Challenges and Opportunities for Recruiting Students to Undergraduate Civil Engineering Programs

Abstract

Mariah is a Master's student in the Lyles School of Civil Engineering at Purdue University. She is focusing her studies on hydraulic and hydrologic engineering. She has had multiple summer internship experiences in wastewater treatment and wastewater transportation systems. Mariah also has a passion for engineering education and has participated in various mentorship-based clubs and independent outreach events through engineering organizations on Purdue's campus. She also worked as a team member for Purdue's Women in Engineering Program's Access Engineering summer outreach program for K-12 students. Challenges and opportunities for recruiting students to undergraduate civil engineering programs AbstractSociety needs more civil engineers, with the projected near-term need for civil engineers greater than any other engineering discipline. Ailing national infrastructure and projected retirement rates have led to job projections suggesting that the near-term need for civil engineering graduates is almost double that of any other engineering discipline. This need, combined with other attractive attributes of civil engineering, should make civil engineering a top engineering major at many undergraduate universities.