We all know that our AAS electronics programs are designed to prepare techs for jobs in industry. That is why it is extremely important to involve industry in planning your curriculum and course contents. Some schools do this on a regular basis, especially in areas where the jobs are plentiful. We want our grads to get the jobs when industry is hiring. If we know what industry wants, it is relatively easy to adjust the curriculum to the need.
Yet, so many schools do not do this. At one time I taught for a community college in the eastern US. The department held an annual industry advisiory meeting. There were lots of local employers from diverse parts of the industry. So the input from these people was fabulous. Yet, after a meeting of several hours where industry expressed their needs, the department simply went back to business as usual. Essentially, the annual advisory meeting satisfied the accrediting people yet the suggestions and ideas produced at the meeting never produced any action or changes. This is more common than you think. Does this happen at your school?
In another college where I taught, the department decided to pursue ABET accreditation at the suggestion of the college president. We went through the usual hell associated with an ABET visit and evaluation. Lots of work and anxiety. After the visit, ABET had some suggestions for changes necessary for us to achieve the ABET seal of approval. One of these suggestions was to add PC circuit simulation software exercises to all courses. The second recommendation was to add calculus to the curriculum. (I am not making this up.) Both of these suggestions were doable but to say the faculty was distressed is an understatement. Since the president of the college coveted the ABET reputation, the department head was told to make the changes. And we did.
Both of these changes were unnecessary. AAS degree techs do not design or analyze circuits so the simulation exercises added a huge burden to an already challenging curriculum. Neither do techs use calculus. At least I have never run across a tech that did. Adding the calculus courses increased the total semester hours for the degree above the state maximum so two other courses had to be dropped. These happened to be two popular electronic courses one of which was requested by the local industry.
You can only imagine the impact that these changes had. First, the drop out rate increased measurably. The more difficult courses and the calculus caused a significant exodus from the program. The local industry was not happy because their course was not taught so the grads, few that they were, did not have the background or preparation they previously had. That company abandoned the college. What was once a thriving electronics program was reduced to about half the previous size or less. But, the important thing was the department could say with pride that they were ABET accredited. What employer ever asked if the department was ABET accredited? Probably none. Most do not even know what ABET is, or care.
So in this case, industry input was ignored to satisfy some academically-oreinted president. What was he thinking anyway? Those of us who teach don't think like that. Is that what getting a Ph.D does to one?
Let me say this about ABET. I am all for accreditation and the benefits that it brings. But only if the accrediting body people know what the hell they are doing. In the case of engineering and four year technology programs ABET seems to know their business....maybe. But they sure do not know much about technicians, their jobs and what they really need to know. It certainly is not calculus and heavy duty analysis and design. Those ABET reviewers had no clue about technicians or their jobs and they ignored the needs of industry out of hand. Based on this experience, I would never recommend ABET accreditation to any AAS program. Not only doesn't it produce more enrollments and retention, it does just the opposite and invariable does not respond to industry needs. Community colleges are suppose to serve their communities meaning the students, graduates and the employers. ABET actually hurt in that regard.
Don't write and tell me how great ABET is. I do know that ABET has changed its approach and procedures over the past years. I suspect things may be better now, hopefully. I still do not recommend it if you are training techs for jobs in industry. If your graduates transfer primarily to a 4-year technology program then maybe ABET is important since the 4-year schools tend to more readily accept transfers from 2-year ABET accredited programs. Otherwise, forget ABET. They tend to want to make techs into engineers. And that is just not what techs do. They do not design and analyze. They install, manufacture, test, service, repair, maintain, operate and other wise work with the equipment. And you had better think twice about the expense of obtaining and maintaining ABET accreditation. It requires a huge budget that could otherwise go to better lab equipment.
