Towards a Holistic Approach to Improve the Retention Rate of Freshmen in Engineering

Muhammad Irfan Abid, Zeashan Hameed Khan

Abstract: This paper describes a holistic approach to improve the retention rate of first year engineering students. One of the major shortcomings of institutionalized education is the prime focus on the student's well-being and intellectual development through academic guidelines. In the classical model, most engineering universities do their best to incorporate the general well-being of the admitted students in the system of large group instruction. But, at the end of the program, its goal is to graduate those students who meet the basic academic standards first. Adopting a holistic model in engineering education infers that, in addition to the traditional academic components, we must enthusiastically develop the whole character of our future engineers. This paper outlines the major academic and nonacademic factors with the help of a case study affecting the student retention rates and reinforces the role of teachers, students and institution in holistic educational model to address these issues.

External IDs:dblp:conf/tale/AbidK18