Twenty students from various different backgrounds are assigned to California State University at Los 
Angeles. These students will engage in engineering related research at three nearby industrial sites and on Cal State’s own NASA lab. The SHARP PLUS Program at CSULA is one of the few universities hosting the program that have the students placed at different work sites off campus.  These work sites are:    Boeing  -  Hughes  -  TRW  

     During their eight-week SHARP PLUS research experiences, apprentices work with  mathematics, 
science, and engineering professionals and engage in "hands-on" research. The students 
spend approximately 80% of their time on their research-based projects, the remaining time is to be spent on campus related activities (lectures, demonstrations, workshops, tours, enrichment activities, etc.). 

     The students live on campus during the program. Unlike many of the other sites, CSULA participants 
are housed in 4-bedroom apartments that include kitchen, dining room, living room, etc. Each apartment is given a weekly allowance for grocery.  The students are also responsible for cooking their own meals. Each week there is a social dinner held at a different apartment each time.  This helps students get to know each other and provides a true taste of "college life" for the SHARP PLUS apprentices. 

A typical day at Cal State LA begins with a loud awakening when your alarm clock goes off.  After hitting the snooze button around ten times you wake up realizing that you have ten minutes to get ready, eat breakfast and catch up to the van that leaves to either TRW and Hughes at 6:45 a.m. or the van that leaves for Boeing at 7:00 a.m.  You are now ready to take about an hour nap.

     Once we arrive at work, a badge has to be worn around our neck to get past security for the safety of both the company workers and the apprentice.  The security guard also examines our attire to affirm that it follows the company dress code.  After getting past security, each apprentice either meets with his/her mentor(s) to receive instructions on what will be accomplished by him/her that day or the apprentice goes directly to his/her office/cubicle/work site to continue on their assignment.  Throughout the day at work, we get introduced with other workers, learn new and exciting things and get to experience what a working environment in industry feels like.  After work, we get picked up at certain gates of the company by our RA (Resident Assistant), and head back to campus.  Once again we will receive another hour or more (traffic) of sleep on our trip back to campus.

     On campus, the students are allowed to exercise, lift weights in the weight room, run at the track, play sports, play pool, air hockey, ping pong, foosball, checkers, chess, and video games in the game room, go to the computer lab for either recreation or work, sleep, watch TV, watch movies, or play on the Play Station or Nintendo 64.  Students are allowed to do various activities on campus as long as they go in groups of three or more for safety purposes.  After a day of either productive work or recreation, students are expected to be back in their apartments by 10:00 P.M. where they will prepare for another day of work.