One more thing about industry input. It can sometimes hurt you rather than help you. Again based on my own experience, I can tell you that industry needs can misdirect you. One example I can site is the case of a very large electronic manufacturer who desparately needed techs. They came to the college and asked what we could do to help crank out more graduates sooner. But they needed changes to the curriculum. These were not just minor changes. They were significant in that they changed the content of many courses, added new specialized courses and even added some new prerequisites. At first the college resisted the changes. But because the big company said they would contribute funds to the college to help develop and implement the new program and promote it, the college relented and we made the changes. The result was a program that specifically fulfilled the needs of the company but was so narrowly foucused that it made the graduates unsuited for many other electronic jobs. Within four years, the industry went into a major down turn and actually laid off virtually all of the previously hired graduates. That program exists only on paper today. Ouch.....
Industry can also be very naive. In another instance, industry came to the college and asked about a program to prepare techs for them. They were not very specific or demanding and in fact asked the college to put together a curriculum for them thinking the faculty was the experts. That was easy because the college simply proposed what they had and one or two other related courses. The industry people put their faith in the faculty and department rather than in their own knowledge and needs.
Now I am not knocking faculty here (well maybe a bit), but most faculty have not worked in industry for years. They are not truly up to date on the latest components, equipment, methods, etc. And it is questionable that the faculty could actually fulfill the industry's subtle and even hidden needs. The usual result of a total faculty design is a dated curriculum and course content that often does not serve the local industry or the graduate. Just keep that in mind if you run into this situation. Force industry to give you their needs in detail and let them bring you up to date as you put together any new program or courses. And by all means, try to maintain some kind of balance, that is keep the program generic and broad as possible so that the graduate can adjust to the enevitable changes that occur in the industry over and over again at light speed.
Enough ranting and raving for one day.
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Thanks
Just a note to all of you who respond to the blog. My thanks for your input. Your input is valuable because it represents your views and experience. We need breadth and depth of knowledge to solve the declining enrollment and retention problems. Collectively we should have enough information to solve these problems. So keep writing and at some point a critical mass of information will exist for us to act. Keep writing and keep reading.
Best wishes to you all......
Best wishes to you all......
Sunday, August 14, 2005
The retention problem
My primary goal with this blog has been to understand why enrollments in electronics are dropping and students not enrolling. But just as big a problem in many schools is the retention problem. In other words, why do students drop after they first enroll? Having taught for many years and talked with students about this problem, I believe it a combination of student personal issues which the school cannot address (lack of money, family problems, illness, etc.) and school problems. Here are some of the things I see that are a factor in dropouts:
1. Boring classes - Most students drop out in the first several electronic courses. Typically these are the DC/AC courses where the theory is heavy. Most of this material is pretty boring stuff. I have had more than one student ask me, "Lou, why am I learning this? What does this have to do with electronics?" No kidding. The only answer you can give is that electrical theory is the basis for electronics and you have to learn that first. The student comes to learn the exciting things in electronics and is initially confronted with some heavy duty theory, physics derived, and we bore him or her to death.
2. Heavy math - Most of who teach electronics don't think that the algebra and little bit of trig required to learn DC and AC is any big deal. How could it be so difficult? Yet so many students come into these initial classes unprepared with the math. Even if a college algebra course is required as a prerequisite, it is often not enought and the student has the feeling that there is entirely too much math. So many ask, "why do I need to know this? When can I work on some electronic equipment?"
3. Failure to stimulate the student's interest - Shouldn't the very first courses a student encounters be positive experiences? I think so. Yet, in the public community colleges what you get is basic math, English comp, and other non-electronic stuff that is required. I can personally remember my own reaction my freshman year in college. When do I get to the electronics? Not for a long time, as it turns out. If we had any sense, we would treat each student as a treasure to be protected. We must stimulate him or her. Generate interest. Motivate. When I mentioned this idea at a meeting in the near past, one faculty member said that students should shut up and take the curriculum we offer in the way we offer it and not question when they get what. Maybe we have gotten away with that just about as long as we can. Students want to get on with their lives. We live in an instant gratification world and putting things off is not the way to gain a student's interest or loyalty.
4. Student attention span - Our students today were brought up on TV, video games and Game Boys. They are used to instant action. They are visual learners. They do not read well and they tune out in long lectures. They want to see something happen or make something happen. The attention span of the average person is supposed to be 15-20 minutes, but I bet that it is less in today's young people. Students get the impression in typical electronic courses, that things are moving too slowly and they want to get to the "good stuff" sooner. Why can't we accommodate that? At least a little bit?
