La Sierra University’s Summer Bridge paves pathways to careers

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Eugenio Patricio Bernal didn’t know what to do. With each step he took toward a college degree, obstacles arose to challenge him, including a low score on a math assessment test. 

Bernal, who goes by Patricio, is from Mexicali, Mexico and is a first-year pre-orthotics and prosthetics major at La Sierra University in Riverside, Calif. It was a career path that almost didn’t happen. But providential doors opened at just the right time including a last-minute acceptance into an intensive La Sierra math tutoring and college prep program called Summer Bridge. It was developed with funding from a five-year, $2.6 million Title V grant awarded in 2015 from the U.S. Department of Education. 

Bernal graduated from Calexico Mission School, a K-12 Seventh-day Adventist school located along the U.S.-Mexico border. To manage costs, he first considered community college as well as taking a year off to work and save money. But his first interest was La Sierra from which his older brother, Luis Bernal graduated last June. He applied and was accepted, and through the resourceful research of his mother along with a fortuitous summer camp tuition-matching job the financing was in place. He was all set. Then his score on a college math placement test proved too low to take required freshman courses. 

The university offers Summer Bridge as a solution for students in Bernal’s predicament. It provides eligible freshmen five weeks of no-cost, holistic instruction in a supportive environment that builds academic skills and provides an opportunity to re-take the math placement test called Accuplacer. Bernal became aware of Summer Bridge just days before its application period closed last summer. He rushed to submit the required documents and a few days later received an acceptance notification. 

During the immersive program, Bernal stayed in a La Sierra college dorm and focused on the boot-camp style daily math classes. He loved his instructors and learned how to study, he said. “I have a bad time memorizing, but Summer Bridge helped me do that.”

After the five week course, he scored two levels higher on the Accuplacer test and was accepted into a university statistics class. The experience impacted Bernal on an even deeper level. “Summer Bridge helped me to understand that I shouldn’t put myself down and should start believing in myself more,” he said. After two years at La Sierra, Bernal plans to continue two and a half years at Loma Linda University to ultimately earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He gained an interest in orthotics and prosthetics after participating a year ago in a Gateway program and career shadowing opportunity at LLU.

“Now when I look back, there was a plan for me,” Bernal said. “I feel like God had a plan for me to be here.”

The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities categorizes La Sierra is one of more than 100 private Hispanic-serving institutions of higher education across the United States. The Title V grant awarded to La Sierra University is intended to help Hispanic and low-income students achieve greater academic success leading to graduation. The initial Summer Bridge program has resulted in substantive improvements in Accuplacer scores for almost all of its students. Results for 2018 showed that of 24 students, 19 tested into a categorically more advanced math course. Following Summer Bridge 2019, 13 out of 15 students moved up one or more math classes.

Said Marvin Payne, La Sierra’s project director of the Title V program, “Our Title V funding is pivotal in making it possible for us to design and execute an effective Summer Bridge program that integrates at-risk incoming students into college life and accelerates their path to college level courses. This will make a real long-term difference in their careers."