Bringing "engineering forward" to the high schools: one University\´s experience in starting an engineering summer camp program

The concept of "engineering forward" has proven successful in increasing freshman engineering retention, despite the heavy course loading in mathematics, chemistry and physics, which are typically taught by faculty outside of engineering. Under this doctrine, students are engaged early in their college stay through innovative courses with the aim of establishing an engineering identity. The success of this model can be seen in that most engineering curricula now employ some form of the engineering forward concept. The author, however, contends that the full potential of this approach lies not only with the engineering freshmen but also at the high school level, where a similar set of imposed mandates has shaped the curricular offerings. To address this problem, many universities have instituted an engineering camp. This paper presents a description of the objectives, planning, methodology, administration and statistical results for the Engineering Summer Camps offered at Widener University. Although many engineering camps exist, this paper is intended to relate how one University, with limited resources, was able to meet this challenge.