Last night while I was watching some TV, I saw an ad by Time Warner Cable, my local cable company. It was promoting jobs and training for the cable TV techs they need. I have never seen a community college program that ever taught anything about cable TV. Yet that is one place where the jobs actually are. Since the cable companies cannot get the techs they need with the right education, they advertise not only for the job but also for the training they will give you to do the job.
I think this is one of the trends the CCs are fighting as I am seeing this process over and over again. It is happening with the cell phone industry, consumer electronics and elsewhere. Wake up people. The stubborn CCs insist that they know what to teach, but today I am almost convinced that the current curricula is not what is needed any more. More and more, industry is taking it upon themselves to provide their own training. If they cannot get what they want or need from the colleges, why not? The result is less industry support for the colleges. This certainly makes the case for greater awareness in the colleges of what local industry needs are? No one at the college ever thought to contact Time Warner Cable and ask what can we do for you. Isn't that the mission of local CCs? To serve the local community? Looks like the CCs are not fulfilling their missions to industry or the individuals who need the jobs. The result, lost income, fewer students, diminished relevance and ultimately the demise of the department.
If you are sitting around saying, "it is not my job to contact industry", then you are truly a part of the problem. Hopefully you will be able to retire before they shut the doors of your department.
1 comment:
Greetings!
I think this discussion is vital. Thank you for providing this forum.
I am the Academic Chair of the Electronic Engineering Technology program at Rock Valley College in
Rockford, Illinois. I have 23 years of service at Rock Valley College and 27 years of concurrent
experience as an electrical engineer in Test Equipment Design at Hamilton Sundstrand. I enjoy
a first-hand look at academia as well as the trends in a large company. (Hamilton Sundstrand is an aerospace company that is owned by United Technology Corporation).
The first big impact to technician jobs in electronics has been the demise of the electronics repair industry. Consumer electronics products have become inexpensive, reliable, and quickly replaced by a similarly-priced product with enhanced capabilities.
Repair/troubleshooting is now focused on more expensive products
and systems. Even that repair is usually not down to the component level. In-circuit test and those technicians engaged in the design of automatic test equipment (ATE) are those most likely to need a
knowledge of component failure modes. However, because of the high through-put rates on ATE systems, the number of technicians and engineers performing this task is relatively limited.
The next major impact was the rise of the personal computer, local area networks, and the internet. Many of those students drawn previously into electronics programs were attracted to the many Computer Information Systems (CIS) programs, Personal Computer Technicians, and CISCO certification. Several EET programs assumed the strategy of
including "Computer" in their program title. I am honestly not sure how successful that strategy has been.
At Hamilton Sundstrand the union technicians and electricians jobs are being out-sourced. Many of the technicians that serve in the office have been laid off, and then re-hired through temporary agencies. Companies do not
want to pay "good" salaries and provide benefits to high-priced technicians.
Best Buy Geeks, satellite dish installers, cable television installers, and PC technicians do not need the theory our EET programs include. We do not address consumer electronics to a high degree plus we include
electronics theory that is not needed for those areas.
One possible strategy is to put together a Electronics Sales and Support curriculum. Such a program would include general theory, the technical features offered by today's consumer electronics, and customer relations. However, what kind of salaries, job security, and upward mobility will graduates in these positions hold?
What about manufacturing jobs? Again, the majority of the support technicians may not need a great deal of theory to accomplish their tasks. Companies are suppressing wages and out-sourcing whenever possible. I believe these
trends will continue.
Okay so do we close our doors? Do we start changing the focus of our programs to crank out sales associates? Do we
abandon manufacturing? Personally, I am not ready to resign myself to watering programs down, and there is no way
I will surrender.
One of our executives at Hamilton Sundstrand stated that we should give up on manufacturing piece parts and let those be out-sourced to off-shore operations. They can do it cheaper. We need to do things here that those off-shore operations cannot address. We need employees with strong math and science skills who address the new high-tech areas.
Here are things coming down the road: advanced space and weapon systems like JIMO (Joint Icy Moon Orbiter), THAAD (Theater High Altitude Area Defense), commercial space systems made possible by the success last October of SpaceShipOne and The White Knight. RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) sensors have two major categories product tracking, and wireless sensors for various physical measurements using Surface Acoustical Wave (SAW) devices.
In the case of RFID, I suspect it will ultimately go the way of installation by Best Buy Geek types.
Nanotechnology has made possible carbon nanotubes which have been used to replace slow metallic conductors in an integrated circuit that permitted operation at 10 GHz. The next endeavor is to create carbon nanotubes to
replace the silicon. That will result in solid-state devices that have carrier mobilities an order of magnitude better than Gallium Arsenide. Additionally, inks have been developed that will permit (commercial) printers to print complete electronic circuits - conductors and semiconductors. This will make possible the production of prototype integrated circuits in hours rather than weeks. Complete electronic circuits can be produced
without a clean room, faster, denser, and less expensive.
I think all of this is tremendously exciting. So many emerging applications will require sophisticated engineering technicians to support the development of these new products. Eventually the developed products will be produced off-shore, but the skilled technicians will be working on the next revolutionary development. Perhaps we should include a course that deals with how to manage out-sourced projects.
So, there appears to be a dichotomy - an academic divide. Lower math and science, terminology and application-skilled, sales associates, and Best Buy Geeks and the high math and science skilled product-development technicians.
Any curriculum model that does not include meaningful industry involvement is doomed to failure.
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