Building little bridges to help students succeed

The transition from high school to college challenges most students and often produces numerous academic casualties. The Mini-BRIDGE (short course on learning how to learn and understanding factors that interfere with learning) provides students with appropriate learning technology to improve academic performance. It is one of the little bridges that helps engineering students to complete a safe transition to academic life and responsibility in college. The Mini-BRIDGE program was implemented in the College of Engineering at Texas Tech University in January of 1996 to target and help freshmen who experienced law grades the fall semester. Thirty-six students enrolled in the short course. A total of 33 students completed the spring semester and were analyzed in this study. Students who participated in the Mini-BRIDGE increased their grade point average (GPA) by 0.648 points on a 4.0 scale. The number of students with 2.0 or higher GPA increased from 18.2 to 60.6 percent-a 233 percent increase in successful students. Before Mini-BRIDGE all students had less than a 3.0 GPA. After Mini-BRIDGE, 21.2 percent of the students earned a GPA of 3.0 or better, and 6.1 percent earned 3.5 or higher. One student earned a perfect 4.0 GPA