Summer bridge programs aim to build social connections for first-year students to ease their transition into college, yet few studies have reported on bridge programs successfully leading to these outcomes. The authors backward designed a summer bridge program for incoming biology majors to increase the comfort and connections among students and between students and faculty. They found that first-year students who participated in the bridge program had greater comfort and connections with faculty compared with matched students who did not participate in the bridge program. However, there were no differences in the comfort and connections with peers for students who participated in the bridge program compared with matched students who did not participate in the program.