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IMAGINE101.com
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Emery Sanford, Product Design Engineer for Apple computer and his comments on engineering at the high school level: I
can't stress enough the importance of exposing high school students to
engineering before they apply to college because it is best to start
engineering majors as a freshman. The
rigorous course load of university-level engineering can make it
difficult to transfer into an engineering major without adding an extra
semester or year (or more) to your time at university.
If you start university as a history major, for example, many of
the classes you may have already completed won't count towards an
engineering major when you transfer into engineering during your
sophomore year, so much of your time (and money) spent freshman year
were for nothing. Furthermore,
some students start an engineering major as a freshman only to discover
they don't really like engineering, and might be better off in a
non-engineering major. I'm
glad I enrolled in the high school courses to first give engineering a
try before applying to engineering schools and dedicating four years of
hard work to the mechanical engineering degree. Overall Program Beliefs: One of the most significant labor shortages the United States has is technologically oriented people. Every year our government accepts more and more people from foreign countries on work visas to place them in technology-related fields. Although we are doing more than we have in the past to give our students opportunities to become technologically literate, too often educators place students in front of computers and assume that technological literacy follows. Students need more than the computers and their programs in order to become technologically literate. These courses are organized around a set of concepts, skills and attitudes necessary for an engineering career. Unfortunately, students in many other schools can still graduate having had no practical contact with engineering concepts or case studies. A major problem of secondary education is that schools teach science, technology, and mathematics only in the context of the specific disciplines. These courses solve that problem. It shows students the important engineering concepts and has them work on real-world case studies resembling the problems they will be solving in an engineering career. Engineering, combined with Materials Science is what I believe to be the answer to what education will look like in the coming years. These programs must also recognize that other instructors in the Math, Science, and English departments play significant roles in an Engineering program. Students work hard during their entire school day in other classes. The Engineering program takes what they learn with other teachers and applies it, along with information from teachers in our department to solve problems. Suddenly education looks more like it should, a cooperative effort to supply our students with the best experiences possible utilizing every resource possible, including other teachers.Read more about this program here in a .PDF file. Click here to read the rationale for an engineering curriculum at the high school level. This is a research thesis. 134pgs. (.pdf format) NEWS:
Instructor Al Gomez appears in International Solidworks video presenting information about the engineering program and its importance. Click here to view the file.
Alumni Emery Sanford Wins the Bechtel Achievement Award from UC-Berkeley. See his profile on the students page or click here to read the article. Click here for the article in .pdf format.
NASA announces new class of astronauts. Click here
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Working on a real-life Overture case study, the Engineering students at Madison's West High School students presented their recommendations to Overture and district leaders for how to install the huge glass curtain wall that will enclose Overture Hall. "These public facilities will be a tremendous resource for our entire community, especially our children," said Superintendent Art Rainwater. "This partnership with Overture allows our students to learn about careers and construction and I hope we can see it continue through the building's completion."
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Madison
West students appear in International article on high school engineering
and using Solidworks. Click
