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Abstract During their engineering programs, undergraduate students participate in the culture of engineering education to make meaning of themselves as they form professional identities. In this paper, we draw from Holland and colleagues’ theory of identity, agency, and figured worlds to further understand how undergraduate students make meaning of their identities as they participate in the figured world of engineering education. Our thematic narrative analysis revealed two types of narratives: (1) Narratives of Coherence that highlight the ways participants reconfigure normative identity roles in figured worlds to make space for their minoritized identities within engineering education, and (2) Narratives of Separation where participants maintain normative identity roles by either intentionally or unintentionally separating their minoritized identities from engineering activities. These findings point to strategies of perspective-building for supporting students and providing opportunities for contributing to a broader culture of inclusion in engineering classrooms.