Exploring the Significance of Internship Experiences for the Career Development of Racially Minoritized Undergraduate Engineering Students

Within engineering, internship experiences are upheld as a high-impact practice for students to increase practical knowledge and gain workforce preparation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of participating in an engineering internship on the career development of racially minoritized students. We used a quasi-experimental research design to examine the experiences of racially minoritized students who participated in an internship program, titled Corporate Scholars, hosted by the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME), during the Summer of 2022. We conducted a one-group pretest-posttest design followed by semi-structured interviews with a subset of the participants. Pre-and post-survey responses were collected for 33 students, and interviews were conducted with 10 of the 33 students. We found that students had a range of experiences with their company that influenced their perceptions of their internship, their company, and the field of engineering. The internship experience appeared to impact vocational identity and building occupational interest. Additionally, we found tensions in students' perceptions of engineering as a result of their internship and found that their perceptions of their company were dependent on mentor's and workplace support. The results of this work could provide useful insight into how to better support engineering students, inform program practices, and increase retention in the field of engineering.