Work in Progress: How do Students Describe Engineering and Engineers After Taking a Sociotechnical Energy Course?

The University of San Diego (USD) integrated engineering department offered a new sociotechnical energy course for second-year students in 2020; the course ran for a second time in 2021. The Integrated Approach to Energy course differs from traditional engineering energy courses by introducing students to modern energy concepts through a sociotechnical paradigm, informed by culturally sustaining pedagogies (CSPs), and emphasizing examples and learning experiences that deviate from the traditional masculine, White, Western discourse. For this case study, we interviewed students who had taken the course to explore whether and how their conceptions of engineering and engineers included sociotechnical elements. In this work-inprogress, we share some preliminary findings that emerged from the four interview themes: 1) Why Engineering? (student motivations for studying engineering), 2) What is Engineering? 3) Who are Engineers?, and 4) What Engineers Do. The students had burgeoning conceptions of engineering/engineers with traces of sociotechnical perspectives. These preliminary findings reiterate that students will not simply 'get' sociotechnical engineering after a single course experience. If we want students to truly integrate these concepts into their own conceptions about engineers/engineering, we must do the same as an engineering education collective and integrate them fully into the entirety of their engineering education experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]