Competence and confidence: addressing inequity among incoming chemistry graduate students through a week-long mathematics intervention

We have designed and implemented a student-led mathematics bootcamp to improve mathematical skills and confidence among incoming physical chemistry doctoral students. The bootcamp is held immediately before the start of the first semester of graduate school and uses an active learning approach to review and practice undergraduate mathematics problems over five days in small student groups. We have developed content, which is now publicly available, for the bootcamp on select mathematics topics, including calculus, linear algebra, functions, differential equations, statistics and coding in Python, aiming at improving students' learning experiences in graduate quantum mechanics and statistical physics courses. Surveys before and after the bootcamp showed an increase in students' confidence in problem solving in key mathematical areas and in social aspects of peer-led group learning. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis, we demonstrate that the bootcamp reduced prior inequities in these metrics based on gender and mathematical background.