1. Skip to content

Employer Quotes

The quotes below are from employers in this industry: Engineering

They are talking about this topic: Educational Partnerships

 

Narrow Your Results by:


    Region


The quotes below are about this issue:
Industry leaders state it is important for businesses and higher education to create K-12 partnerships, which ensure children are educated about the engineering industry and engineering careers. Many employers are already participating in K-12 outreach; this includes working with the program Project Lead the Way, offering classroom presentations, and creating job-shadowing opportunities.

Employer Quote Region
"Is there an issue with the Baby Boomers? I really think so. There are many, many very skilled people in the industry and in manufacturing that are going to be retiring over the next five to ten years. We're wondering who is really looking at that? Who is really encouraging our young to go into these fields? I'm not sure how that's working. When I was talking to the high school—I was talking to the principal over at Willmar—and I asked him what the counselors teach. What do the counselors tell students about what's going on? His answer was, 'Our counselors are so busy with discipline that they don't have any time at all to help someone that is interested in advancing their career.' It's a very difficult situation. How do we get the message out to the young?" Central
"Fifth grade would be a really good time to start teaching about the life of work." Central
"I think one component that doesn't get discussed enough is training the trainers. What I mean by that is, 'Where are the teachers?' The teacher is standing up in front of a class saying, 'This is why you need to know math.' Do teachers, after they graduate and get that teaching degree, do they ever go into a business and see how it actually works beyond the textbook? I think they could be great advocates to our students if they're standing up and saying, 'You know what, I remember what a welder used to do. You should see what a welder does these days—it's really cool! They work with these gizmos and these different machines.' I don't see that part happening." Central
"You were talking about students not knowing what's in their own communities. Students don't know that there are careers that they can come back to after they go to school. How do we get that information to schools? I worked in a school in another region, and they had a STEM-type conference where they brought in all the local businesses so the kids in high school could actually see, 'Oh, wow, this is what this business does in my community.' To give them the idea that they may not have to leave their communities. Or that they can come back and there are good jobs within those communities. The other thing that might change is some of the data where it shows that there's going to be a decrease in those engineers, and businesses are saying, 'No, we don't see that decrease.' That data may dissuade young people from going into those careers if they say, 'Well, by the time I get out, they're not going to be hiring.' How do we balance that data with reality in some of the areas?" Central
"If we could start reaching out to some of these students earlier—I always made it a point with my own sons to make sure that they started focusing on things when they were in junior high or sooner on what they wanted to do." Central
"Our engineering staff works with the robotics teams at the high schools." Central
"That kind of worries me—when you have this data, how does that get back to the high schools? 'Well, it looks like there's not going to be such-and-such—it's gloom and doom for the mechanical engineers.' Well, if I thought that were true, I wouldn't choose that as a career, so I'd move to software development. But where's that going to leave the companies that still need mechanical engineers? I don't know how that data gets communicated to the future graduates of the high schools." Central
"We've decided in the industry that we have to be more involved. [Professor] from [MnSCU college] and I did a presentation for the Willmar school about three weeks ago, letting them know about these jobs that are available and aren't being filled." Central
"We have people who work with Math Counts. I don't think we've reached as far as elementary school yet, but I know we're reaching out to the high school programs. Particularly in Hibbing, we've got a great candidate pool. We know one of the math teachers in the Hibbing high school. We are reaching out. Probably not as proactively as we could, but a lot of our employees have passion around that, so they volunteer their time and we reach into high schools." Metro
"In the K-12 system—especially in high school—there are some new incredible opportunities around first robotics, first Lego, Project Lead the Way, etc., that I just wanted to mention because I feel like it should be part of the conversation because we talked about that pipeline from college to post-college." Metro
"Currently, there are over 260 schools involved in Project Lead the Way on a high school level. They are in need, and I would strongly encourage every industry to get involved with this. There are advisory boards that make up that particular program. They need projects, too, because they also have engineering design and development. It is a wonderful area to get involved with.

