This study aims to understand how students manage higher technical education and contribute to research on institutional culture, STEM education, and students’ educational strategies by identifying patterns of how students navigate within one university’s engineering education. To achieve this, we define and use the concept of technical science capital and habitus reconstruction. We collected data through a survey sent to engineering students who have followed an engineering program’s intended linear progression and those who have taken a ‘detour’ within the same cohort at one specific Swedish university. The survey had a high number of qualitative questions, including free text answers that captured students’ narratives. The results indicate that having a large amount of technical science capital alone is not enough for students to be successful in their studies. The university culture has its own structure, which can be intolerant. Within this culture, specific social skills and experiences are desirable, which provides students from a particular background with a greater opportunity for success. Despite possessing high technical science capital, students from other social groups or cultures face challenges. We discuss various measures that could make higher technical education more engaging. This study is limited to one Swedish university, and future studies could include a broader sample that represents several universities.

本研究旨在了解学生如何管理高等技术教育，并通过确定学生在一所大学的工程教育中的导航模式，为制度文化、STEM 教育和学生教育策略的研究做出贡献。为了实现这一目标，我们定义并使用技术科学资本和习惯重建的概念。我们通过一项调查收集了数据，调查对象是那些遵循工程课程预期线性进展的工程学生，以及在一所特定的瑞典大学的同一队列中“绕道”的学生。该调查有大量定性问题，包括捕捉学生叙述的自由文本答案。结果表明，仅拥有大量技术科学资本不足以让学生在学业上取得成功。大学文化有其自身的结构，可能是不宽容的。在这种文化中，需要特定的社交技能和经验，这为来自特定背景的学生提供了更大的成功机会。尽管拥有高技术科学资本，来自其他社会群体或文化的学生仍面临挑战。我们讨论了可以使高等技术教育更具吸引力的各种措施。这项研究仅限于一所瑞典大学，未来的研究可能包括代表几所大学的更广泛的样本。