Twenty-nine students are currently taking advantage of the Summer Bridge Program at Baker University, getting a head start on college. The program, organized by Kauffman Scholars and Baker University, allows incoming college freshmen, regardless of where they intend to study in the fall, to take summer classes at BU and get accustomed to college life.

The director of the Summer Bridge Program, Carrie Coward Bucher, is teaching the Introduction to Sociology course. She said the program is like an “academic boot camp.”

Six days a week for five weeks, students attend classes and study sessions while acquiring key learning skills. Coward-Bucher said that students who participate in the Summer Bridge Program are more likely to stay in college and maintain a higher GPA than their peers who did not participate in the program.

“[The program] is a boost for freshmen going into professions that require a higher GPA from the start,” Coward Bucher said, “like pre-med, pre-law, pharmacy, and nursing.”

Some of the students are Kauffman Scholars, like Diamond Alexander and Zasher Gary.

“I decided to do this program, so I could get a head start, hopefully graduate early,” said Alexander, who will be attending Park University in Missouri this fall.

Gary said that she wanted to meet the faculty and learn the structure of Baker’s classes before starting classes at BU this fall.

“I thought that this would be a good way for me to get my foot in the door and make it easier for me,” she said.

Lahmad Evans is another student participating in the program before coming to Baker this fall. He thought that the Summer Bridge Program would really help him get acclimated to college.

“I can’t even express my level of excitement,” Evans said.

Fifteen of the students are enrolled in Human Genetics and Intro to Psychology, while the other 14 are taking Intro to Sociology along with Mass Media & Society.

“Every single day they are here, they are really investing in themselves to be successful,” Coward Bucher said. “And you wish every student was in that boat, but that’s just not how it is. Every student here just decided early on that they were going to be successful – When you know that they are all committed to their success, it is easy for you to commit too.”