Coping Landscapes: How graduate engineering students' coping mechanisms correspond with dominant stressors in graduate school

The purpose of this paper is to characterize the coping landscapes that engineering graduate students use to manage specific stressors of graduate school. As recent reports indicate that graduate students are up to six times more likely to struggle with depression and anxiety than the general population, turning attention to well-being and stress in research and practice is an important part of supporting graduate students. Engineering graduate students have the added stress of being in a discipline that normalizes stress culture in the name of academic rigor. There is currently little research that seeks to understand how engineering graduate students cope to reduce unpleasant emotions associated with common stressors. In this paper, we determine the coping mechanisms graduate students use when managing advisor relationships, their research, their department, any thoughts on premature departure from their programs, negative mental health, and systemic stressors. Using data from semi-structured interviews with n = 42 graduate engineering student participants discussing their experiences in graduate school, we identified that graduate students cope in layered ways that correspond with different stressors. These findings hold value in ongoing discussions of engineering students' mental health and inclusive practices within the discipline. Faculty and departments will be better equipped to identify and understand students' coping mechanisms, perhaps leading to well-being initiatives that can support student mental health and, in turn, aid in retention of engineering graduate students.