The demand for computing talent is at an all-time high, but not everyone feels equally welcome or has equal access to pursue opportunities in technology fields. Women, non-binary, Black, Hispanic/Latino/a/x, and first-generation students are the least likely to have access to paid undergraduate internships that lead to job opportunities in technology companies. This experience report discusses two programs designed to address the lack of internships among historically excluded populations: a micro-internship program and a career program. We present data showing the role that each program played in creating professional pathways for racially diverse undergraduate women and non-binary students. Both programs prepare these undergraduates for professional environments by exposing them to tech careers and developing their social capital through professional networking. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected as well as summer employment plans to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. We present the short- and long-term impact of each program on students' career interests and sense of belonging in computing. A summary of lessons learned from implementing each program are also shared for stakeholders interested in designing similar programs.

As society increasingly relies on computers to drive social, economic, and political decisions, the computing workforce must reflect the racial and gender diversity of the larger population. This experience report presents CompSciConnect (CSC), a multi-year program designed to broaden participation in computing for middle school aged students from historically excluded populations (girls and/or Black, Latina/o/e/x, and Native American [BLNA] students). Each cohort of CSC participants span three years with participants meeting for 2 weeks in the summer and one weekend a month during the school year. Students progress through three levels of the program: Yellow (beginner), Red (intermediate), and Terp (advanced). Quantitative and qualitative data guided the growth and implementation of CSC. CSC began in 2012 with just 14 students and now has reached over 532 students. Additionally, CSC alumni cite their experiences in CSC as contributing to their decisions to major in a computing field. Various design factors-such as community-centered student recruitment strategies, the long-term structure of the program, and the scaffolded curriculum-contributed to CSC's growth and its positive impact on CSC participants. In this paper, we present CSC, elaborate on the design factors that led to CSC's success, and highlight the challenges and lessons learned throughout CSC's development.

The benefits of near-peer mentoring models in computing education contexts are well known, but research on near-peer mentor training best practices is limited. This research evaluates the impact of a 3-week instructor training on undergraduate CS majors' confidence and preparedness to teach and lead K-12 informal computing programs across a 12-week summer period. This poster presents features of the training that were beneficial to near-peer undergraduate instructors as they performed their summer teaching duties and factors that could be improved or further developed in the future.

This poster reports on undergraduate computer science (CS) majors' experiences as near-peer instructional leaders in informal K-12 computing programs during a 12-week summer period. We analyze how the undergraduates' prior experiences in computing and their intersectional computing identities influence their self-perceptions as mentors and instructors. Case study analyses of the undergraduates revealed that their journeys in computing (e.g., their level of access to computing education courses or their exposure to influential role models) directly influenced their mentor and instructor identity development. This poster provides evidence for the need for more intersectional approaches to near-peer mentoring models.