A Case Study of Success: Mentoring and Supporting Underrepresented Transfer Students in a Mechanical Engineering Program

Abstract

California State University, Northridge (CSUN), like many large urban institutions, has a very diverse student body. This diversity is not only reflected in ethnic and racial differences, but also in the students’ educational backgrounds. Our institution enrolls a large number of transfer students, mostly from community colleges in California. These students face a number of challenges, including the adjustment to a new learning environment, issues related to transfer credits, and the necessity of taking additional courses to complete lower division major requirements. In 2011, CSUN received a five-year, $5.5 million dollar HSI-STEM grant from the Department of Education to address the challenges faced by transfer students from under-represented groups. Glendale Community College and College of the Canyons are partners in the grant. The main goals of the grant are to recruit promising students from community colleges, and then provide them with financial and academic support to ensure their success. There are also opportunities to work on summer research projects under the guidance of their faculty mentors. The initial cohort of students that entered the program is now nearing graduation. Students in the program are enrolled in a variety of engineering disciplines, including computer science, and are expected to spend additional time on campus in order to become more fully engaged in their department’s activities. Assessment of the academic impact of these experiences on the first cohort of transfer students in this program is presented. Also considered is the impact of working on summer research projects with their faculty mentors. Specific benefits were associated with research interaction with faculty, including faculty accessibility and responsiveness, faculty research connections to coursework and career, and academic effects of student-faculty research interaction on students. This paper also describes a particular summer research project performed by a group of mechanical engineering students (five from CSUN and two from Glendale CC) in the summer of 2013. Their work was related to CSUN’s human powered vehicle project, which is one of the senior capstone options for mechanical engineering students. Specifically, the group worked on developing methodologies for predicting drag on human powered vehicles, using the previous year’s vehicle as a test bed. The drag on this vehicle was estimated using computer simulation, wind tunnel tests, and field measurements.