“It's Just a Lack of Empathy, Which is Just Honestly Exhausting” – Engineering Student Experiences with Ableism

This research paper explores the experiences of engineering college students identifying as disabled, the number of which is increasing each year. In the U.S., students with disabilities struggle to navigate university systems to obtain accommodations. In addition to onerous accommodation procedures, additional barriers include the inflexible nature of engineering curricula, many demands on student time for lab and project work, and the attitudes of some faculty. These are examples of how ableism, or the prejudice against those with disabilities, is rooted in engineering culture. It is well documented that disabled STEM students are less likely to access accommodations than their peers with disabilities in other majors. We interviewed 11 disabled undergraduate engineers at a large public university in the Southern United States. Most students felt that engineering instructors lack understanding and compassion about disability. While discussing instructors' willingness to accommodate, students often described poor practices that only partially fulfilled accommodations and labeled the interactions themselves as “alienating” and “isolating.” Students with minors or second majors stated their non-engineering instructors were not only more enthusiastic about implementing accommodations, but offered support beyond formal accommodations like checking in throughout the semester and asking if there were additional access needs the student needed to succeed. We argue that ableism in engineering instructors is passed down to students and prevents those with disabilities from accepting offered accommodations and advocating for themselves, while lowering their threshold for what they believe qualifies as sufficient accommodation. From these findings we conclude that because engineering culture resists accommodations and lacks compassion, students have lowered their expectations of what proper accommodations means for engineering.