Engineering Inc. - November/December 2008 - 13

to School By Jim Parsons f the approximately 56 million children enrolled in the nation’s K–12 schools this year, how many will eventually become engineers? As far as the nation’s industry is concerned, not nearly enough. Opinions vary as to the depth and urgency of the engineer shortage, but most agree that demand for new faces with technical expertise will continue to outpace supply for the foreseeable future. Though the traditional allure of stimulating work, good pay and near-infinite advancement opportunities remain a strong draw for students, many firms still find their offices growing older, grayer and emptier. Getting young people interested in engineering means exposing them to the profession—what a career entails, what sort of work is done. Though the industry has a tradition of educational outreach, CH2M HILL’s Jane Rozga, who also is national director for ACEC/California, wonders if students are getting the complete message. “I find that students too often have no idea as to what an engineer does,” says Rozga, who also chairs ACEC/California’s Student Outreach Committee. “Once, after we showed our outreach video to a high school class, a student commented, ‘We hear a lot from our teachers about what we have to do to get into college, but they never talk about what we might do when we get out.’” Adding to the confusion is the fragmented nature of the engineering profession, says Pamela Mullender, president of the ACE Mentor Program of America. O In Search of the “Cool” Factor ACE is a partnership among industry professionals—architects, interior designers, engineers, construction managers, college and university representatives and other professionals from related corporations and professional organizations—who work together to attract young people to their professions. “The U.S. Department of Labor lists more than 70 industries that are part of the construction industry,” Mullender says. “Because there’s not a united approach to market the industry, students and teachers don’t know all the benefits or opportunities available.” Traditional tactics for attracting students are proving less effective. According to Changing the Conversation: Messages for Increasing Public Understanding of Engineering, a recent report by the National Academy of Engineering, the engineering community would do well to take the emphasis off of math and science and demonstrate instead how engineers can make a difference in the world through creative problem-solving. The report also found that fewer than 15 percent of adults or teens characterized engineers with negative stereotypes (e.g. “boring” or “nerdy”); many students simply don’t enjoy math and science enough to pursue engineering as a profession. The challenge, then, is not to get K–12 students to think about engineering, but to change the way they think about it. “Engineers often focus first on the process of entering the profession, which means taking all those ‘hard’ math and science subjects,” explains Leslie Collins, executive director of the National Engineers Week (E-Week) Foundation. “Instead, we need to show how engineers help people and how their work relates to their world—in other words, the things that make engineering cool to kids.” As an example, Collins cites the E-Week Foundation’s “Discovering Engineering” website that zeroes in on middle school students’ strong interest in the environment and technology. Because young people relate better to their own age group, the site’s interactive videos follow three middle I am an engineer today because an engineer/ surveyor took the time to talk to me when I was starting college about the opportunities available. Jane RozGa acec/califoRnia November / December 2008 eNGINeerING INc. 13

Engineering Inc. - November/December 2008

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