This study addresses the obstacles and lack of support available for physics students who are also parents. The purpose of this study is to provide physics parents with strategies that other students like them have used and provide ideas for universities and physics faculty to support physics students who are raising children. Majoring in physics could present a challenge to any parents, given the demands of the major. Further, given the low numbers of women in physics and previous research on student parents, it is likely that majoring in physics might be an extra burden for women who are parenting. Given the need for people trained as physicists and engineers, finding ways to support parents in physics could have benefits all around: It could increase the pool of highly trained STEM workers, while diversifying physics and also helping parents prepare for careers that can support their families.
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I believe it was difficult to identify parents in undergraduate physics programs because it is not common to have a child in physics; also, I am not aware of any support groups or social media groups for parents. Thus, my process for finding the participants was asking my professors and friends to reach out to all of the parents they knew personally as well as asking others if they knew of parents in physics. I reached out to all potential participants provided to me and some people were unable to coordinate a meeting or were not interested in participating in the study. This may be because of the responsibilities that come with being a student as well as a parent, but I cannot confirm their reasons.
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