What Underrepresented Minority Engineering Majors Learn from Co-Ops Internships

摘要

Higher education in the United States (U.S.) is an expansive enterprise, comprised of more than 4,300 colleges and universities and approximately 21 million college students enrolled part-time or full-time for study. Countries vary in the size and scope of postsecondary education systems (Altbach, Berdahl, & Gumport, 1999), making the U.S. system the largest in the world. Women represent the numerical majority on most U.S. college campuses and nearly 40% of U.S. college students identify as underrepresented ethnic minorities (URMs) including Blacks/African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, and bi/multiracial (non-White) students. Despite their growing presence in higher education, URMs still represent a small proportion of students majoring in high-demand fields such as engineering. The National Science Foundation (NSF) reports that 39% of URMs "plan to major" in science and engineering fields as freshman, but less than half of these earn an undergraduate engineering degree; rates are startlingly lower for Blacks and Hispanics.