Student Programs

How Can I Participate?

Parent/Student

In order to participate in MESA, a student must attend a school that offers the program.  If your child has a passion for math and science, wants to excel in these subjects and attend college in pursuit of a degree in a STEM field, please speak with your child’s guidance counselor or math/science teacher to find out if the school currently has a MESA program and if s/he is eligible to participate. (Click here for a list of current participating schools.) If the school does not currently have a MESA program, ask if there are plans to bring it to the school in the near future. 

School administrator/teacher

If you are interested in establishing a MESA program at your middle- or high-school, please contact the MESA college prep center nearest to you.  You can find locations of our centers here.  MESA center team members will be happy to discuss the feasibility of offering the program at your location.

MESA Day events are geared to showcase students’ math and science know-how. These future technical professionals have spent months creating and designing math and science projects.

The project-based learning events include launching gliders, testing the strength of bridges, and evaluating human-centered design projects, and help to solidify the core math, science and engineering skills students learn in class. The competitions bridge classroom learning with real-world application and encourage students to think beyond what they learn in physics, calculus or geometry.

These experiences are particularly poignant for MESA students who attend low-performing schools, come from low socio-economic background and are typically the first in their families to attend college. For MESA Day rules please visit our resources page.

Success transfer in STEM through:

Academic continuum that include:

Undergrad 

Enrichment

Additional Activities

MESA Company Convos connects students to industry with  is a new monthly series. MESA students interact directly with industry professionals from top companies during these virtual Ask Me Anything sessions. Presnters share about company hiring and culture, career paths, recruitment, how to improve your resume and more! Companies including Oracle, Zymergen, Uber, PG&E and others are already involved. For more infomation, contact Mindy Rieger. 

IDEA Accelerator

The MESA IDEA Accelerator project is a course that will engage participants in developing solutions to societal problems using a human-centered design process.  Through this course we want to develop and inspire MESA students to be visionary entrepreneurs.

During the course, students will be guided through three phases of the human-centered design process: inspiration, ideation, and implementation to produce a marketable prototype pitch presentation.  The presentation will be reviewed by the instructor and will also be made available to industry and corporate partners.

The MESA Student Leadership Conference (SLC) bridges students from college to career, empowering them with soft skills they need to succeed in their future careers. It is an annual convening of like-minded students with leadership potential. More than 200 selected students from 30 plus campuses attend this signature event, which corporate partners and volunteers support. Interaction with industry representatives inspire these students to lead effectively, within their schools, communities and professional lives. The SLC highlights the future diversity in the STEM workforce.