2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

DRS. COURTNEY SUSANNE GREEN AND CATHERINE BLAT. Immersive Summer Transition Program: Exploring the academic performance of first time in college engineering students

This research paper offers insights into the development and outcomes of an immersive summer transition program for first-time-in-college engineering students. The program's goal was to enhance first-year students’ academic performance and increase retention in engineering. Specifically, a ten-day, one-credit hour course was designed to improve first-year students’ math readiness, promote on-campus student support services, and encourage collaborative study with peer and peer mentors. Although the program was marketed to students starting in college algebra or precalculus, the program was open to all incoming first-year engineering students. Quantitative data were collected from the first cohort of 40 students who participated in the program at a public, four-year institution in North Carolina before the fall 2023 semester. The program's impact on the student’s performance in their first math and introduction to engineering courses, first-term GPA, and retention to the second year was compared to non-participants. Notable findings included an observed increase in academic performance and retention for students who participated in the program compared to students who did not participate; and grades in the introduction to engineering course were a positive predictor of retention for all first-year engineering students. This study generated practical and actionable findings that will aid four-year engineering institutions in developing or modifying intensive transition programs to increase first-year engineering students' academic performance and retention.
Keywords: first time in college students, engineering, summer bridge program, and academic success