Black males are severely underrepresented in undergraduate and graduate engineering programs. While postsecondary interventions have shown to be effective, they are few and far between. Representation of Black males in all segments of the engineering pipeline continues to lag. There also remains a dearth of research that has sought to uncover and understand the factors that influence Black males to pursue engineering graduate degrees and further use these perspectives for more informed intervention design. As a part of a larger study, the authors used interpretive phenomenological analysis to understand the factors that influenced 15 Black male engineers to pursue engineering graduate degrees and to elucidate factors that led to their degree attainment. As the data was analyzed using interpretive phenomenological analysis, the authors were guided by cultural capital theory to uncover the assets possessed by participants to attain an advanced degree. Three major themes emerged from this study: benefits of advanced degrees (motivation for why they pursued advanced degrees), social supports (motivation for attainment), and hurdles and obstacles experienced (possible barriers to attainment). Two minor themes (advisor and mentor challenges and negative racial experiences) emerged from the major theme of hurdles and obstacles experienced. Finally, the authors provide recommendations for improving the educational pipeline to in- Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and EngineeringHenderson et al. 2crease the number of Black males attaining advanced degrees in engineering. The findings of this study may impact intervention design and efforts aimed at recruiting and retaining Black males in engineering graduate programs.

Background: Though minoritized undergraduate engineering students earn less than 25% of engineering bachelor's degrees, minority-serving institutions (MSIs) are leading the way in producing a large percentage of those underrepresented engineering bachelor's degree holders. However, much of the published research about the experiences of underrepresented engineering students occurs within the context of predominantly White institutions. Upon deeper inspection into the apparent success of some MSIs, graduation rates of specific minoritized populations (e.g., Black students) remain critically low. This suggests that there is more to be learned about how to better support Black engineering students' success.Purpose: We explored the experiences of Black undergraduate engineering students at a large public doctoral university with very high research activity. Design/Method: We used interpretative phenomenological analysis to understand the experiences of eight participants. Findings: We inductively developed two themes to describe how Black engineering students experience success at a Hispanic-serving institution, which include building success networks and implementing rules of engagement. Conclusion: Participants enacted their cultural capital to construct their circles of success through the intentional engagement of others, resources, and themselves to realize success. This work sheds light on how Black students describe what it means to be successful in their engineering environment.

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