The Impact of a Robotics Summer Undergraduate Research Experience on Increasing the Pipeline to Graduate School

Abstract

The Summer Undergraduate Research in Engineering/Science (SURE) program, initiated in 1992, is a ten-week summer program for junior and senior level undergraduates from U.S. institutions. In 2013, the program instituted a new initiative to provide opportunities to students focused on robotics research, and as a direct consequence, interest them in opportunities available through graduate study. Robotics, as a discipline, is inherently interdisciplinary, combining all aspects of engineering and computer science necessary for designing and deploying integrated systems and solutions. Every year, eight students with diverse backgrounds are selected and paired with faculty advisors and graduate student mentors who are members of the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines. In addition to conducting research during their stay, students also participate in a week-long robotics boot camp their first week, attend weekly seminars on emerging research in engineering fields, visit local industry, participate in enrichment and academic development activities, and attend social events. Students conclude the program with research presentations to their peers and faculty and graduate student mentors. During the life of the SURE program, 541 students, selected from a pool of 2,899 applicants, have participated in the program. A comprehensive assessment program for SURE has been developed and implemented. The assessment process is driven by the overall program objective to provide participants a meaningful research experience and enrichment activities to increase the likelihood that participants will attend graduate school in engineering/science. This model targets three cohorts from which data is collected. Each data source provides unique information that contributes to a comprehensive analysis of the impact and experiences of program participants and to an understanding of the academic trends of all SURE program applicants. The preand post-program surveys, focus group session and interviews with participants include a series of questions about students’ research interests, and participants’ perceived impact of SURE on research skills and planned graduate school attendance. The faculty advisor survey includes questions about the contribution the students made to their research programs, whether or not their student would succeed in graduate school, the quality of the students' oral and written project presentations, likelihood of future collaboration with the student and how the program could be improved in future years. The Longitudinal Survey of Former SURE Participants, conducted every four years, addresses the primary objective of the SURE program to motivate participating students to attend graduate school in engineering/science. Respondents are asked a variety of questions about their academic decisions after participating in the SURE program. Detailed data about graduate school attendance, degree attainment, and major is collected and analyzed. Questions are included to obtain feedback about their co-curricular activities and the environment of their undergraduate institutions. Another set of questions refer to sources of encouragement that students might have had when deciding to attend graduate school. Thus far, the program has been tremendously successful in attaining its primary objective. Collected outcome measures have shown that 76% of the students who participate in the program attend graduate school in engineering/science and 6% attend medical school upon receiving their B.S. degree.