In an article written by Matthew Randazzo (2017) titled "Students Shouldn't Live in STEM Deserts," he revealed that a limited number of educational opportunities exist for students to gain essential STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) skills. This need for more STEM minds is bolstered by a widespread economic shift toward increases in the STEM workforce and a push from the neoliberal agenda. Randazzo goes on to state that secondary schools do not have the resources to provide a practical STEM education and this may be linked to the way the public education system is funded within a neoliberal economy. Nevertheless, higher education institutions are uniquely positioned to meet this need. Colleges and universities can provide students with authentic STEM experiences because they have access to innovative technologies. These experiences have the potential to route students to STEM degrees and careers while encouraging the innovations of tomorrow. Morehouse College, a historic leader among minority-serving institutions, chose to implement high-altitude research with pre-freshman from an interdisciplinary perspective. The aim was to engage students in advanced, high-altitude research through an early STEM immersion summer program, in hopes of broadly influencing their confidence as a scientist and their path to a STEM profession.