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Students are taking increasingly complex pathways through higher education, yet mobility patterns other than one-to-one vertical transfer have been largely neglected in the research literature (Taylor & Jain, 2017). This paper draws on semi-structured interviews with 27 students majoring in STEM fields from three universities to explore why they undertake non-traditional transfer patterns during their undergraduate studies. Students exhibited various dynamic transfer patterns such as summer swirling at community colleges, co-enrollment at multiple institutions, or lateral transfer between two-year or four-year institutions. Rationales for dynamic transfer varied by type of enrollment pattern.. Students often received benefits from their enrollment mobility (e.g., stay on track toward degree, maximize chances for success, affordability, etc.) but dynamic transfer was also prompted by unmet needs at their home institution. Students who attended more than two institutions or who exhibited discontinuous enrollment patterns experienced the most academic, personal, and financial duress. Students’ creative and dynamic transfer patterns in their higher education studies highlight the pivotal role that community colleges play in the degree persistence of university STEM majors. Additionally, students’ dynamic transfer patterns illustrate the resourceful ways that they navigate higher education and suggests the need for institutions to reexamine how they support students. 

Despite clear links to improving college outcomes, descriptive details about the kinds of student-faculty interactions that are most helpful for STEM students are less well understood. In this qualitative interview study, we investigate what micro interactions are most helpful – and consequential – for STEM students’ persistence and success, especially transfer students. We found that students who experienced positive, caring interactions with at least one faculty member in their major tended to feel more connected to their discipline, had greater confidence in their abilities in STEM, and often put forth more effort in their studies. Transfer students were especially impacted by the quality of care they received from faculty; those who had negative experiences with faculty were often left feeling less capable and discouraged to continue in their STEM discipline. STEM faculty should show interest in students’ learning and long-term academic and career goals and provide sufficient availability for one-on-one help. 

Vertical transfer from community college to a university offers a promising, although unrealized, pathway to diversify STEM disciplines. Studying how successful transfer-­receiving universities support STEM transfer students can offer insights into the institutional practices that promote transfer student retention and success. Using institutional data is crucial to identify vulnerable populations within the STEM transfer population and to design necessary changes in practice or policy, especially at the department level. Providing discipline-specific multidimensional support throughout STEM transfer students’ undergraduate careers can improve transfer rates and retention and ease students’ transition to the univer­sity. Although universities have developed promising practices and programs, support for STEM transfer students is not systematically available and should be more targeted, intentional, and comprehensive throughout the transfer and adjustment process. 

Objective/Research Question: This research explores how community college students, who are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and aspire to vertical transfer in STEM make choices about majors and transfer destinations. The question is important to advancing equity in STEM, which continues to perpetuate disparities in attainment for minoritized, first-generation, and financially disadvantaged students, who disproportionately enter higher education in community colleges. Methods: Using a longitudinal, qualitative research design, the study relied on semi-structured interviewing to generate in-depth evidence about student experiences. Results: Findings showed that career goals were uniformly influential to students, yet career information was unevenly available or comprehensible during community college. Students’ choices about what to major in and where to transfer were iterative and intertwined, with these choices deeply connected to students’ families and lifetime priorities. Delays in student decision-making tended to have less to do with uncertain individual preferences than to lack of information about a specific STEM major and its alignment with possible future degrees, transfer destinations, and career pathways, as well as contingencies associated with the transfer admission process. Conclusions/Contributions: This research demonstrated STEM-specific nuance in how underrepresented community college students navigate major, career, and transfer destination decision-making as well as the influence of family and location-based priorities in student choices. Future research should investigate how to best provide directional support for students’ major and transfer destination decisions, including major-to-career awareness and the academic and personal dimensions of transfer. 

Community colleges have long been touted as a pathway to increase social mobility through their transfer function, yet this promise has not always been realized. This study uses the lens of community cultural wealth, particularly the concepts of aspirational, social, and navigational capitals, to understand vertical transfer students’ experiences and outcomes during the pandemic. Longitudinal interviews were conducted with 27 students over a four-year period as they moved through the transfer pathway in STEM majors. Students who transferred to a university immediately prior to or during the pandemic experienced greater academic and navigational challenges and reported diminished access to social capital. Students employed multiple, informal navigational strategies and drew on social networks, when possible, to maintain their academic progress. Findings also reveal the importance of the transfer-receiving department, especially access to supportive institutional agents, in sustaining STEM transfer students’ progress during COVID-19. 

