Death by a thousand cuts: composite narratives of disabled students’ undergraduate engineering experiences in the USA

Disabled people remain marginalised within engineering higher education and the engineering workforce. The present study draws on interviews with ten disabled undergraduate engineering students to examine their lived experiences and the institutional conditions that shaped them. Interview transcripts were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Findings show that barriers extended beyond unmet accommodations and included cumulative impacts on academic progress, health, and belonging, alongside repeated demands for disclosure and self-advocacy. These impacts compounded over time and shaped students’ educational trajectories, including decisions about whether to remain in engineering. We conclude with actionable implications for teaching and institutional practice aimed at embedding access more consistently across engineering programmes and higher education.