Paper Authors

Abstract

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract

Session 3170

GUIDE: Helping Underrepresented Students Succeed in Engineering

Amy E. Monte, Gretchen L. Hein

Department of Engineering Fundamentals Michigan Technological University Houghton, MI

Abstract The Graduate, Undergraduate Initiative for Development and Enhancement (GUIDE) program creates a supportive environment for first year engineering students from underrepresented groups. GUIDE provides first year students with undergraduate and graduate student mentors, financial assistance and faculty advisors to assist them with the transition to university life. In addition, GUIDE scholars attend engineering seminars and career workshops. The engineering seminar series introduces the undergraduate students to different facets of engineering through interactions with engineering faculty and professionals. The career development workshops focus on activities students need to complete to obtain co-ops or internships after they complete the GUIDE program. As part of the program, students meet with the program advisors to discuss their perception of the program and to make suggestions to improve the program. This year’s improvements included changes to the structure of the engineering seminars and improvements to program cohesiveness. Historically, the engineering seminars have consisted of an engineering professional speaking to students about an aspect of engineering. Although the seminars are open-ended and invite student discussion, student participation has been lacking. This year, the students were given several questions or an article relating to the seminar to discuss within their team prior to the seminar. During the first half of the seminar, the GUIDE students discussed the questions and/or the articles with the entire group. During the second half of the seminar, the speaker discussed the topic and, revisited the questions. This structure greatly increased student participation. The GUIDE students commented that they had trouble meeting regularly with their teams and they did not get to know the other GUIDE teams. This year, the students met twice a week as a team. They met once to discuss how school and coursework was going and a second time to do something social. Additionally, each team was responsible for organizing a GUIDE activity during the school year. These activities ranged from hockey games to sledding and skiing. The

Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education

• Citation

• Format
  • APA
  • APA - LaTeX bibitem
  • MLA
  • MLA - LaTeX bibitem
  • Bibtex
  • EndNote - RIS

Monte, A., & Hein, G. (2005, June), Guide: Helping Underrepresented Students Succeed In Engineering Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--15587