5. Out of date irrelevant curriculum - I think that our typical AAS degree curriculum is archaic. Yes, students still have to learn the fundamentals but what fundamentals are needed today? Not the same ones we used to teach. We need to take a hard look at those fundamentals and ask, is this really necessary to know, today? So much of what we teach now is like that. It was once important because electronics was different. For example, we worked at the circuit level back then. Now we work at a higher systems level. Do you really need to learn Thevenin's theorem and loop and nodal equations? That is only the tip of the iceberg as far a curriculum goes. While most students don't know what they are supposed to know, they do have a sense of reality and they are not getting it with the current curricula.
I keep coming back to the curricula as the source of our problems not only for declining enrollments but also dropouts. Why can't we fix this? Let's turn the curriculum upside down and give students some interesting, cool stuff up front. Really turn them on to the subject, get them hooked and then later half way through the degree start saying, look you uys, you do have to know some theory and math so here it is. Then make the theory and math relevant and easier to learn in the context of the subject.
I will come back to this curruculum reform issue as it seems to me to be the core of the problem. Besides, just think how much fun it will be to do this. Let's take the generic curricula we use now, that is the same now as it was 40 or so years ago (I am not making that up, I can prove it.), and blow it away and start from scratch. If we do that, we may have the opposite problem of too many students and not enough space, teachers, etc. What a great problem that would be.
1. Boring classes - Most students drop out in the first several electronic courses. Typically these are the DC/AC courses where the theory is heavy. Most of this material is pretty boring stuff. I have had more than one student ask me, "Lou, why am I learning this? What does this have to do with electronics?" No kidding. The only answer you can give is that electrical theory is the basis for electronics and you have to learn that first. The student comes to learn the exciting things in electronics and is initially confronted with some heavy duty theory, physics derived, and we bore him or her to death.
2. Heavy math - Most of who teach electronics don't think that the algebra and little bit of trig required to learn DC and AC is any big deal. How could it be so difficult? Yet so many students come into these initial classes unprepared with the math. Even if a college algebra course is required as a prerequisite, it is often not enought and the student has the feeling that there is entirely too much math. So many ask, "why do I need to know this? When can I work on some electronic equipment?"
3. Failure to stimulate the student's interest - Shouldn't the very first courses a student encounters be positive experiences? I think so. Yet, in the public community colleges what you get is basic math, English comp, and other non-electronic stuff that is required. I can personally remember my own reaction my freshman year in college. When do I get to the electronics? Not for a long time, as it turns out. If we had any sense, we would treat each student as a treasure to be protected. We must stimulate him or her. Generate interest. Motivate. When I mentioned this idea at a meeting in the near past, one faculty member said that students should shut up and take the curriculum we offer in the way we offer it and not question when they get what. Maybe we have gotten away with that just about as long as we can. Students want to get on with their lives. We live in an instant gratification world and putting things off is not the way to gain a student's interest or loyalty.
4. Student attention span - Our students today were brought up on TV, video games and Game Boys. They are used to instant action. They are visual learners. They do not read well and they tune out in long lectures. They want to see something happen or make something happen. The attention span of the average person is supposed to be 15-20 minutes, but I bet that it is less in today's young people. Students get the impression in typical electronic courses, that things are moving too slowly and they want to get to the "good stuff" sooner. Why can't we accommodate that? At least a little bit?
5. Out of date irrelevant curriculum - I think that our typical AAS degree curriculum is archaic. Yes, students still have to learn the fundamentals but what fundamentals are needed today? Not the same ones we used to teach. We need to take a hard look at those fundamentals and ask, is this really necessary to know, today? So much of what we teach now is like that. It was once important because electronics was different. For example, we worked at the circuit level back then. Now we work at a higher systems level. Do you really need to learn Thevenin's theorem and loop and nodal equations? That is only the tip of the iceberg as far a curriculum goes. While most students don't know what they are supposed to know, they do have a sense of reality and they are not getting it with the current curricula.
