Female peer mentors early in college have lasting positive impacts on female engineering students that persist beyond graduation

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-34508-x
• Publication Date: 2022-11-11T14:03:22Z
• Authors: Deborah J. Wu; Kelsey C. Thiem; Nilanjana Dasgupta
• Keywords: Graduation (instrument); Peer mentoring

Abstract Expanding the talent pipeline of students from underrepresented backgrounds in STEM has been a priority United States for decades. However, potential solutions to increase number such academic pathways, measured using longitudinal randomized controlled trials real-world contexts, have limited. Here, we expand on an earlier investigation that reported results field experiment which undergraduate female ( N = 150) interested engineering at college entry were randomly assigned peer mentor engineering, male or not their first year college. While article presented findings participants’ two years college, current reports same experiences each through graduation and one post-graduation. Compared no condition, having was associated with significant improvement psychological aspirations pursue postgraduate degrees, emotional well-being. It also success securing internships retention majors graduation. In sum, low-cost, short mentoring intervention demonstrates benefits promoting students’ entry, one-year