, some students of all races and genders have left their matriculation major, but others have migrated in from other majors, compensating for some of this loss. CpE students are more likely than EE students to switch to another major. Trajectories of EE and CpE students are racialized and distinct. CpE loses more students and attracts fewer students than EE. These findings illustrate the importance of disaggregating by engineering major as well as race and gender to improve recruitment and retention overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Incorporating writing into the curriculum in a challenge for engineering faculty. Constructivist and knowledge transformation frameworks of how writing helps build knowledge suggest that successful writing experiences in engineering are 'writing to communicate'. Drawing from that literature, the author advocates five guidelines for integrating effective 'writing to communicate' experience into undergraduate engineering courses: authentic investigation, tying the writing to the technical content, an authentic well-defined audience, providing useful practice for an engineering career and not being overly burdensome to the engineering faculty instructor. Specific' examples of activities based on these guidelines, from classroom, homework and laboratory activities in sophomore, junior and senior-level classes serve as suggestions for faculty seeking to creatively incorporate writing throughout the engineering curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]