Lastly, we host a series through [MnSCU college]. We call them Zap Camps. Zap means nothing—I just thought that was a fun name. With our partnerships, [MnSCU college] has offered Zap Camps in the past. They are part of our partnership, so we expose students early on. Middle school is our specialty. Engineering, physics, math, you know, sort of the STEM disciplines. So, I would encourage schools and industry to carry those various students through this pipeline at an early age."		 Metro
"My impression is that higher education is great for the most part. Higher education seems to have—if we've had a need—the attitude is that they'll respond to that specific need is in terms of continuing education or whatever. My concern is getting the younger kids into higher education. That's what I'm worried about the most." Northeast
"The supply and demand thing is the big deal right now. My personal thinking is that we need to get to the kids as early as the sixth, seventh, or eighth grade. We need to get them interested in the field of engineering, at least expose them to it. We also need to get them to understand what it is that we do up here now. It's different than what it was 30 years ago." Northeast
"Six months ago, we did a little presentation for some high school kids. At that time, we did a random survey of openings, and I think we had 40 or 50 openings in northern Minnesota. We just wanted to give the kids a feel for those openings and opportunities." Northeast
"When you're talking about the future, I think the future employees are right here. They really are. They're in our schools right now. I watched as the budget cuts hit this area. Try to find a shop class today, right? They've been decimated because they were viewed as not important at that time. We had huge industrial complex teaching within the high schools. That's disappeared. It's starting to come back, but they aren't here yet. My former employer—I still remember at the Chisholm High School—he had an assembly there, and he asked the question, 'How many of you are going to go further with your education past high school?' Every hand goes up. 'If the jobs are here, how many of you are willing to come back?' Almost all the hands go up. There's only a few that say they want to leave. It's right here. And I think the challenge is going to be for MnSCU, [non-MnSCU colleges], for our school districts—and I realize that they've got this huge budget thing going on—but they need to start targeting these people. I don't know how you do it. Maybe it's a legislative change, maybe on a federal or state level." Northeast
"We need to get students exposed to engineering and excited about going into engineering. Because if we do, then they are the ones that hopefully will come back." Northeast
"We're seeing more and more of our entry-level positions—even our welding positions—are four-year degrees. And that's kind of a trend, you have to go to college, and you have to get a four-year degree. It doesn't matter in what. They're coming in to be a welder, and they have a computer graphics degree or something like that. That starts at home, and that starts in the schools by keeping those options, those industrial and shop classes available. But how many people in this room think that their kid should be a welder?" Northeast
"That's become the problem—every parent of a third-grader is thinking their kid's going to be Bill Gates, not a truck driver. But the kid may want to be a truck driver." Northeast
"We just put together an educational committee through the Iron Mining Association. And one of the biggest disconnects we find up here is that the educators who are teaching our kids in the grade, middle, and high schools know very little about the businesses that we have up here. Nobody understands mining. One of the things we've identified is that we've got to get into the classrooms at a very early age. And, yeah, we can talk to the students, but really the people that are with them every day are the teachers. They need to understand our business. If a question comes up where the kid says, 'You know what? I don't need this. I'm going to work in the mines,' that teacher needs to be able to address that. They have to know what type of jobs we have to offer." Northeast
"Employer 1: Maybe you want to go to college. You see all these college placement courses. Well, we should be saying, 'Hey, we've got a tour going to these companies.'
Employer 2: Yeah, when I was going to school we went on tours. And we offer tours. And we have a work-based opportunity program with the welding programs."		 Northeast
"I agree that the kids are the ones we have to connect with—and the teachers as well." Northeast
"I'd love to have an hour with the teachers when they have the workshops before the school year begins. To have an hour with them and to throw some things up on a PowerPoint presentation to share what we have, what the opportunities are, and what we're looking for." Northeast
"I was thinking about the time of the year when the teachers aren't in the classroom. Is there some type of program that you could have during the summertime where you could pay them, bring them in, and get them engaged?" Northeast
"When our kids were in school, I went in several times—just because the teacher knew what I did—and so I was asked to come in and talk about engineering and things like that. Yeah, it's good. I guess we just need to do more of that." Northeast
"Employer 1: He had several students come in, and we went through heat exchanger sizing and things like that—actually on two different days.
Employer 2: That's good. I think that kind of thing needs to continue with all the different businesses."		 Northeast
"There are programs that are happening right now. Yesterday, we had two kids from high school that spent two days at [Company X] and then half-a-day at [Company Y]. They were both seniors and they were both going into the junior program. One company takes three or four of them, another company takes three or four, etc. So, we have some of those programs that we've started, but we're not doing enough. It's great that those kids have made the decision that they're going to go into engineering, but that isn't enough. There's a program next week where 800 seventh-graders will learn about science and engineering for two days. So, there are some of those things happening. But, again, you have to have a sustainable program. Bring the teacher in and invite them on a tour through your company for an hour or whatever." Northeast
"I think you're right that the teachers are the ones that are going to help drive the students into this area. And one of the things that the school that I was part of before—what they did in the summertime—they had a program with a manufacturing company. They brought some teachers in to work part of the summer. They did technical writing and reading and did work on the manuals, for instance. They also did teach-ins with the people of the company on how to do presentations, because that's what teachers do best. They're presenters. Maybe supporting sustainability is in having those types of programs in the schools. And the companies could help build that for us, for the future." Northeast
"Up here on the Range there's a Project Lead the Way Engineering Program. And I know you're all aware of that. [A MnSCU university] is the affiliate university for that. In fact, I'm one of the people that sort of manages those programs. I would strongly suggest, as industry representatives, that you find out more about it. Support it if you don't already. But support it in any way you can. That's a good pipeline feed for some of these students going into engineering.

The second piece is that there are some marvelous summer camps that are offered up here for students. I think there are some other camps that are offered up here in the summer, as well, that would welcome industry involvement in those summer camps. There's a great deal that you could do with those students.

And, talking with folks up here about expanding on that concept of a teachers' summer camp—I'm getting all kinds of ideas as to what we can do."		 Northeast
"We have done the internships. We've made connections all the way down to like the third grade class. I think you need to get the younger ones exposed to what is being done in manufacturing. Most people think of manufacturing as if it's old and dying. Children need to see what it's actually like. So, you take them through your factory, and they're like, 'Wow, this is pretty neat!' There are all kinds of things happening—there are jobs from scheduling to CAD. There are just so many opportunities, and I don't think that kids have an idea of what goes on in factories. To actually show them and walk them through—a lot of them are really amazed." Northwest
"It's the relationship with the instructors that they're talking about, and this is not just about the college level. This is way younger. They're getting students excited about manufacturing, so they're excited for the careers. I think that is the key. We, as employers, need to have these great relationships with schools at all levels, so that they're helping nurture these students so that they're excited about the opportunities. Because manufacturing is where the jobs are—and that's what we want students to know." Northwest
"There are actually three of five representatives in the room today that are working together in the packaging machine-manufacturing consortium locally. So, there are five organizations working together, and four are packaging machine manufacturers. The Economic Development Commission and college are working right now on some non-competitive recruiting issues as far as working with elementary school students. They are sponsoring the first robotics team from the high school, and are doing a variety of activities to promote the industry locally. I don't think that is happening everywhere. But there are four competitive organizations from the same industry, all within a ten-mile radius, doing some things to work together. I just wanted to make sure that somehow hits the notes because it's unique, and these guys are doing a great job." Northwest