I promised that I would give you an up date on my session at the SAME-TEC conference in Santa Clara July 25-28. Here it is.
First, there were over 200 attendees mostly community college instructors and administrators. My session was entitled EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND TRENDS IN ELECTRONICS. It was a panel session and my segment was called "Ultimate Opportunity, Minor Crisis, or End of Days?" The focus was on the declining enrollment problem and related issues. Other panelists were Roy Brixen from San Mateo College, Jonathan Plant from McGraw Hill, and Jim Cahow of National Instruments. A good balance of colleges, industry and textbook publishers. There were about 40 in attendance and the discussion was lively and very interesting.
Roy Brixen represents the California Electronic Teachers Association and indicated that enrollments had plummeted in the past years. He called it a real “blood bath”. Little was being done except talk about it. He indicated that most instructors in California and elsewhere fight change tooth and nail.
Jonathan Plant McGraw Hill asked about the relevance and content of today’s textbooks. Were they up to date enough or what is needed? There was no definitive answer, but the appearance of the Work-Ready Electronic online modules from MATEC indicates that the texts still may be skewed from today’s needs. Yet instructors seem to prefer the status quo to anything too new or different despite the radical job and technology changes.
Jim Cahow of National Instruments (NI) said they still hired techs but more and more were switching to 4-year engineering graduates. NI just bought Multisim/ElectronicWorkbench which is still popular in the schools.
We way over ran the 2 hours allotted. It is hard to summarize all that was said but I will try to bulletize it for you below.
1. Our wireless survey system was used to poll those present. 90% said that their school had experienced declining enrollments in the past several years. Declines in the 30 to 50% range were the most common.
2. A few colleges are doing well because mainly of a good local job availability, industry participation, and curriculum changes.
3. Most agreed that the declines are caused by a combination of outsourcing, offshoring, change in technology resulting in less need for techs, changes in how techs work (less circuit, more systems), dated and irrelevant courses and curricula, a lack of interest in math, science and technology, and an image problem.
4. Many agreed that the media has given engineering and technology a bad reputation with the continued harping on the offshoring and outsourcing. Most college prospects don’t see engineering or technology as having jobs or viable careers.
5. Most schools are only beginning to work on the problem. The lease effective approach is high school recruitment that produces little or no increase even with significant effort.
6. Little or nothing is being done on a national level to fix the problem. It is more of a local issue anyway.
7. I am working with Austin Community College to submit a grant proposal to NSF (in October) to fund a research project that will find the causes and suggest solutions. Wish me luck.
8. Most agreed that there were tech jobs still available that were in some cases still going unfilled. Two key factors emerged. Most of these jobs are not in the electronics companies. Engineering tech jobs for which most curricula are targeted have all but disappeared. The bulk of jobs exist in companies that use electronics extensively. Second, the title electronic technician is no long widely used or undertstood. Some good prospects for jobs are process control and instrumentation, bio-medical electronics, wireless, and consumer electronics. Several schools revealed that they were starting electrical power distribution programs since there are many openings due to baby boomer retirements in this mature but very strong industry.
9. The issue of certification came up many times at the conference. Most agreed that it was under utilized. Even though industry does not demand it, many recognize its usefulness and some schools are beginning to prepare students for selected certifications (ETA-I, ISCET, CEA, FCC license, etc.).
10. The state of the curriculum was discussed widely. Most agreed that the curriculum was dated and some even said it was preparing grads for engineering technician jobs that have virtually disappeared from the planet. The curriculum is no longer a good fit with what industry needs. One Alabama CC (Wallace) increased enrollments by completely revising the curriculum and changing the department name.
11. The consensus was that major changes are needed in the course content and curriculum. Many (but apparently not all) are willing to change. The big hang ups for most are the lack of money, lack of time, lack of administration support, and the difficulty of the change process with faculty, the college, the accrediting bodies, etc.
12. Finally, we need a major media/PR effort to make techs more visible and the jobs more desirable.
What are you doing at your school to fix things? Your input is always welcome.
P.S. Best wishes to all of you I met at the conference and thanks for your positive comments on the blog.
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