Becoming Humanitarian Engineers: Undergraduates Learning to Use Engineering Skills to Redress Inequity in the World

• In Event: Hilton Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: Issues of Social Justice and Public Service in the Professions

Abstract

This qualitative study involved identifying undergraduate students’s motives for enrolling in a university Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship program (HESE) as they learn and build identity as humanitarian engineer. Data came from interviews, survey responses, and observations of 35 undergraduate students, with students followed across significant activities in the program. From analysis using qualitative research methods, findings suggested a central phenomenon emerging from data, that of motivation to be humanitarian engineers as influenced by individuals’ desires to help others, their previous socio-cultural background, need to develop engineering skills, and desire to travel. Value-related motivation, especially the desire to help others, seemed a strong catalyst for developing engineering students’ vision of their future as humanitarian engineers and social entrepreneurs.

Authors

• John Jongho Park, The Pennsylvania State University

• Mihee Park, Penn State University