This is a unique program that brings students admitted to the graduate programs in Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability to campus during the summer to: (a) conduct research, (b) increase their readiness for graduate studies, and (c) ease the transition from undergraduate to graduate studies.
The Summer Bridge Program addresses a number of key issues with retention of qualified graduate students: financial stress while transitioning from undergraduate to graduate school, adaptability to a new cultural environment (for those students coming from outside of NYC), lack of early exposure to relevant research topics, and academic preparation for graduate school.
The program admits 10-15 students each year for the summer prior to their first semester in graduate school. Students must apply to this program, and preference will be given to students who identify financial, especially minority students. The 8 week summer training consists of the following specific activities:
- Academic Training in Geographical Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS): Students will take these two intensive courses in four weeks, 4 hours per day. The courses will be offered by trained CCNY staff, regular faculty members, or postdoctoral researchers. A grade will be given to students in each course to monitor their success.
- Summer Orientation: During the summer program students are exposed to weekly seminars given by faculty, professional scientists, or guest speakers with a background in Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability in the diverse topics of climate change, remote sensing, renewable energy, and water resources. This exposure has the objective of broadening the students’ awareness of the fields that may be directly related to their own interests. Speakers also present potential research topics for the students to pursue during their graduate studies. The last four weeks of the summer program, students are carefully assigned to research mentors and projects to conduct basic research in selected topics and projects related to Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability. This activity will expose students to hands-on graduate level introductory research topics where students can deepen their interest and contribute to an on-going research project.The experience will have five basic elements: literature review, definition of a problem, proposed research plan, execution, and presentation of findings. Each student will be paired with a senior graduate student (MS or Ph.D.) and a faculty mentor.
