PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Laleh E. Coté
AU  - Seth Van Doren
AU  - Astrid N. Zamora
AU  - Julio Jaramillo Salcido
AU  - Esther W. Law
AU  - Gabriel Otero Munoz
AU  - Aparna Manocha
AU  - Colette L. Flood
AU  - Anne M. Baranger
TI  - “When I talk about it, my eyes light up!” Impacts of a national laboratory internship on community college student success
AID  - 10.1101/2023.05.08.539924
DP  - 2023 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2023.05.08.539924
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2023/05/10/2023.05.08.539924.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2023/05/10/2023.05.08.539924.full
AB  - Participation in research experiences and internships may improve graduation rates and persistence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) among undergraduates, yet very little is known about the benefits of these activities for community college students. To fill this gap, we collected survey and interview data from 43 individuals who completed the Community College Internship (CCI) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). These “CCI alumni” reported gains, including: connections with members of the LBNL community (95%); higher expectations of academic or career success (91%); development of critical skills (88%); and increased self-efficacy and/or confidence (84%), STEM identity (70%), and knowledge about STEM careers (65%). Of this group, 12% are graduate students, 84% have entered the STEM workforce, and 5% have entered the health workforce. We hope this work will encourage other scholars to contribute to what is known about the impact of internships at national laboratories on STEM majors.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.