A Pathway to Completion: Student Veterans Pursuing Engineering Degrees

Abstract

This 5-year research project was based on an NSF S-STEM research grant (1742118) focused on student veteran education and workforce preparation. We addressed STEM workforce and defence community needs by providing targeted scholarships and support for veteran students pursuing engineering degrees. Our aim was to enhance the workforce by improving access and success rates through financial and institutional support, while developing evidence-based practices for recruitment, retention and graduation of student veterans. Through targeted interventions, we examined obstacles student veterans face in education and in engineering programs and increased their sense of camaraderie, career awareness, engineering identity, professional development, financial security and engineering self-efficacy. Our targeted intervention was successful on all six factors. We provide implications for practice, policy and research, as well as future research areas to continue this important work.