An Engineering Academic Success and Professional Development Class: The Influence of a Scholarship

Recruitment and retention of engineering and computer science students is a well-known challenge.In spite of the increasing demand for students with these majors, the numbers in the United States remain low.President Obama has called for an increase in the number of engineers produced in the nation each year.The numbers of females and underrepresented minority students in engineering and computer science remain very low, less than 20% for females.Even when students choose these majors, around half of them will change their major out of engineering and computer science.A largely untapped source for additional engineers and computer scientists are the community colleges.A two-credit semester Academic Success and Professional Development course has been developed at Arizona State University for native and transfer students to ensure that students thrive, not just survive, in engineering and computer science.Some of the students in the upper division class have scholarships which require their attendance in the class and other students do not.This paper examines a partial solution to the challenges posed above and further examines the role of a scholarship held by some of the students in the class, which requires their attendance in this class.This paper will compare the various groups of students by their overall GPA, grade in the Academic Success Class, and their evaluation of the course done at the end of the course.Sixtyfour of the 66 students in the class completed the evaluation.Of particular interest will be if the having a scholarship has influenced their decisions to consider and to attend graduate school, helped with study skills, and helped them learn about research.The students were also asked if learning about the "imposter syndrome," "transfer shock," and networking have benefited them as students.We also compare the percentage of students in each group who have had internships and done research, and note comments by the students on how the course influenced them. I.IntroductionSince 2002, workshops on academic success and professional development have been offered to engineering and computer science students