Impacts of an Early Research Experience on Recruiting and Retention in Engineering

摘要

One of the premier events in an engineering curriculum is participation in a summer internship program. The United States Military Academy (USMA) has developed a program to promote academic activities beyond the basic engineering requirements. This program has recently been opened to students that have yet to declare their major. One intent of the original program was to enhance the students' learning and problem solving experience in a real world environment and perhaps give them a start on their capstone project. The summer internship program allows them to conduct research and solve engineering problems with scientists and engineers in some of the nation's finest facilities. The Academic Individual Advanced Development (AIAD) program is purely voluntary, but nearly all of the civil and mechanical engineering majors forfeit some of their free time to participate in the program every summer. These internships are usually four weeks in duration due to other institutional requirements that can only be accomplished during the summer. This, however, is sufficient time to allow the students to be exposed to, work on, and sometimes solve an engineering problem. The Army Material Command (AMC) and United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) sponsor most of the AIADs, but there are sponsors from private engineering organizations, NASA, the national labs, and other Department of Defense activities. This paper describes the AIAD program and discusses how it attracts and retains engineering majors. Additionally, feedback from the project sponsors can be used to measure student progress and assess the curriculum.