Sophomore Fast-Forward: A Summer Bridge Program to Support Retention in Engineering

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This National Science Foundation (NSF) Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) project at Louisiana Technological University will increase the timely baccalaureate degree completion rate among students majoring in mechanical, biomedical, and civil engineering. The overall objective of the program is to increase engineering retention, leading to an increase in the number of STEM graduates prepared to enter the workforce and be successful. The program offers scholarships for rising sophomores who demonstrate academic talent and financial need. Support includes attendance in a full-time summer session in which students will take some of the required engineering and mathematics courses normally taken during the Fall semester. This approach will provide a smoother transition into more difficult engineering coursework for this at-risk group. This program will include professional and student development activities, as well as mentoring from faculty. Scholarships and support for low-income and academically talented students, who may not otherwise be able to obtain engineering degrees, will help to produce a well-trained STEM workforce that will contribute to the economic well being of the nation.The project is based on the identification of a critical attrition point in the undergraduate engineering curriculum. Louisiana Tech has identified the engineering statics course as the point at which many otherwise promising students leave engineering due to poor performance. However, the failure rate for students taking statics during the summer session is substantially lower than for the Fall semester. The project will investigate the hypothesis that encouraging talented but at-risk students to pursue statics during a full-time summer session will facilitate these at-risk students in overcoming this identified attrition point in the undergraduate engineering curriculum. Retaining more students in the critical sophomore transition will result in more STEM graduates. The cohorts of S-STEM Scholars will be mentored by a faculty team and participate in other support activities including industry field trips, professional development training and team-building activities. The findings from the program will be disseminated widely to the STEM education community and will help to increase understanding of the attributes and practices of successful student scholarship and support programs for academically talented, low-income engineering students.