Implementing an Industrial Mentoring Program to Enhance Student Motivation and Retention

A new industrial mentor program at our university connects practicing engineers with “Freshman Interest Groups (FIGs)” of 6-8 students. Far too many talented young minds walk away from engineering thinking, “I don’t want to work calculus problems in isolation the rest of my life, so I’m changing my major!” Face-time with practicing engineers, we believe, helps dispel many misconceptions plaguing the future of our profession. In a casual setting, first semester students can get answers to questions such as, “What do you actually do? Should I pay attention in Calculus? Do you like your job?” This program is part of a larger retention and career-boosting initiative including overhauling the first-year course experience and hiring student peer advisors, funded in part through NSF-STEP. Our industrial mentors commit to 9 hours (including drive time) for the year including: attending mentor orientation, providing student feedback, attending two informal student meetings (with the 6-8 member FIGs), and completing a feedback survey. Several optional activities for interested mentors include giving class presentations, electronic mentoring, and reviewing firstyear student team design presentations. In this 2011-12 pilot year, 9 mentors are connected with FIG groups of approximately 7 students each. This paper details the logistics and challenges of starting up this mentoring program, and presents qualitative and quantitative assessment results, with the intention of contributing our experiences and materials to the dialogue on retention initiatives. Details include: creating conducive mentoring groups, identifying and recruiting ideal mentors, empowering student peer advisors to “own” the relationship (and the accompanying logistics), jumpstarting conversations with first-year students and mentors, and program results. Results include data from one focus group and surveys of first-year students, student peer advisors, faculty mentors, and industrial mentors. Results to-date are very encouraging and include recommended improvements.