In this dissertation, I present readers with three studies about the ways in which science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research experiences impact undergraduate learning, perspectives, and academic/career activities. In the first two studies I focus on this topic by investigating the ways in which undergraduates were impacted…

This study examined opportunities for enhancing transfer outcomes for community college students through summer research opportunities at a university. It emphasizes the significance of academic capital, derived from Bourdieu's cultural capital theory, in facilitating successful transfers. By offering ten-week paid summer research opportunities at…

Increased attention toward filling skills gaps have prompted community colleges to prepare a new wave of employees. Community colleges have long turned to former industry professionals, now serving as career and technical education (CTE) faculty, to train students for fruitful careers. This narrative inquiry study featured interviews with 20…

Community and tribal colleges emphasize students' needs as well as local job contexts. The dynamic and emerging job market present a challenge to education and preparation of traditional degree-seeking students as education rarely keep steps with skills required by employers. Internships, or work-based learning, are a way to facilitate the…

Internships are widely promoted high-impact practices that can have positive impacts on students' academic and post-graduate success, yet how specific features facilitate these outcomes is understudied. Instead, internships are often studied in terms of mere participation, without recognizing that these experiences are complex pedagogic spaces…

The New York City P-TECH 9-14 schools are an educational model that ties together the secondary, higher education, and workforce systems to improve outcomes across domains. The distinguishing feature of the model is a partnership among a high school, a community college, and one or more employer partners that focuses on preparing students for both…

The New York City P-TECH 9-14 schools are an educational model that ties together the secondary, higher education, and workforce systems to improve outcomes across domains. The distinguishing feature of the model is a partnership among a high school, a community college, and one or more employer partners that focuses on preparing students for both…

Research shows that employers play a key role in work-based learning (WBL) programs such as internships but are seldom involved in conversations around the topic (Greenfield & Stevens, 2018). While the benefits of work-based learning are well documented, employers are often unaware of the benefits they would receive from participating in an…

Practical training is important for community college students to gain high-impact real-world experience. This study aims to evaluate the impact of practical training of remote internships of community college and two-year associate degree students on spatiotemporal GIS learning during the pandemic. Anonymous pre- and post-internship surveys and…

The Geo-Launchpad Program is a pre-Research Experience for Undergraduates (pre-REU) providing a summer internship and professional development for two-year college (2YC) students from Colorado. The program goal was to build students' interest and capacity to engage in geoscience-focused STEM career pathways. The pre-REU helped students develop…

"Classroom to Career" is an accredited experiential learning method that community college students can use to build their career paths. Experiential learning curriculum courses provide students with the exposure they need to shift from undergraduate instruction and enhance their learning and employment outcomes to gain an Associate of…

This study details the mentored research component of a program intended to recruit, retain, and transfer students attending a two-year college (2YC) to four-year geosciences programs. Eighteen of 20 students who started the program were from minoritized backgrounds: 12 women, six racial/ethnic minorities, 12 low-income, and 13 first-generation…

Articulating clear and achievable expectations is fundamental to both education and organizational management. In this article, we provide a simple intervention for clarifying expectations--and establishing that these expectations have been understood--which proved beneficial both to community college interns and to their internship mentors in…

The Association of Departments of English (ADE) Ad Hoc Committee on English Majors' Career Preparation and Outcomes was charged with reporting on career outcomes for English majors and minors; gathering case studies and other forms of evidence of departments' effective strategies and curricular innovations for working with students on career…

Background: Undergraduate research programs have been shown to have positive effects on student outcomes like retention and academic achievement. This study contributes to the very limited body of causal research on mentored undergraduate research programs (also known as apprentice-style research experiences, or AREs) by measuring the short- and…