Incoming Students Boost Math Skills with Summer Bridge

Summer Bridge helps incoming students transition to the academic and campus life at UC San Diego.

Adrian Estudillo genuinely loves math. So when he saw the option to add a math course to his Summer Bridge experience, he didn’t hesitate to sign up.

“Math is the kind of subject you have to practice, and I wanted to refresh my skills before starting my first quarter at UC San Diego,” said Estudillo, a first-year chemical engineering major from Moreno Valley.

What he got was more than a refresher course. As one of the first incoming students to participate in Summer Bridge’s new math track, Estudillo got a taste of college-level math, an introduction to campus resources, and a group of friends and staff to support him—all before the first day of school.

Organized by UC San Diego’s Office of Academic Support and Instructional Services (OASIS), Summer Bridge provides an intensive 4- or 5-week residential program for incoming freshmen from underserved areas. The program is designed to ease the transition into college by helping students—many of whom will be the first in their families to graduate from college—acclimate to the academic, social and cultural life of UC San Diego.

Traditionally, Summer Bridge has been a 4-week program during which students take two courses, Contemporary Issues I and Education Studies 20, and earn eight units of credit. This year, students had the option to participate in a 5-week program that included a third course of either pre-calculus or calculus.

Of the 235 students participating in Summer Bridge this year, 122 chose to enroll in the extended program.

“The math track gives students an opportunity to fulfill a challenging course in a supportive environment,” said Patrick Velasquez, director of OASIS. “We hope that the smaller classes and Summer Bridge experience will give them an early academic success that will enable them to come into the fall quarter with confidence.”

The new Summer Bridge math track was launched through a unique partnership between the Mathematics Department, OASIS and UC San Diego’s Teaching + Learning Commons, supported with discretionary funding from the Chancellor’s Office. The goal of the new program is to deepen incoming students’ conceptual knowledge of mathematics and help them gain a strong academic foundation so that they can make rapid progress academically and potentially graduate sooner. While the course work is intense, each student received individual attention and was part of the university’s Supplemental Instruction (SI) academic support model that utilizes peer-assisted study sessions.

The Commons, established in 2015, is a unique infrastructure charged with transforming how we teach and learn at UC San Diego. Students admitted to the campus have robust academic credentials, but differ widely in their personal background and classroom experiences. Teaching effectively in the face of this variation can be challenging. Therefore, the campus established the Teaching + Learning Commons to provide a suite of educational tools to maximize all students’ potential for academic and post-graduate success and prepare all students to become global and innovative problem solvers and social change agents. The Commons offices just moved to Geisel Library to be more accessible to students and faculty.

Small class sizes and peer-assisted study sessions provide a supportive environment for Summer Bridge students

“Many STEM majors struggle, taking and re-taking required math courses, substantially increasing their time to degree,” said Gabriele Wienhausen, faculty director of the Teaching + Learning Commons. “The major reason for this is that these students’ math knowledge is mainly procedural—they recall rules and apply them. What they lack is conceptual knowledge. Such failures plague STEM students and contribute to STEM attrition. A proven programmatic way to address a lack of math preparedness is through a residential Summer Bridge program.”

For Ilhan Nunow, the Summer Bridge math track provided a head start for a demanding class schedule. Nunow grew up in the Oak Park neighborhood of San Diego; her parents settled there as refugees from Somalia. In high school, Nunow was drawn to learning about the smallest parts of nature—the cells and atoms of organisms and how they interact. Now, she is majoring in chemistry and biochemistry with the goal of becoming a doctor.

When Nunow took the math placement test required for incoming students, she didn’t place into the calculus class she was planning to take in the fall. That’s why she opted for the math track during Summer Bridge, enrolling in Math 4C, the pre-calculus course for her major.

“It was really different from high school,” she said. “In high school I would do the homework, but didn’t really need to study to do well.”

The UC San Diego class covered material at a faster pace, she found. And while the professor demonstrated different methods of solving problems, the lectures were more conceptual.

“We had to learn and practice outside of class to really get the material,” said Nunow. “The TAs and the SI section leaders were very helpful for this. Now, I’ve got a good grasp and feel prepared for the fall. Overall, Summer Bridge was an amazing experience.”

Support to develop and implement the Summer Bridge math track was provided by the Chancellor’s Office. Gifts to the Chancellor’s Fund for Excellence enable the Chancellor to advance top research priorities and ensure faculty and student innovation has the means to thrive. To learn more and make a gift, visit giving.ucsd.edu.