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New Major, Engineering Technology |
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Recruiting youth and high school students into technical programs is a growing dilemma. Youth and their parents don’t seem interested in programs that include words such as technician or machinist or certificate program. It seems difficult to convince them that high paying careers await highly skilled young people. Compounding factors include the smaller number of high school technical programs from which to recruit and the growing number of vacancies for technical workers across all industry sectors. The El Camino College approach to recruit youth and high school students into technical programs was to develop a new major with a name that has sizzle and is attractive to both students and their parents, and it isn’t a bait and hook approach. A new major was developed based on the high school pre-engineering curricula Project Lead the Way (PLTW). The college’s original intent was to develop college curricula parallel to the PLTW so students participating in the curricula at their high school could receive college credit upon enrolling through articulation agreements. Since only one of 19 area high schools adopted the PLTW curricula, it was decided to offer the courses on campus on weekends, afternoons and in the summer, so students from the other 18 high school communities could take advantage of the program. Projecting success in this effort, the college developed to associate degree programs and certificates. A transfer pattern of courses, including five PLTW courses, Math (calculus), Physics and Chemistry formed the Engineering Technology degree and certificate. For students more inclined to enter industry at the technician level, a degree was developed with lower math and science requirements and additional technical course work.
Contact_FullName: Victoria Martinez Contact_Title: Coordinator, Career and Technical Education Contact_Organization: El Camino College Contact_FAX: (310) 660-6597 Contact_Email: vmartinez@elcamino.edu Contact_URL: http://www.elcamino.edu/a
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