NSF Future Scholars Program

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The NSF Future Scholars Program is awarding thirty-six $2,500 academic year scholarships for a four-year period from 2006-2009. This continues a successful NSF Future Scholars program under the auspices of Maximizing Engineering Potential (MEP), which ends Dec. 2005. The new NSF CSEMS project allows the program to continue for another four-year period. The principal goals of the program are: to increase the number of financially disadvantaged students, including under represented minorities and women, who graduate in the fields of Engineering, Engineering Technology, Computer Science and Mathematics; and to enhance the educational achievement and professional development of participating students. The scholarships are awarded to two cohorts of students- 1) ten awards to freshman and sophomores, and 2) twenty-six awards to upper-division students, majoring in engineering, engineering technology, computer science, and mathematics. Awards for freshman and sophomore students help students in their transitional period during the crucial first two years of their college education, while awards to upper division students provide financial assistance to facilitate the final years toward a degree. Broader Impact: The university is a large, urban, Hispanic-serving, polytechnic university with a diverse population of largely first-generation college students. The pool of economically disadvantaged, under-represented students in engineering, engineering technology, computer science, and mathematics is large. Cal Poly Pomona has strong, well-established retention programs in the Colleges of Engineering and Science for historically under-represented students which work with the NSF CSEMS students. These programs provide the advising, mentoring, tracking, and professional development support necessary to retain, enhance achievement, and shorten the time to graduation for the scholarship recipients. The active collaboration among program staff and faculty in the two colleges provides a comprehensive support system for the scholars. Intellectual Merit: Through this scholarship program, the recipients have an incentive to become more efficient in their course scheduling, are given timely advising to make wise choices in structuring their course work, and can reduce the hours they work while in school. The active involvement of industry in student professional development activities increases their job readiness, and gives them priority consideration for summer job placement with industry partners.