Experiences of students supported by an NSF S-STEM grant in a Robotics and Mechatronic Systems Engineering program.

In 2012 University of Detroit Mercy, an urban institution, launched a new engineering major in Robotics and Mechatronic Systems Engineering. This multidisciplinary engineering program evolved out of collaborative efforts of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering faculty members in this institution around the theme of Mechatronics and Robotics. Several NSF grants helped develop a lot of these prior work in the early 2000s. These efforts served as the platform that enabled the launching of the program in 2011 [1,2]. In 2016 the program received ABET accreditation with the graduation of the first cohort of Students. In 2016 more NSF funding, in the form of an NSF S-STEM (Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) grant, was received to help recruit needy Students in the program and offer them scholarships for four years so that they can successfully complete the new degree. Seven Students were recruited in the first year of the grant and nine more in the subsequent years to fill the total promised number of sixteen. Between the scholarships received from the institution and the NSF scholarship 100% of the tuition was covered. The group recruited was a diverse one consisting of 11 first generation Students whose parents do not have college degrees, five Hispanic Students, three African Americans, and six female Students. The S-STEM grant is going to officially end at the end of this academic year. Seven Students have already graduated and are employed in their disciplinary area. Two more Students are scheduled to graduate this year. The rest will graduate at the end of next year. Research by Sara Goldrick-Rab [3] has demonstrated that the needs of today's Students in the US is far beyond just the cost of tuition. Poverty, food insecurity, and other societal challenges play major roles in the lives of the modern Student. This paper is about the journey of some of the Students in this NSF-supported cohort. Most of these Students are closer to the end of their undergraduate program rather than the beginning. Instead of providing only statistics we have delved into the details of these Students' backgrounds, their high school experience, college preparedness or lack thereof, their college experience, their family needs, demands on their time, demands and support from the educational ecosystem, internship experiences, work experiences, and their overall feeling about the entire experience. Overall, by exploring the journey of these Students we will also gage the level of success (and failure) of the work done with this NSF S-STEM grant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]