A Case Study for Collaborative Project in Computer Science through the STEMPact Program

Many prospective undergraduate students do not have the opportunity to experience computer programming in high school. School districts either do not have the budget to hire qualified Computer Science teachers or there are not enough resources available to offer the courses. A lack of exposure to computers science can lead to difficulty in retaining and recruiting STEM field majors. There is a challenge in encouraging community college students to pursue a STEM degree at four year universities. In this paper the “STEMpact” project, a cooperative arrangement by Union County College (UCC) and Kean University, aims to promote the success of Hispanic and low-income students in completing post-secondary degrees and to address the need for a diverse 21st century STEM-trained workforce. In this paper, a collaborative project in computer science is discussed for a student from UCC, who knew nothing about programming. The student began working with two Kean computer science students. A successful web project was completed and as a result of this collaboration the UCC student was motivated to explore more about computer science at a four-year university.