Preparing Undergraduate Students for Summer Research Experiences and Graduate School Applications in a Pandemic...

Engaging students in research is a high impact practice that improves student retention and persistence in behavioral and biomedical sciences and engineering. The California State University Long Beach (CSULB) Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) Program offers an intensive research training experience to undergraduate students from a wide range of health-related disciplines. The goal of this program is to provide students with research skills, psychosocial resources, and graduate school application guidance that will make them competitive for Ph.D. programs. With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing the campus closure of many universities, including CSULB, our student training had to transition from in-person training to online training. This paper discusses the development and implementation of a series of eight online modules for guiding students through the application process for summer research experiences and graduate schools. Overall, the BUILD trainees were positive about the online modules. Specifically, they indicated that the modules were useful, informative, easy to access/use, good use of their time, and a good supplemental activity to their learning community activities. Most trainees indicated that they preferred the modules to be implemented in a hybrid format, where the students can view the modules on their own first and then have an opportunity to engage in in-person/synchronous online discussions.