Black doctoral students in engineering and computing fields experience racialized stress, as structural racism in STEM takes a toll on their sense of belonging and acceptance as intellectually competent in comparison to White and some Asian peers and faculty. Black doctoral students are often told by campus administrators that the source of this racialized stress is impostorism and it is curable. In this article, we employ phenomenological analysis to examine how 54 Black engineering and computing students experience racism marketed as impostor syndrome (syndrome meaning in their heads). Results show that 51 of our study participants understood their experiences as both impostorism and racism, as some realized that racism created the conditions for being racially positioned as an impostor. We problematize impostorism peddled by campus administrators as a cover for racism, once again placing onus on students and claiming they have irrational but curable behaviors, while institutional and individual racism in STEM runs rampant by design.

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Background Research shows that engineering and computing students who are marginalized by race and/or gender and experience social suffering often wish to challenge social inequities through their vocation, an attribute we refer to as an equity ethic. This study explores how doctoral engineering and computing students develop this attribute even when they do not directly experience social suffering. Purpose/Hypothesis We explored the relationship between (a) doctoral engineering and computing students' experiences with social suffering and their development of an equity ethic and (b) their equity ethic and career interests. Design/Method We present a thematic analysis of the transcripts of in‐depth, semistructured interviews with 18 engineering and computing PhD students, coding for experiences with social suffering, degree of equity ethic, and their career interests. Results Students with an equity ethic who aspired to reduce inequities within their disciplines personally experienced or witnessed social suffering within and outside academia. Students with “high potential” for developing this attribute who aspired to help others with their disciplines acknowledged social suffering. While both those with an equity ethic and those with high potential saw inequities as socially caused, those with an equity ethic reported more impactful experiences with social suffering, resulting in greater empathy and responsibility to respond. Several students described neither altruistic nor social justice concerns (students with low potential) and did not experience social suffering directly or indirectly. Those with an equity ethic or high potential often showed interest in academia. Conclusions Most participants expressed concerns for helping others in their occupations. This result suggests a nascent equity ethic that could be cultivated through intentional programmatic efforts.

Aim/Purpose: We sought to understand factors that dissuade engineering and computing doctoral students in the United States from pursuing a career in the professoriate. Background: Many PhD students start the doctoral process excited about the possibility of becoming a professor. After a few years of doctoral education, however, many become less interested in academic careers or even come to loathe the idea of a faculty position. Methodology: Participants in a larger study (N = 744) completed a comprehensive survey about their educational experiences and career aspirations. This study focused on a subset of these respondents (n = 147), who indicated they did not want to pursue faculty positions and explained their reasoning with a brief open-ended response. We coded these open-ended responses. Contribution: We found a general lack of interest in the professoriate and disgust over the associated pressure-filled norms and culture; this aversion is the article’s focus. Respondents were critical of institutional norms that emphasize research (e.g., stress related to grant writing, publishing, and promotion as junior faculty) and described their own experiences as PhD students. Findings: Findings support rethinking the outdated faculty model and interchanging it with healthier and more holistic approaches. Recommendations for Practitioners: These approaches might include advocating for and emphasizing the contributions of research, teaching, and professional excellence as well as removing the secrecy and toxicity of tenure and promotion that discourage individuals from becoming the next generation of engineering and computing educators and knowledge makers. Recommendation for Researchers: Future researchers should explore in greater depth the extent to which junior faculty’s experiences in the professoriate influence doctoral students’ and postdoctoral scholars’ attitudes toward working in academia. To the extent that this is the case, researchers should then explore ways of improving faculty experiences, in addition to improving doctoral students’ experiences that are unrelated to their socialization. Impact on Society: Having a deeper understanding of the reasons why some doctoral engineering and computing students are uninterested in the professoriate is critical for removing barriers toward becoming faculty. Future Research: Researchers should explore the factors that would improve doctoral students’ perceptions of the professoriate, and better understand how they might disproportionately affect members of historically underrepresented groups.

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