Board 80: Nontraditional Students in Engineering: Persona Development

Abstract This paper is a study on nontraditional students in engineering (NTSE) and their experiences with support systems while in university. We look at their interactions with faculty, advisors, classmates, peers, support services such as tutoring, and on-campus activities. We focus on the engineering subset of nontraditional students because while there is growing interest in nontraditional students, those pursuing engineering has not been widely discussed. Engineering is known to have very structured curriculum and it can be intimidating, especially to those who have limited experience or have been out of school for a few years. As more students exhibit nontraditional characteristics, such as working full-time or part-time enrollment, it is important for institutions to understand how to best support their needs and how to ensure their academic success in rigorous programs like engineering. This research works on answering one research question: What are NTSE's experiences with university support systems? For this study, we reference the NCES criteria to define nontraditional students and develop student personas to describe the needs, wants, and behaviors of NTSE. Our goal is to communicate to various stakeholders the NTSE experience in the engineer academia environment and to offer insights and recommendations on how institutions can better support them.