Student Transition Empowerment Program: Discovering Trends on First-Generation Latino/a College Students

This thesis describes the effect of the Student Transition Empowerment Program (STEP), a summer bridge program at George Mason University during the summer of 2014. Research is done in a case-study format, collecting interview data from six first-generational Latino/a college students participating in the program. The data is collected over the course of three interviews per participant, starting at the beginning of the program, the end of the program, and within the middle of their first semester. In the process of researching and writing this thesis, the author conducted a literature search and reviews research about summer bridge programs and mentoring relationships, highlighting trends from the literature to themes discovered through interviewing the participants. This thesis is slated to be a reference and resource for higher education institutions conducting their summer bridge programs in order to gauge the early effects on first-generation college students.

Author

• Yanez, George

• First-generation
• Retention
• Summer bridge program
• Latino/a

Identifier

hdl:1920/10266

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:MARS:1920/10266