All the first-year students at the Airship Academy had been shipped out on two-week training tours to study navigation.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Skybreaker'

After all, it was an unusual assignment, especially because 16 first-year MBA students would do much of the fieldwork.

FORBES: MBA Students Help Find Economic Solutions for the Nation's Capital

In one study involving African-American and white college freshmen in a predominantly white university, the intervention, delivered in the first year of college, changed the trajectory of minority students' achievement by steadily improving their grades all the way through senior year.

CNN: The importance of belonging