Never in her history of working with MESA programming has Jennifer Bjerke seen such a crowd of enthusiasts packing her workshops, even before the pandemic, and despite tight virtual spaces.

The personal finance series is just one of many MESA classes in high demand at San Bernardino Valley College.

“We had our biggest workshop ever this semester with over 100 students attending a workshop on car loan math with Prof. Anthony Castro,” said Jennifer Bjerke, Director of the Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Achievement (MESA) program.

Early in the year, she and Castro surveyed students about hot topics in education. Many said they wanted to learn how to economically thrive, not just survive the pandemic. Overall, she said they served over 200 students before their final workshops.

MESA also helps students with writing, study and soft skills development, resumes and cover letters, and creating their LinkedIn profile.

Interest in programming has grown as students look for STEM and help with academic excellence. The program also prepares students in engineering, math for computer science, and recently added a peer mentoring component.

“It's been rewarding. We've been able to keep a diversity of events open to the entire campus. Every student can probably find two MESA events that are right up their alley, and would benefit them,” she said.

MESA targets STEM students, but workshops are open to all students. She said they continue to draw great guest speakers, and was surprised to see professors drive for hours to come out to share their motivational expertise.

“We call them study groups on steroids because they learn extra stuff like growth mindset and how to master the material,” she said. “We had so many wonderful guest speakers, they give up their time to drive from San Diego. They want to see students succeed.”

Attracting hard to reach students prepared for higher-tier career pathways is a big focus. But, she said with a little extra guidance, even educationally underserved students can be brought up to speed to pursue their bachelor's degree.

“I love working with these programs because you get to meet people that don't know yet that they're going to be Ph.D.'s,” she said. “But they're trying and it's really cool to help them along the way.”

Zoom is another challenge, and MESA is utilizing one popular voice and text chat system that gamers use, which students are also using to study for finals.

“We invited our STEM scholars, we have text chats on money, on which scholarships to apply for. We have one for every major subject, in engineering and math. They can post helpful info, and we post workshops,” she said.

It's all part of evolving with the times to match the needs of underserved students. The goal is to increase retention, help students finish up their hardest classes with MESA help, and graduate with higher grades.

In the past, Bjerke has worked for undergraduate research programs serving first generation low-income students. When she first started community college as a teen, she was one of only two girls in her calculus class. She joined MESA, but it later lost funding.

She said she's been inspired to give back to the program to help support others as they gain their educational footing.

“MESA is trying to be the springboard that gets more students into their bachelors and STEM fields transferring, whether they get the AA or not, we want them to transfer to CSUSB or beyond,” she said.