Designed for someone else: how Canadian engineering education supports or excludes students from equity-deserving groups

Undergraduate engineering education is designed around rigorous academic requirements, yet these structures may also shape who is able to belong and succeed. This qualitative study examines how traditionally structured Canadian engineering curriculum supports or excludes students from equity-deserving groups and how these experiences impact wellbeing, belonging, and inclusion. I found that students entered engineering with a sense of possibility but encountered curriculum structures that required them to adapt to expectations of the "ideal" engineering student. For the equity-deserving students I interviewed, these norms intersected with their efforts to navigate their sense of belonging within engineering environments. Participants described the costs of these demands through sacrifices to mental and physical wellbeing, relationships, and sense of self. Despite these challenges, they maintained connection to engineering through hopes of future belonging and success, highlighting the need to examine not only access to engineering education, but at what cost students are expected to succeed.