CLEVELAND, Ohio - Laughter rang out Friday as groups of Cleveland State University students struggled to disentangle themselves as part of a bonding experience during the Viking Academic Boot Camp.

The camp, which offers remedial math and English classes, is one of the summer programs that area colleges have created to smooth students' academic path.

The CSU exercise asked them to stand in a circle, grasping hands across the divide. Then, still holding hands, they had to figure out how to unknot the group.

Some dropped to their knees to allow others to step over them, some contorted their bodies and some just gave up. Later, they talked about strategies and what they would have done differently during the team-building exercise.

"We try to tell them they are all in this together and there are no put downs," said Christine Vodicka, director of the tutoring and academic success center. "This carries into fall as they form friendships."

Summer programs, usually for incoming freshmen at public and private colleges, go by many different names but all have the same goal to provide a head start on academics, acclimation to college life and new friends and mentors.

Generally known as "bridge programs," they are aimed at those who are the first in their families to go to college, need to improve their math and writing skills and can benefit from tutoring and peer mentoring.

And they are successful, according to students and college officials.

"It is holding me accountable to graduate," said Shelby Saylor, 19, of Coshocton, a University of Akron sophomore. "Without it I probably would have dropped out after the first semester."

Saylor sat next to one of her best friends, Eddie Volk, 19, of Brooklyn, Thursday afternoon outside a room in the university's Student Union. They met while attending Akron's first "Running Start" summer program last year and are paid peer mentors for this year's group.

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Colleges offer summer programs to improve students' academic success