Collection

15th Annual First-Year Engineering Experience Conference (FYEE)

Authors

Rawle D. Sookwah, University of South Carolina; Robert Petrulis; Edward P Gatzke, University of South Carolina

Tagged Topics

Diversity

studentscomprised 10% of the undergraduate population, with 7% self-reporting as Asian, 6% Hispanic, and 4%reporting as two or more races. Only 22% of students in the college identify as a FGS. Various college-levelefforts have been made to improve first-year student retention, including college-specific UNIV 101 sections, aLiving and Learning Community for students in the college, and a summer start program targeting the collegeFGS population. Educational efforts for first-year students can be improved based on better understanding ofstudent stressors and the effectiveness of academic supports.A research team supported by an NSF S-STEM award recruited multiple cohorts of students with high financialneed. The “Synthesized Program for Undergraduate