Execution Details and Assessment Results of a Summer Bridge Program for Engineering Freshmen

This paper reports the execution details and the summary assessment of a Summer Bridge Program (SBP) that is a part of an ongoing National Science Foundation (NSF) Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (S-STEM) project in the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The project supports 18 Scholars (academically-talented, lowincome engineering students). The primary goals of the SBP are facilitating Scholars’ transition to their first-year and improving their academic success. To achieve these goals, the SBP is implemented as a two-week on-campus intensive experience that occurs in the summer before the student’s first year. The first round of the SBP was completed in Summer 2018 and the current paper offers the details, lessons learned, and a brief evaluation of the SBP. Based on the assessment data, it is concluded that the SBP was successful in achieving its stated goals. The evaluation results and the lessons learned from the SBP execution can be used to build a sustainable Summer Bridge Program for all first-year engineering students in the future.