I keep coming back to the curricula as the source of our problems not only for declining enrollments but also dropouts. Why can't we fix this? Let's turn the curriculum upside down and give students some interesting, cool stuff up front. Really turn them on to the subject, get them hooked and then later half way through the degree start saying, look you uys, you do have to know some theory and math so here it is. Then make the theory and math relevant and easier to learn in the context of the subject.
I will come back to this curruculum reform issue as it seems to me to be the core of the problem. Besides, just think how much fun it will be to do this. Let's take the generic curricula we use now, that is the same now as it was 40 or so years ago (I am not making that up, I can prove it.), and blow it away and start from scratch. If we do that, we may have the opposite problem of too many students and not enough space, teachers, etc. What a great problem that would be.
Monday, August 01, 2005
What we have here is a failure to.....advertise.
If you will pardon my French, community colleges (CCs) do a crappy job of promoting their electronic programs. In fact, I should say that community colleges in general do not even promote their electronics programs. Is it any wonder that enrollments are down? I bet most of the potential students in your area don't have a clue that your program exists and what it can do for them.
If you have proprietary college teaching electronics in your area, you may be wondering why they are getting more students than your college even though yours costs much less. While these schools are no doubt also suffering from the declining enrollment problem, they are probably doing far better than the public CCs. Why? Simply because they promote, advertise, and sell. I know the mind set at most colleges is that we are an academic institution and we do not sell. (The "if we build it theywill come" attitude.) In today's competitive day and age this is a seriously bad attitude. It is particularly detrimental to electronics departments who are in decline and in some cases fighting for their lives. I have even heard one CC marketing person say that they do not support programs that are in decline. Duh...?
Let me give you a few good examples of how promotion or the lack thereof can help or hurt.
Several years back when I helped start the Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology (SMT) program for a local college, we initially had problems getting students. It wasn't hard for us to figure out that the prospects for this program didn't have a clue about what a SMT tech did. What was the job, duties, pay, potential, etc? In fact, what is the semiconductor industry? Luckily, the local semiconductor companies were hurting for employees so they chipped in an helped the college with promotion. We did ads, bill boards, direct mail, and extensive PR. The public orientation meetings were a big help. But the one thing that did the best job was the newspaper articles, TV news spots and other PR. Wow... Enrollments went from the initial 54 to almost 500 in just over a year of promotion. The point here is that you have to educate your prospect.
Today, I don't think most prospects know what an electronic technician is or does. It is pretty vague. PC and networking tech positions are more focused and easier to understand. What do you tell someone if they ask what an electronic tech does? As you know, the answer is very broad and complex. Again, no wonder the prospects go to other programs where the jobs and future is clearer. Promotion can help educate the prospect and ultimately them into your program. Promotion is an educational process. If we are such good educators as we believe, why is this a problem?
Another example comes from a colleague of mine who shall remain nameless here. He is the department head of a CC electronics department. He recently did a personal survey of the local electronic programs at proprietary schools. Believe it or not, there are five (I am not making this up.) of them here locally. CCs with their usual holier than thou attitude think they have no peer. Wake up people, you have major competition and it is not just in electronics. Anyway, this Dept Head went to each school and got the pitch, looked at the facilities and program. He was very surprised at how good they actually are. He was treated well and given personal attention. He also went to his own college in cognito and was not treated nearly as well. The counselor was not familiar with electornics and told him to take the entrance exams and come back. There was no individual treatment or facilities tour.
I can say that my own experience has been similar. My daughter who wants to be a chef recently went to this CC and asked for information on its culinary program. She was also turned away by a counselor who was not up to speed on the program. No tour or info. Just go take the entrance exams. That same day she also visited one of the Le Cordon Blu accredited proprietary college here locally. She was welcomed with open arms and given a complete tour of the kitchens and classrooms. When I went to check it out, I too was welcomed and treated with respect and interest. I went by the CC just to satisfy my own curiosity and found ablsolutely no one to talk to. Guess which school my daughter chose? The cost of her proprietary education is about 5 times what the CC charges but I am satisfied that she will get a good education.
