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This study investigated the role of peer mentoring and voluntary self-development activities (i.e., capitalization) in anchoring science, technology, engineering, and mathematics students to their college majors. Online data were collected from 214 undergraduate students. As hypothesized, mentoring was positively related to capitalization, and both mentoring and capitalization were positively related to satisfaction with one's major, affective commitment to one's major, involvement in one's major, and willingness to be a mentor. Contrary to expectations, capitalization did not mediate the relationship between peer mentoring and student outcomes, suggesting that these constructs contribute independently to positive outcomes. Implications and future research directions are discussed. (Contains 1 table.)

Despite increasing demand for workers in fields that are grounded in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), retention rates are low among relevant college majors. Using Web-based survey data from 290 STEM majors, the authors investigated links among personality, coping strategies, and STEM major commitment. Proactive personality was positively related to STEM major commitment and to the active planning coping strategy and negatively related to behavioral disengagement. Active planning was positively related to commitment to STEM majors and behavioral disengagement was negatively related to the outcome. Coping strategies fully mediated the relationship between proactive personality and commitment to STEM majors. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)