Holistic Wellbeing and Belonging: Attempting to Untangle Stress and Wellness in Their Impact on Sense of Community in Engineering

All college students report high levels of stress, but engineering departments pose additional challenges that the field seeks to address. However, a focus solely on remedying stress may not be enough to resolve the issue, as research suggests that coping with stress requires skills different from those needed to thrive and function optimally. This study examines the complex relationships between wellbeing, stress, and belonging by examining survey responses from 2,285 U.S. engineering undergraduate students from 17 universities. Latent profile analysis was used to identify wellness and stress profiles across ten constructs (including meaning and purpose, mindfulness, test anxiety, and stress reactivity). Hierarchical regressions were used to examine the explanatory potential of the identified profiles and their role as moderators of students’ experiences and belonging in engineering. Results suggest that there are clearly distinguishable patterns of wellness and stress across students’ reported experiences, and that these profiles are more than merely descriptive. These findings are discussed in relation to engineering education’s unique stress culture and the pursuit of student wellbeing and belonging.