For Students
LEAP prepares students to be industry leaders in STEM.
As a LEAP participant, you can strengthen your academic experience by collaborating with faculty mentors from the colleges of Business, Engineering, and Natural Sciences and Mathematics. Your assigned project will blend concepts and skills from STEM and business fields, providing experiential learning on the economic aspects of research-based industry projects.
Benefits of being a LEAP student include:
- A stipend
- Mentorship from academia and industry
- Community building across STEM disciplines
Learning with LEAP
Participants will be coached to advance projects from concept to reality and have access to business and compliance officers. You will receive mentoring to develop and implement a business action plan, which will include a project cost-effectiveness analysis and business improvement techniques.
A business advisor will assist with:
- Project timeline and expectations
- Selecting decision-making tools
- Sensitivity analysis, and
- Diagnostics.
Business Course: As part of the LEAP program's learning objectives, a new curricular initiative was developed to provide STEM students with business-related knowledge. This initiative resulted in the creation of a course called CBA 321, offered by the College of Business at CSULB (CBA 321 is scheduled on Mondays from 4:00 PM to 6:45 PM).
CBA 321 is a General Education (GE) Upper division Mathematics and Quantitative Reasoning course, open to all CSULB students. It is designed to familiarize students with important business concepts and enhance their quantitative reasoning skills. The course is offered every Fall semester, and it is now a regular part of CSULB's course offerings.
The course covers four main topics, which are:
- Quantitative methods for decision making: Students will learn various quantitative analysis techniques and tools that are essential for making informed decisions in a business context.
- Principles of marketing: This topic introduces students to the fundamental principles of marketing, including market analysis, consumer behavior, product development, and promotional strategies.
- Introduction to Finance: Students will gain an understanding of basic financial concepts, such as financial markets, investment analysis, risk management, and financial decision-making.
- Introduction to supply chain management: This topic provides an overview of supply chain management principles, including procurement, logistics, inventory management, and supply chain optimization.
LEAP students will be trained on Responsible and Ethical Conduct of Research (RECR), mandated under the federal COMPETES Act and deemed critical by the National Science Foundation. LEAP projects will teach a “culture of compliance” and use a systematic approach to follow applicable laws, regulations, best practices, and standards.
Projects will maintain:
- Respect and compliance with the law
- Highest standards of academic integrity
- Respect for the rights and dignity of others
- Accurate records; and
- Concern for health and safety.
You will learn risk-based approaches to assess, prioritize, and mitigate compliance risks; communication, education and training; and annual and periodic monitoring.
Take the LEAP today to become a future STEM industry leader!
To apply, go to: https://forms.gle/Fa89ypJXPEv37CvY7
For any questions, please contact LEAP's recruiting coordinator, Dr. Ava Hedayatipor, at ava.hedayatipour@csulb.edu
Event:
Please join us to learn the LEAP Outreach event—on April 13, 2024, during CSULB’s Day @ the Beach open house. We have two both, one at the college of engineering and one at the college of natural science and mathematics.
