WIP: Closing the Opportunity Gap Through Industry Career Mentoring in Science and Engineering Education

This innovative practice WIP paper describes the implementation of a five-year mentoring initiative for science and engineering programs at an urban, private institution with the goals of providing holistic programming and opportunities for early career preparation for all first-year students. In partnership with Mentor Collective, peer mentor programming was designed to include data collection from mentees to better understand their needs and to support their academic training with meaningful experiences that support career readiness. Data over a five-year period from mentees demonstrate the following: (1) expectations from program participants vary significantly from learning how to maintain healthy work-life balance to succeeding in classes and participation in co-curricular activities, (2) graduation rates at and above 80% are achievable and sustainable, which is significantly higher than the national average and (3) closing of the opportunity gap can be accomplished for populations that have traditionally low graduation rates. Feedback from the mentors (industry professionals) reveal very high interest in their willingness to continue participation, which suggests that mentoring initiatives are mutually beneficial, sustainable, and scalable across institutions. Additional data from this report also demonstrate that the impact of linking first-year students with industry professionals can serve as a scalable mentoring solution.