The transfer pathway from community college to university holds promise for advancing equity in STEM because it is followed by disproportionately high numbers of underrepresented students. Among the challenges these students face is cultivating belonging in multiple institutional settings. By combining belonging and validation theories, this qualitative study investigated how underrepresented students’ belonging developed in their STEM majors, highlighting differences between students who transferred and those who began as first-time in college (FTIC) students. The findings revealed that for each type of belonging experience a smaller proportion of transfer students than FTIC students experienced validation and a higher proportion experienced invalidation. Department-based transfer student orientation and ongoing programming were uniformly validating to STEM transfer students. The study provides evidence that major belonging is an academic phenomenon that is within the scope of institutional responsibility to improve. Practical implications for administrators and faculty are included as are suggestions for future research. 

Better understanding of how students achieve vertical transfer is vital for advancing equity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors. Among the many sources of barriers, delays, and complexities demonstrated in previous research as influencing vertical transfer outcomes, the transfer admission process has been generally neglected. Using a longitudinal, qualitative design, and drawing on transfer capital and field theories, this study investigated how community college students who are underrepresented in STEM fields successfully navigated admission to a four-year institution in a STEM major. Results indicated that students experienced transfer admission as risky and uncertain. They accrued transfer capital over time, in the form of knowledge about transfer admission and strategies to bolster their competitiveness, including regulating their coursework intensity and actively managing their GPAs. Although these forms of transfer capital helped students succeed in transferring, some strategies could backfire, causing unintended negative consequences, such as time-to-completion delays, excess credit accumulation, or disadvantages in securing admission. Results supported the contention that the transfer admission process is a pivotal, yet largely neglected aspect of student experience in STEM vertical pathways. Conclusions provide suggestions for further research and implications for institutional practice. 

Community colleges are increasingly recognized as providing an accessible and affordable pathway to STEM occupations, particularly for underrepresented racial and ethnic, first-generation, and low-income students. There are several institutional and academic factors that influence transfer outcomes. But one of the most central factors that can either help students successfully navigate the two-to-four-year pathway or cause significant roadblocks and cost students considerable delays – is advising. In this study, we investigate how advising practices at three institutions – two community colleges and one university – contribute to the success of underrepresented students on the transfer pathway in STEM disciplines. We conducted interviews with 39 near-transfer or recently transferred students in STEM. Most students experienced at least some good advising (n = 28); however, 21 students reported poor advising experiences, which in some cases created undue challenges and barriers. Positive advising experiences contributed to students’ sense of trust with their advisors, departments, and the institution. Early positive relationships with advisors also contributed to students being more likely to seek future help from advisors (including at other institutions); conversely negative advising relationships contributed to students being more likely to seek help elsewhere, like from friends or family, and sometimes giving up and not receiving any help at al 

In spring of 2020, almost all campuses across the United States abruptly closed and shifted to remote instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Students and faculty rapidly adjusted how they engaged in learning in a time of great social and economic upheaval. In this paper, we use the lens of equity-oriented student engagement to examine how computing departments facilitated student participation in educationally engaging activities during the campus closures. The National Science Foundation-funded INCLUDES Alliance, the Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI), is a network of computing departments dedicated to increasing the representation of Hispanics in computing education and careers. We present results from a survey administered in spring 2020 to over 900 CAHSI students in 14 computing departments at Hispanic-Serving Institutions and interviews with 30 faculty, department chairs, and leaders. Though students reported increased financial and mental health struggles, they reflected on the myriad ways that faculty and peers supported their learning and sustained their engagement in coursework and co-curricular opportunities. In response to the pandemic, faculty and student leaders structured supports, such as peer-led team learning sessions and student clubs, to operate effectively in remote environments to promote student engagement.