Supporting Veteran Students Transitioning to Engineering

As an engineering department in a historically military friendly state, and at a noted military friendly institution, we desire a broader understanding of our veteran population. We would like to develop this institutional understanding so that we may achieve a number of desired goals. These goals include attracting veterans as students to East Carolina University (ECU), increasing the veteran population within engineering, easing the transition from the structured military atmosphere to the freedom associated with the collegiate environment, and ensuring the success of veteran students both during school and after graduation. Anecdotally, veteran students have been strong contributors to the engineering program. The students excel in both classroom and extracurricular activities, including participating in undergraduate research experiences. Gaining a deeper understanding of the characteristics of the veteran population within the engineering department, as well as the ECU’s veteran population at large, will allow the faculty to be in tune to the needs of veterans. These characteristics may include information such as branch of service, length of service, military occupational specialty, and their last duty station. Data collection will occur by surveys and informal interviews. Ultimately, the aim of this work is to facilitate an increase in recruitment and retention from the veteran population into our engineering department. Often their military experience (i.e. perseverance, discipline) makes engineering a feasible and appropriate choice after their service. In general, we want to understand the potential barriers recently separated veterans have to overcome in choosing engineering as a profession and selecting ECU as their preferred school of choice. An increased veteran population within the engineering department at ECU is a win-win situation for both the student veterans and the department.