Building bridges: the 2006 summer institute

Abstract

In an effort to broaden participation in computing, the authors have initiated a series of interventions focusing on the recruitment, preparation, and retention of under-represented students in computer science. Their approach is to emphasize the practical side of computing through a series of tracks: business, law, medicine, graphics and multimedia, and robotics and simulation. This paper describes one of those interventions: a summer institute, conducted in 2006, that gives local high school students a taste of what computing is all about.