By Olivia Chhlang | Reporter
About 850 undergraduate students at Baylor make up the School of Engineering and Computer Science, which is less than 10% of Baylor University as a whole. Students that are most likely to drop their major typically come from the engineering and computer science category. The Engineering Teaching Fellows are a special group of students who guide these newcomers to help them enjoy engineering.
John Hewitt, associate director of student engagement for the School of Engineering and Computer Science, said that the program started in 2018 with the first group of undergraduate teaching fellows.
“It was pretty small then,” Hewitt said. “We only had it for our intro courses —Introduction to Engineering — but over the years as the program has grown, we now cover every single freshman and sophomore engineering course.”
To become a teaching fellow, a student must have taken Introduction to Engineering before and received an A minus or higher in that course. The requirements are similar to that of Supplemental Instruction or tutoring, but the Engineering Teaching Fellows is more than just another group study session. Keller junior Taylor Martini said that the program is more personal and relational than other student instruction she’s been in before.
As a mechanical engineering major and teaching fellow herself, Martini sits alongside underclassmen in every single course, four days a week. She holds office hours, helps them with their homework and accompanies them in their labs.
“I think what makes the teaching fellows program with [Engineering and Computer Science] unique is that we also have a holistic mentoring aspect to it. It’s not just making sure students are doing well academically, but they are being fully integrated and have that sense of belonging at Baylor,” Hewitt said.
Hewitt and Martini agreed on the effect the teaching fellows have had on creating the desire to stay in a difficult major. The support Martini received from her own teaching fellows in her freshman year made her want to become one and give back the aspect of community that was instilled in her.
“I love to teach and I love to build relationships with students and make people feel like they belong in engineering too,” Martini said. “Being able to help people feel confident and like they can achieve what they want is something that I’m really passionate about.”
The research the department has conducted shows that students with a teaching fellow in their classes lead to overall higher grade point averages. While the data shows the benefits of Engineering Teaching Fellows, the returning students are also proof of that growing community. Hewitt said that students in the engineering program lean more on each other rather than think of one another as competition.
“Having that student perspective is really important,” Hewitt said. “Sometimes it’s nice to go to a fellow student who you know has done well in the class and can help assist you, not only academically, but finding belonging or finding a student organization. Once we create that sense of belonging, our students retain to the program better.”
Engineering Teaching Fellows allows students to give back to the department and invest in other students, repeating that cycle with each incoming class to grow the department and its community.
