Advancing the Engineering Field: Opportunities to Support Transfer Students

Advancements in technology have made it vital that technicians advance their skills to stay current and competitive in the job market. Many technicians choose to transfer to baccalaureate programs in engineering and other STEM fields in order to advance their skills. As a result, engineering programs usually have a large population of transfer students. Many of transfer students are studying while employed in the field and some juggle a career and family while advancing their education. Accordingly, transfer students face various issues when transferring to different university settings. Some of these issues are related to embeddedness into the university community while other issues are more personal in nature. Various academic support programs are focused on providing transfer students with information such as how to enroll in their classes, how to enable them to be successful in their academic program, and how to persist in the program. However, adapting to the new educational environment often means that they have to establish new mentoring relationships, develop a new social peer network, and search for internships or co-op opportunities. Majority of the transfer students enrolled in a midsize institution’s engineering technology program are “non-traditional” students, e.g., veterans, adult students, working students, students with families, etc. This paper discusses specific needs of STEM transfer students, identifies challenges they face, and provides an overview of some of the programming that can be implemented at mid-sized universities that address these needs.