Research shows that UH engineering students who are more involved in the engineering community – whether through membership in student groups and professional societies, enrollment in the PROMES or the Honors Engineering Program, or involvement in research activities – are far more likely to complete their engineering degrees. The Cullen College is employing a three-pronged approach to enhance retention by connecting students to the engineering community through:
- The Program for Mastery in Engineering Studies (PROMES): PROMES is an academic enrichment program that provides engineering students with academic advising, workshops, scholarship and professional and personal development opportunities. The program is open to all UH engineering students and fosters a “community of scholars” within the college; PROMES students learn together, study together, socialize together and encourage each other to be leaders both at UH and in their careers after college.
- Engineering Honors Program: The Honors Engineering Program (HEP) is jointly offered through the Cullen College and the Honors College. HEP is a challenging program that encourages a sense of community among Honors students in engineering and provides an improved experience by offering courses tailored to the needs of high-achieving engineering students.
- Undergraduate Research: The Cullen College and the University offer a wide array of research opportunities for undergraduate students to get involved in. These programs not only provide enhanced learning opportunities to students through hands-on projects developed by faculty but they also provide valuable experience to students looking to pursue advanced degrees. Many of these undergraduate research opportunities are funded fellowship positions.
In addition to expanding and enhancing the PROMES, HEP and Undergraduate Research programs, the Cullen College took on additional efforts to increase student retention through:
- Establishing of a common First Year Experience for all engineering students, meaning the curriculums across all engineering majors are identical in the first four semesters. This allows students greater flexibility in declaring and changing majors within the first two years of college.
- Employing project-based problem solving teaching techniques rooted in the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges to help students connect-the-dots between classroom lessons and their real-world applications.
- Offering 1-credit-hour academic workshops for juniors and seniors looking to improve their performance and skills in some of the most rigorous engineering courses, including statistics, thermodynamics and physics. Students who complete these workshops earn on average one full letter grade higher than their peers who don’t participate in the workshops.
- Redefining and standardizing the transfer admission process. The Cullen College has articulation agreements with the Houston Community College System, the San Jacinto College District and the Lone Star College System that allow students at these colleges who obtain an Associate of Science in Engineering Sciences the option of transferring into a bachelor’s degree program at the UH Cullen College of Engineering, provided they meet all admission requirements.
- Establishing a summer bridge program for the freshman to sophomore year to address the high drop-out rate between sophomore and junior year (90% of freshmen become sophomores, but only 75% of sophomores become juniors). The summer bridge program seeks to increase the percentage of students who continue to their junior year.