Incoming students get help dealing with college, academically and socially, through summer programs that often turn them on to science as a bonus.

Entering college can be daunting, especially for students not fully prepared for the rigors of academic life. "Some of them have not been challenged in high school," says HHMI professor Isiah M. Warner, a chemist at Louisiana State University (LSU). "They come to college thinking it is going to be like high school, and they have not developed the skills they need."

Inadequate preparedness is especially a barrier to success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses. Such limitations may be contributing to the country's precipitous decline in STEM majors documented by the National Academy of Sciences and others.

Academics like Warner, who directs LSU's LA-STEM, are trying to turn things around by setting up summer "bridge" programs to ease the transition from high school or community college to college. While some students are initially reluctant to give up their summer, in the end they realize what they have gained: a good head start. Incoming students get acclimated to the campus and are taught how to handle the rigors of college life. Some programs even use science as the key—for instance, by placing students in a lab.

Brad Corso is one of LA-STEM's success stories. He graduated in the middle of his high school class, but after going through the summer program—which he credits with teaching him study and time-management skills—Corso ended his freshman year at LSU with a GPA of 4.0.

		Summer school can be downright intriguing, as shown by the bridge program at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina. Talented seniors from local high schools view a videotape done in the style of the popular forensics television show CSI, in which two people reportedly died. Through a combination of lab exercises, campus field trips, and lectures, the students have to figure out what happened—all in two weeks. "It really grabs the students' interest and keeps them involved," says program director Verna Miller Case. She adds that the program helps give the undergraduates, who serve as instructors, experience in teaching, while providing the recent high school graduates with "a taste of what a college science class will be like." The program also helps put to rest students' preconceived notions about what a scientist is and does, says program coordinator Karen Bernd. On the first and last days of this summer session, participants are asked to draw a scientist working in a lab. One student initially drew a nondescript woman wearing safety goggles; at the end of the session she drew a female much like herself, out in the sun. The caption read: "A scientist can be anyone who has a question and wants to know the answer." —J.R.

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