2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Introduction: Since the Fall of 2023, the community college has nurtured students through the NSF S-STEM Grant initiative called Scholarships, Mentoring, and Professional Support to Improve Engineering & Artificial Intelligence Student Success at Community Colleges. This grant, also known as Reaching Engineering and Artificial Intelligence Career Heights (REACH), empowers students with scholarships, personalized mentoring, and industry-oriented activities. This study delves into an Individual Development Plan (IDP) interactive dashboard used during the mentoring sessions.

Methodology: An interactive dashboard made on Google Spreadsheet was developed to record monthly academic data, contact with industrial, working hours, and key moments, and help the students reflect on their data. Each semester, the students and their mentors filled a different tab. Each month, they filled different columns of data. The data are divided into 3 groups: grade per course, confidence to complete the same course, and outside academic activity: work, industry visits, clubs etc. Three charts illustrate the trend of that information.

Results: 20 students (at the date of Fall 2024) are or were enrolled in the program, including 7 in AAS, Emphasis in Artificial Intelligence, and 13 in AS, Emphasis in Engineering, with 7 females, and 13 males. 94% of the IDP dashboard was filled and 100% of the students reported that the IDP tool was extremely useful or useful. The data also show that students completed 94% of the courses and their workload decreased on average from 22 hours to 17 hours per week over the semesters. One mentee reported the IDP as making them “want to continue their progress and keep their grades up and that it gives them (mentee and mentor) something to talk about right away.“ One mentor summarized the IDP tool as allowing them “to consider where they can support their mentee(s).”

Conclusion: The IDP dashboard makes the mentoring sessions more efficient, focuses on the challenges faced by the mentee(s) during this specific month, and tracks data. A mentor suggested breaking up the options of extra-academic activities as they are key to keeping students engaged in their academic journey. Metrics such as networking, volunteering, participating in professional organizations, listening to speakers' presentations, and touring university partners and industry companies will be added to the dashboard.

Acknowledgment: The authors would like to express their sincere thanks and gratitude to the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the Scholarship in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) award No. 2220959.