Benjamin Goldschneider

About

Benjamin Goldschneider is an Assistant Professor and founding member of the First-Year Engineering Center. Through a combination of teaching, advising, curriculum development, and research, Benjamin seeks to foster students’ passions for engineering and help them navigate the tumultuous first steps of their college career. Benjamin’s previous research has placed a strong emphasis on students’ socialization and sense of belonging with the goal of identifying the individuals, organizations, and institutional structures that are most important for students’ success and connecting them. Benjamin graduated with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Purdue University in 2018 before moving on to further study at Virginia Tech. He completed his Ph.D. in Engineering Education in 2023, picking up a certificate of Higher Education Administration along the way. His doctoral thesis examined eight students’ journeys through their college lives, identifying the people that mattered most to their perception of both their degree path and their university. Benjamin is also a collaborator on the Understanding Knowledge and Student Agency and Graduate Experiences of Employability and Knowledge projects with an international team spanning the United States, United Kingdom, and South Africa. These projects have a broad focus on comparing student experiences across international borders at the undergraduate and graduate/professional levels respectively.