By means of administering a questionnaire, the expectations and academic capital of students who have recently joined the 2009-2 engineering cohort of the Municipality of Mexicali, Mexico were identified. Gender was used as a central analytical category. Results showed that there exist significant differences between men and women on average bachelor’s degree variables, graduation expectations and professional development. With regards to academic capital, differences arose in the category of learning strategies, in the subcategory: review, group learning and relate knowledge; in the category of motivation and in the subcategory of: interest in learning, perseverance, negative expectations and the need for acknowledgment; in the category of personal resource management in the subcategory of material resources. Results also show that there are different types of students in engineering. This work presents some recommendations of core classes for engineering students.
