["Journal of Engineering Education, Volume 115, Issue 3, July 2026. ", "\nAbstract\n\nBackground\nStudents who perceive a mismatch between their disciplinary environment and their values, beliefs, and “fit” may lead them to consider other fields that better align with their ways of being and sense of belonging.\n\n\nPurpose\nThe purpose of this study was to demonstrate the complexities of establishing a sense of belonging for a Latina post‐traditional student enrolled in a Hispanic‐Serving Institution.\n\n\nDesign/Method\nEight rounds of narrative interviews spanning 6 years were collected from one Latina. Data were analyzed using an analysis of narratives to organize the storied data into salient narrative themes.\n\n\nResults\nAcross the interviews, Kitatoi's sense of belonging was continuously contested through institutional and disciplinary mechanisms, specifically fixed views of ability and cultural norms of effortless achievement. These were not isolated experiences but patterned processes across time that positioned her on the outskirts. Engineering instructors' rhetoric reproduced exclusionary assumptions of who naturally belonged, positioning achievement as effortless and innate rather than developed. Belonging was not structurally cultivated but individually negotiated, shifting the labor from the institution and onto her. Kitatoi negotiated her sense of belonging by dissociating from the institutional environment that imposed a particular mold of engineers, focusing on her intellectual interest in the course topics and advocating for equitable treatment.\n\n\nConclusions\nHer story advances our understanding of belonging as relationally produced, structurally mediated, and labor‐intensive. Her story also demonstrates how servingness can fracture at the disciplinary level, especially for Latinx students with intersecting identities.\n\n"]