This project provides scholarships to at least 62 talented undergraduate students with financial need in the Computational Science program at the University of South Carolina-Beaufort. The objectives of the project are to generate stimulating educational opportunities for students (particularly women and minorities), to improve their academic performance, to increase retention of students in the Computational Science program, and to ensure the competitiveness of graduates for placement in challenging and highly rewarding jobs that demand advanced technical skills.
The project focuses mainly on freshman and sophomore students, with reasonable entry requirements to encourage students to enroll in Computational Science. Students with a high school GPA of 3.0 and above with demonstrated financial need are eligible for the scholarship. With a combination of active mentoring and full scale academic support programs (such as peer and professional tutoring) particularly designed for this program, at least 80% of scholarship recipients are expected to make significant academic progress and graduate within five years. Beginning in their second year of study, many eligible students continuing in the Computational Science program see their source of financial support transition from the funds supplied by this S-STEM program to the South Carolina state-funded and merit-based Legislative Incentive for Future Excellence (LIFE) scholarship. In addition, summer internship programs and entry-level career placement services help enable students to find success as computational scientists, thereby helping to ensure the future of the Nation's scientific leadership, economic competitiveness, and national security.
Intellectual Merit: Computational Science is a field of applied Computer Science in which computing theories and software techniques are used to serve and advance many diverse fields, including science, engineering, social science and business. The University of South Carolina Beaufort is one of just a handful of institutions in the U.S. that currently offer an undergraduate degree in Computational Science. This scholarship program attracts and retains the best and brightest students, thereby increasing the number and diversity of computational scientists trained to harness the power of high performance computing, and sustaining the Nation's scientific leadership.
Broader Impacts: The University of South Carolina Beaufort draws its students primarily from the Lowcountry area of South Carolina. Many of its students come from families with low household income; in 2011-2012, 46.5% of USCB students received Pell grants. For the Computational Science program, 66% demonstrated financial need, and among these financial needy students, 70% are from underrepresented groups (African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander). Consequently, this scholarship program provides a unique opportunity for this diverse group of students, allowing them to concentrate on science education and enabling their future. As one of the few Computational Science undergraduate degree programs in the country, this program also holds promise to contribute to the national understanding of how to best train undergraduates in this area.
