Strengthening geoscience educational pathways for underrepresented students from two-year to four-year institutions

AbstractAn opportunity exists to attract students from historically underrepresented communities into the geosciences, the least diverse of the STEM fields. Home to a diverse population, Riverside County in Southern California supports several community colleges with thriving geoscience programs where students can take a range of geology courses in preparation for a geology major at 4-year universities. The Geoscientist Development (GEODE) Program is designed to recruit and retain students from underrepresented groups into geoscience majors and careers and increase students’ interest in transferring from a 2-year college to a 4-year college. In this study, we examined how participation in a 10-week paid research internship affected students’ interest in studying and pursuing a degree or career in geoscience. Combining quantitative analysis of Likert-style survey questions and thematic content analysis of open-ended questions, we determined that paid research internships positively impacted students’ interest in geoscience and increased their interest in transferring from their 2-year college to a 4-year university. The students reported benefits of new research skills, career preparation, and networking; they struggled with a lack of background knowledge and a lack of research time. These results demonstrate a promising way to strengthen geoscience educational pathways and increase diversity in the geosciences. This program can be implemented at other institutions by forming cross-campus relationships and with relatively small financial commitments.Keywords: Internships2-year college transfersrecruitment and retentionundergraduate geoscience educationunderrepresented students AcknowledgmentsThe authors wish to thank Richard Minnich and Nigel Hughes for their insightful discussions and comments on the manuscript. Our manuscript was strengthened by feedback from Julia Cisneros, the editors, and an anonymous reviewer. We also thank Theresa Kane and Rose Bisquera for their work facilitating the GEODE program.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the National Science Foundation Geopaths grant 1600284. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this work are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.