From Industry to Graduate School: How Returners (Re)Learn How to Write

In recent years, a number of researchers have studied returners in engineering graduate programs; these are students who, after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in engineering, have chosen to enter the workforce for a significant period of time before beginning a graduate degree. Previous research has shown that returners bring unique strengths to their graduate programs. They are highly motivated, aware of the implications of their work, and interested in applying it to the real-world problems with which they are familiar. They do, however, face many challenges. One such unexplored cost involves writing. Professionals in industry have to communicate, and much of this communication is in written form; however, the rhetorical genres in industry differ significantly from academia. This may present challenges, and returners need to transfer their writing skills from the industrial context to an academic context. In this exploratory study, we developed an interview protocol and conducted interviews with four (n=4) returner participants in the engineering doctoral programs at a major Midwestern university. The common themes revealed in the interviews form the basis for implications for how graduate engineering programs can help returners make a successful transition from skilled industry writers to effective academic writers.