Wellness in Engineering Education: An Investigation into the Impact of Degree Plan Length and Its Association with Student Wellness

Undergraduate engineering programs are associated with high stress and heavy workloads that impact the wellness of students. One university offers a unique undergraduate engineering education program structure offering two degree plan lengths, four or five years, with both involving the same number of courses. These options offer an opportunity for students to select the degree plan length they prefer. The purpose of this research is to explore the motivations for selecting degree plan length and how plan length may be associated with student wellness. An ethics-approved survey of 189 undergraduate students was conducted. Participants responded to a variety of questions that asked about their motivations for selecting their degree plan length and their state of wellness. Mann–Whitney U tests, thematic analyses, and chi-squared tests were used to analyze quantitative and qualitative responses. Results highlighted that there were statistically significant differences (p ≤ 0.001) between the motivators (4 of 8 factors) and perceived wellness (3 of 5 indicators) of students on the four- vs. five-year plans. Overall, it appears that each degree plan length may serve different student needs. Additionally, results suggest that the five-year plan offers the opportunity to reduce the workload and correlates with a better state of perceived wellness.