Computing pre-college program: Initial impact to first-year student in computer science

The Department of Computer Science at Hampton University was awarded the HBCU-UP TIP Project to reform three gateway courses and implement an intensive computing summer bridge program (SBP) in an effort to improve student academic performance and increase retention and graduation rates in the major. By integrating Computational Thinking into lower-level courses, the proposed project also seeks to strengthen Computer Science students and better prepare them to meet the modern demands in the field. In the first year of the project there have been several changes to the curriculum content of the gateway courses as well as the implementation of the summer pre-college program. The summer 2014 was the first computing pre-college program. There were nineteen participants currently in the summer program. The students were engaged and excited to be a part of this program. The Computer Science Seminar course served as the initiative for a supplemental undergraduate research award request. The course focused not only ensuring the students understand computer science as a field of study, but also how computer science impacts all fields of study and everything in their daily lives. There were several speakers, FBI, Industry, University faculty, and previous graduates. The initial results has been extremely rewarding as we noticed from their performance in the first semester program course, CS1. This poster will discuss the curriculum we used during the summer program, sample exercises, feedback from students as well as lesson learnt for us to improve next year program.