GoldShirt students plunge into engineering
Housed within the BOLD Center, the Engineering GoldShirt program is designed to provide a performance-enhancing year for students who would otherwise be underprepared for engineering study.
GoldShirt prepares students for success in a traditional engineering program through a carefully tailored first-year curriculum, development of a strong sense of community, and close mentoring and support throughout their degree programs. Included in the strategic plan for the College of Engineering and Applied Science is a vision to increase diversity, and part of this vision is to grow the GoldShirt program.
Our annual Summer Bridge program runs from July 7 through July 21. We are welcoming 43 new students, their families (for the first day) and 10 GoldShirt student mentors. We will kick off the program with an assessment day and a challenge and teambuilding course in Gold Hill, Colorado (some of these students have never been to the mountains).
Students will learn a variety of engineering skills in engineering workshops hosted by the Integrated Teaching and Learning Lab (ITLL), design, build and test SARAs (search and rescue assistants), develop their spatial visualization skills and sharpen their abilities in mathematics and physics. The skills that they learn in this program will empower them as they pursue their engineering degrees.
Special thanks to Sandra Williams from the applied math department for teaching the online WebAssign mathematics course, the engineering plus program, faculty and the ITLL for designing curriculum and instructing the incoming GoldShirt students during the summer bridge program.
Students will spend time networking with faculty and staff, register for fall courses, and take an industry tour (students will attend one of four company tours in small groups). At the end of the program, students will present their SARAs at a design expo.
Tanya Ennis is the director of the Engineering GoldShirt program.
The following pictures were taken at Colorado Mountain Ranch in Gold Hill, Colorado on Sunday, July 9, 2017.
