2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

For the past several years, around 80 incoming first-generation, low-income (FGLI) students at Dartmouth have participated in a 3-week long First-Year Summer Enrichment Program (FYSEP) aimed at helping them transition to college by building a cohort, developing a support network, sampling academic classes, determining where to go for help, and exploring different possible majors. This past summer, we revised the STEM curriculum for FYSEP to incorporate mathematics, with the goal of putting mathematics into context and hopefully retaining more students. We have been tracking student retention in engineering for over 10 years and have found that the majority of students who were initially interested in engineering but then declared a non-engineering major did so after poor performance in a prerequisite mathematics course in their first year, exiting the engineering pathway before ever taking an engineering course. Over 95% of those students interested in engineering who enrolled in Precalculus and ~70% of those who enrolled in Single-Variable Calculus never made it to engineering, with a disproportionately high percentage of students who dropped out being from the FGLI community. In 2022, we surveyed and interviewed students to try to better understand why they were leaving; common themes were that the mathematics courses were too theoretical and too fast-paced.

We decided to introduce FYSEP students to some of the mathematics concepts they may see in their first mathematics course along with providing context and engineering applications in order to hopefully retain more students. Some of the materials for the FYSEP program were adapted from a highly successful Mathematical Concepts in Engineering course that was created and taught by one of the authors. ALL students who took Mathematical Concepts in Engineering in 2018 and who came to Dartmouth with an interest in engineering have been retained in the major.

The emphasis in both Mathematical Concepts in Engineering and the FYSEP program was on engineering problem-solving and hands-on activities rather than on mathematical derivations and theory. In an effort to make the material engaging to students from a wide range of backgrounds and interests (not all are planning to major in STEM), we used music as a thread for the FYSEP program. Thus, the mathematical and engineering concepts were connected through music. Through the FYSEP program students:
1. Used mathematics to solve engineering and physics related problems;
2. Built and tuned a thumb piano;
2. Used breadboards to create an electric circuit and an electronic piano;
3. Reflected on their own learning.

Our main research questions are as follows:
a. Does students’ self-efficacy in mathematics and engineering increase when mathematical and engineering concepts are introduced and surveyed in a hands-on fashion before students take more theoretical courses?
b. Are we better able to retain FGLI students in engineering if they are introduced to mathematical concepts through engineering applications during the summer before their first term?

Pre/post course surveys conducted this past summer show some increase in confidence with regards to mathematics. We will track which courses the FYSEP students take and how they do throughout their academic careers. We plan to continue to offer and improve the mathematics/engineering curriculum for the FYSEP program.