ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the contexts or settings in which Wabash National Study (WNS) participants reported having meaningful experiences. Through thematic analysis, the authors found that WNS participants’ important experiences occurred in (a) academic contexts, (b) co-curricular contexts, (c) personal contexts, (d) general collegiate contexts, (e) employment contexts, (f) pre-college contexts, (g) off-campus activities, and (h) WNS Interviews. The authors describe these categories and provide illustrative examples of experiences within each context. Subsequently, they explore overarching patterns in the contexts of students’ experiences by race/ethnicity and gender and more deeply consider these patterns in the three most frequently reported categories of experiences.
