Influence of Personal Relationships on Selection of Civil Engineering as a Career

Abstract

With the growing demand for civil engineers in the United States, understanding factors that influence students to select civil engineering as a major in college can lead to valuable insights for recruitment of future civil engineers. The influential factor that this paper analyzed and discussed is the impact of personal relationships on a student's decision to become a civil engineer. The most influential person was the father, with 40.7% of students specifically reporting that their father influenced their decision to pursue civil engineering. The second most influential figures were high school teachers in the STEM disciplines, where 11.2% of the students mentioned that either a math or science teacher influenced their decision. Unique to BYU, 9.8% of students mentioned the influence of church leaders and church members. Based on these findings, recruitment of civil engineering students to BYU will be most effective through outreach to fathers and STEM teachers.