Escape To Engineering: A Summer Bridge Program For Women In Engineering

The ESCape program is designed to support incoming female engineering students as they make the transition from high school to college in a number of ways. Some of the elements that may inhibit the retention of a female engineering student include lack of support from home, feelings of inadequacy with regards to mathematics performance, feelings of isolation, homesickness, and lack of connection within a large university. Incoming first year female engineering students are invited to attend the ESCape camp based on math SAT scores. The desired attendance is approximately fifty students, so students with lower scores are invited to apply. The week long camp includes elements of how to succeed in college math, three dimensional visualization skills, trips to local manufacturing plants and visits with their entire female engineering staff, parent programs, social programs, introduction to the campus computing environment and more. Reunions are held throughout the year, and the students are tracked in terms of academic performance, campus involvement, retention and other factors. This paper will present detailed camp content together with the supporting research and assessment data.