Baskin Engineering Excellence Scholars Bridge Program: Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation

In this Research to Practice Full Paper, we intend to share our experience in design, implementation, and evaluation of a summer bridge program for a group of first-year first-generation and underrepresented students entering engineering majors at the University of California Santa Cruz. Our program is proven to prepare students for engineering programming and mathematics courses, develop a growth mindset, build self-efficacy, and bond with the cohort to build peer-mentoring opportunities and increase a sense of belonging to the campus community and our school of engineering. We describe 1) program design and goals, 2) program schedule and curriculum (mathematics and programming), 3) description of research-based program evaluation, and 4) outline of research findings (both quantitatively and qualitatively).