Preparing future engineering students through math competition in Inland area

MATHCOUNTS is a national program aimed at enhancing problem solving skills for middle schools students through a series of math competitions at the local, state and national levels. Currently in its 30th year, MATHCOUNTS is one of the country's largest and most successful education partnerships involving volunteers, educators, industry sponsors and students. As an extracurricular activity, MATHCOUNTS recognize and reward students for pursuing a deeper understanding of math concepts and their applications in science, technology, and engineering (STEM) fields. In this paper, I shall describes the effort made by the College of Engineering of California Baptist University in organizing the annual MATHCOUNTS Chapter competition for Inland Empire area and encouraging engineering careers among the local middle school students. After initial background introduction of the MATHCOUNTS program, the paper will focus on the growth of the MATHCOUNTS program in Inland Empire area during the last five years, the detail aspects of organizing this important competition, and the linkage between the competition and the career choices among the students involved in the competition. The long term goal of organizing this competition is to further promote and improve K-12 STEM education so that more students will choose engineering as their future careers and more students will be better prepared for the engineering careers they choose.