The Succulents Pathway: Well Resourced and High Performing Engineering Students 

Echeveria lilacina: succulents are waxy resilient plants that tend to develop their leaves in a grouping around the parent plant.

Overview of Students’ Experiences:

This pathway describes relatively privileged students who performed well academically, compared to their peers in this study. These students tend to come from well-resourced high schools (e.g., private high schools, boarding schools, home-school) that offered challenging courses (e.g., AP or Honors classes) that prepared them well for their undergraduate coursework. Due in part to this advantage, the students in this group tended to experience a smoother transition to college (i.e., high school to university, and in their introductory STEM classes in particular. The women represented by this pathway occasionally have extra-curricular responsibilities, but their extra responsibilities tend to be relevant to their discipline (e.g., internships, research opportunities, engineering-related employment). Through these aligned opportunities, students in this group had an opportunity to connect theory with practice. Additionally, these students: tended to take a conventional route to university education by enrolling directly after high school; they appeared more connected to campus resources (e.g., clubs, tutoring centers, mentors, fraternities); were usually not the first to major in engineering or have a college degree; and had relatively few financial constraints. Moreover, this group of students tended to come from more individualistic cultures and were thus largely responsible for caring only for themselves. For example, they had few familial obligations to take care of their siblings, parents, or relatives.