Document Type

Article

Publication Date

June 2010

Publication Title

ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

First Page

15.644.1

Last Page

15.644.14

ISSN

2153-5965

Disciplines

Engineering | Engineering Education

Abstract

Hispanic students are vastly underrepresented in computing during a time when the Hispanic population in the U.S. is growing dramatically. By 2020, Hispanics will account for 50% of the workers in California. And, by 2050, the Hispanic population is projected to triple in the United States with 25% of the U.S. population being of Hispanic origin. The College of Engineering (CoE) at San José State University proposed a new approach for recruiting Hispanic students into computing disciplines and careers through the Hispanic Computer Brigade (HCB) initiative. By forming HCBs in two local high schools, we aimed to inspire and engage Hispanic students through IT service learning projects. The high school students began the program with a summer camp, continued to learn and engage computing throughout the year with community service learning, and will end with a local competition where students will showcase their computing projects with high school faculty, SJSU faculty, parents/guardians, and the community. Students are learning computer and programming skills and processes in weekly meetings with the help of advisors and mentors. To support the Hispanic Computer Brigade initiative, the CoE received support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a one-year pilot program for Hispanic students from the San Jose East Side Union High School District. The first segment of the HCB program was the Silicon Valley Computer Camp (SVCC). This paper describes the design, operation, and preliminary results of the SVCC.

Comments

© 2010 American Society for Engineering Education. This article originally appeared in the proceedings of the 2010 ASEE Annual Conference, and can also be found online at this link.
Paper presented at 2010 Annual Conference & Exposition, Louisville, Kentucky.

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