Cstep: Transferring Computer Science Community College Students To Four Year Universities

Computer Science Transfer Programs (CSTEP) is a series of coordinated programs and activities specifically designed to successfully bridge computer science students from community colleges to four-year universities and beyond. In this paper we describe the program and its main objectives, present some evaluation results, and include the lessons that we learned. We found that the personalized advising service is crucial for the success of the program and identified specific adjustments that community college instructor and students need to make when they come to a four-year university. 1. Introduction In recent years, alarming national statistics and trends have shown declining graduate and undergraduate enrollment, graduation rates, and participation of minority groups in Science and Engineering (S&E) fields, and in Computer Science in particular. According to NSF’s Science and Engineering indicators 2006, underrepresented minorities did not enroll in or complete college at the same rate as Caucasians. In 2003, the percentage of African-Americans and Hispanics who completed a bachelor’s or higher degree were 18% and 10% respectively, compared with 34% of Caucasians