CSUF students mentor junior high students in STEM subjects
Description
Cal State Fullerton students from the College of Engineering and Computer Science and the Mihaylo College of Business and Economics recently got a crash course in managing real-world projects.
The students served as mentors for the “The Stem-Inc.: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mini-business Incubator” program, which aims to introduce science, engineering, technology and mathematics or STEM, to students in the Anaheim Union High School District.
The program, which is funded by a National Science Foundation grant issued to CSUF in 2014, encourages junior high school students to work with their classmates and college mentor to design and create a product that people would find useful, as well as devise a 60-second business pitch.
CSUF students, while well-versed on how to carry out projects on their own, typically don’t acquire much hands-on experience with leading and supervising a group project, said Pradeep Nair, associate professor of computer engineering and one of the program’s faculty facilitators. The annual project allows college mentors to act as CEOs of the junior high school students’ projects.
“We want (CSUF) students to consider higher education and a career in academia – this might interest them in teaching,” he said.
This year, 11 CSUF student mentors and about 120 Anaheim junior high school students participated in the program. On May 4, students presented their projects to the community at the program’s annual showcase.
Raman Unnikrishnan, College of Engineering and Computer Science dean, was the event’s keynote speaker.
Contact the writer: amarcos@ocregister.com