Thoughtfully Designing an Industry Mentor Program for Undergraduates in CS and Mathematics

This work provides a detailed account of a mentoring program pairing junior and senior CS and math undergraduate majors with Industry professionals. Developed with the support of a National Science Foundation S-STEM grant, our Industry Mentor program served high financial needs students, many of whom were first generation college students and/or from groups underrepresented amongst CS or mathematics majors. We present the design of our Industry Mentor program as a whole, as well as our matching process, which was developed in consultation with mentoring experts and applicable literature. The original motivation and objectives for the program, as well as reflections and initial analysis are also shared to provide context and potential claims of impact. Findings contribute to the knowledge base of effective practices for promoting retention, graduation, and career awareness of students in computing and mathematics.