I don't have any great suggestions as to how to solve this promotonal dilemna but I know it is a key part of the declining enrollment crisis. CC marketing departments have limited budgets and dozens of departments competing for promotional dollars, limited as they usually are. And their attitude leaves much to be desired. My best advice is to offer them something new. Change or update your curriculum, add a new major specialty, and get some local industry support. Then you will have something new, better and interesting to sell. Your chances of getting promotional dollars will go up many times. If you keep doing the same old thing, you are going to get the same old result. So the solution is change.
If you have proprietary college teaching electronics in your area, you may be wondering why they are getting more students than your college even though yours costs much less. While these schools are no doubt also suffering from the declining enrollment problem, they are probably doing far better than the public CCs. Why? Simply because they promote, advertise, and sell. I know the mind set at most colleges is that we are an academic institution and we do not sell. (The "if we build it theywill come" attitude.) In today's competitive day and age this is a seriously bad attitude. It is particularly detrimental to electronics departments who are in decline and in some cases fighting for their lives. I have even heard one CC marketing person say that they do not support programs that are in decline. Duh...?
Let me give you a few good examples of how promotion or the lack thereof can help or hurt.
Several years back when I helped start the Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology (SMT) program for a local college, we initially had problems getting students. It wasn't hard for us to figure out that the prospects for this program didn't have a clue about what a SMT tech did. What was the job, duties, pay, potential, etc? In fact, what is the semiconductor industry? Luckily, the local semiconductor companies were hurting for employees so they chipped in an helped the college with promotion. We did ads, bill boards, direct mail, and extensive PR. The public orientation meetings were a big help. But the one thing that did the best job was the newspaper articles, TV news spots and other PR. Wow... Enrollments went from the initial 54 to almost 500 in just over a year of promotion. The point here is that you have to educate your prospect.
Today, I don't think most prospects know what an electronic technician is or does. It is pretty vague. PC and networking tech positions are more focused and easier to understand. What do you tell someone if they ask what an electronic tech does? As you know, the answer is very broad and complex. Again, no wonder the prospects go to other programs where the jobs and future is clearer. Promotion can help educate the prospect and ultimately them into your program. Promotion is an educational process. If we are such good educators as we believe, why is this a problem?
Another example comes from a colleague of mine who shall remain nameless here. He is the department head of a CC electronics department. He recently did a personal survey of the local electronic programs at proprietary schools. Believe it or not, there are five (I am not making this up.) of them here locally. CCs with their usual holier than thou attitude think they have no peer. Wake up people, you have major competition and it is not just in electronics. Anyway, this Dept Head went to each school and got the pitch, looked at the facilities and program. He was very surprised at how good they actually are. He was treated well and given personal attention. He also went to his own college in cognito and was not treated nearly as well. The counselor was not familiar with electornics and told him to take the entrance exams and come back. There was no individual treatment or facilities tour.
I can say that my own experience has been similar. My daughter who wants to be a chef recently went to this CC and asked for information on its culinary program. She was also turned away by a counselor who was not up to speed on the program. No tour or info. Just go take the entrance exams. That same day she also visited one of the Le Cordon Blu accredited proprietary college here locally. She was welcomed with open arms and given a complete tour of the kitchens and classrooms. When I went to check it out, I too was welcomed and treated with respect and interest. I went by the CC just to satisfy my own curiosity and found ablsolutely no one to talk to. Guess which school my daughter chose? The cost of her proprietary education is about 5 times what the CC charges but I am satisfied that she will get a good education.
I don't have any great suggestions as to how to solve this promotonal dilemna but I know it is a key part of the declining enrollment crisis. CC marketing departments have limited budgets and dozens of departments competing for promotional dollars, limited as they usually are. And their attitude leaves much to be desired. My best advice is to offer them something new. Change or update your curriculum, add a new major specialty, and get some local industry support. Then you will have something new, better and interesting to sell. Your chances of getting promotional dollars will go up many times. If you keep doing the same old thing, you are going to get the same old result. So the solution is change.
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