Bridges to STEM Careers for Low Income and Minority Youth

Bridges to STEM Careers is a three-year project designed to enhance the relevance of technician education in computer science and multimedia. The project targets two-year college students, their families and their college and workplace mentors. The ultimate goal of the Bridges project is to keep underrepresented minority and low-income students in the STEM pipeline by demystifying the process of preparing for a STEM career. The project achieves this goal through two interconnected activities: (a) a comprehensive, paid internship program for community college students enhanced with career panels, family outreach and peer mentors; and (b) a series of video vignettes on STEM career pathways inspired by the experiences of the internship participants. Bridges is lead by the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC), a media arts and technology organization that has for 10 years recruited low-income Bay Area youth for several technical and creative programs exploring new media technology. Partners include the City College of San Francisco and the Mid-Pacific Information and Communications Technologies Center. Bridges expands the internship and family outreach components of the earlier Digital Pathways program to 100 community college students in an effort to minimize attrition in the STEM pipeline.