CareerTech Sponsors High School
Pre-Engineering Academies

By Ann Houston

The US has more than one million jobs available for engineers and well-educated technicians, yet those high paying jobs stand open because there are not enough qualified people to fill them.

According to research by the National Alliance for Pre-Engineering Programs, the drop out rate in colleges of engineering and engineering technology programs exceeds 50 percent in the first two years. Two contributing factors for this high number are that students don’t have an understanding of what engineers do and they didn't take the right combination of high school courses to prepare them to succeed in this rigorous course of study.

Pre-engineering academies now operating in Oklahoma's technology centers plan on tightening that gap, according to Robin Schott, innovative initiatives and services manager at the Oklahoma Department of CareerTech. The goal is to help students be successful in engineering degreed programs and postsecondary engineering technology programs and create some excitement about engineering as a possible career.

To help students who are interested in an engineering career to be successful, Oklahoma's CareerTech system is now partnering with the National Alliance for Pre-Engineering Programs. CareerTech sponsored a counselor conference, Project Lead The Way (PLTW), Jan. 14 at the Marriott in Oklahoma City. The conference was for the four participating technology center counselors and their high school counterparts, Schott said.

Last year Metro Tech in Oklahoma City began offering a Project Lead The Way Pre-Engineering course for juniors and seniors. This fall, the first pre-engineering academy was launched with 40 high school students from Edmond - primarily sophomores - at the Francis Tuttle Technology Center Bruce Gray Center in Oklahoma City. The academy not only teaches pre-engineering, but also integrates essential math and science courses recommended by higher education partners. Next fall three more technology centers will join the engineering academy roster. They are Moore Norman, Tulsa Tech, and Gordon Cooper in Shawnee.

PLTW is operating in 15 states and recently became a partner with the Southern Regional Education Board's High Schools That Work initiative, which works with schools in 22 states, including Oklahoma. Both national projects are administered in Oklahoma through the CareerTech system.

"This is true integration," Schott said. "Math, science and engineering courses are being team-taught to show students relevant applications of academic courses. With an understanding of engineering, students also realize the need for upper level math and science courses. These high school students are on the technology center campuses for three hours each day, and their home schools for the remainder of their academics."

One of the reasons the CareerTech system is appropriate to take on engineering academies for high school students are the connections we have with business and industry across the state,” according to Malcolm Fowler, director of the Bruce Gray Center.

Francis Tuttle has also developed strong partnerships with the schools of engineering at Oklahoma State University, the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma Christian University.

“While our sending high schools do an excellent job of teaching math and science, we add an additional dimension by integrating engineering into our math and science curriculum,” Fowler said. “We are at an advantage because of the nature of our programs, which are not only for high school students, but for adults and business and industry. Because of that we have electrical, mechanical, and chemical engineers on our instructional staff. These engineers, as well as our other instructors collaborate in the pre-engineering academy by lending their special expertise to enrich the pre-engineering instruction."

High schools don't have the resources that are available in technology centers that allows the pre-engineering student to fabricate the projects they design. Students at tech centers also have access to instructional programs that include Computer Aided Drafting (CAD), Automated Manufacturing, Instrumentation and Control, Precision Machining, Welding, and Computer Technologies.

In October the Francis Tuttle Pre-Engineering Academy students participated for the first time in the OU College of Engineering design events for Oklahoma high school students.

"It was not a surprise when our pre-engineering students won first place in the bridge building competition," Fowler said. "Two civil engineers from the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) that specialize in bridge design coached our students in the bridge building segment of the pre-engineering curricula.”

One reason for the success so far at Francis Tuttle is because an extra mile was taken before accepting students into the program.

"We interviewed parents and students to ensure a good match," Fowler said. "To be successful, students must be interested in math, science and engineering due to the required high standards.”

The CareerTech mission and technology centers' primary goal is to prepare Oklahomans for the workplace.

"This goal is a little different," Fowler said. "It's to prepare high school students who have the desire to become an engineer to have success in their goal to graduate from a university as an engineer."