Engineering Apprenticeship 6

[metengr]

One improvement that I would like to see with the engineering profession, is a mandatory requirement for engineering apprenticeship. When I attended college, there was a little known program called "Cooperative Engineering" where engineering students could alternate work/study. The Cooperative refers to a partnership between the university and industry. Under the Coop program, you were able to receive a small number of credit hours toward graduation, and evaluate work as a "junior engineer". That was the time to change your major, which some students did after 1 semester of work. This program was also a way of making money to pay for your education. The upside was exposure to engineering work, developing contacts and when I returned to school during non-work semesters, I was so far ahead of most engineering students that had NO clue what an engineer does. The down side was it took 5 years to graduate instead of 4 because alternating semesters resulted in missing certain courses that were offered only once a year.

The extra year was well worth it. I had worked at a research center for a fortune 500 company during my Junior and Senior years. The work experience plus networking helped me to land a job. So, my suggestion to potential engineering students is to enroll in a similar program and not worry about rushing thru 4 years of college.

 

[Lorentz]

Excellent suggestion metengr!

I would take this idea even farther; I don't think that any NON co-op engineering program should be accredited.

I once raised this question with an engineering professor who had moved into a bureaucratic position at his university. He said that "after 18 months on the job you can't tell any difference" and besides, there was not enough industry in close proximty to his school to make a co-op program feasible. My thinking on that is perhaps his university should not have an engineering faculty in the first place! (In fact, some time later two departments in the engineering faculty of this particular university did close due to a lack of enrollment.)

 

[zdas04]

Metengr,
That post belongs in the "Best Engineering Advice I ever got" thread.

In addition to the Co-Op programs, many universities (and individual schools) have contacts with industry for intern programs. The nice thing about them is that the internships are during the summer session and you don't have the once-a-year class problem. This is pretty common in Petroleum. I'm not sure how widespread it is in other fields.

I was talking to a Professor at Texas Tech last week and he said that the Spring of 2004 was the first time in his 5-year tenure that they didn't have 100% of the graduating students with jobs - the one person who didn't get a job was one of very few in the program who didn't take advantage of the intern program (and had mediocre grades).

Co-op's work, Interships work. Rushing quickly through college is just a poor idea.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

http://www.muleshoe-eng.com

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

The Plural of "anecdote" is not "data"

 

[aspearin1]

I'll agree to much of it. My school did not have a mandatory co-op program. I sprung out on my own, and ended up dancing between having to take classes while doing my full-time co-op. Most students won't do this because it does delay graduation by a year. It would be nice, though, if the co-ops were sponsored by the department. That way they could schedule the core classes so that it doesn't cause such a delay.

Incidentally, I don't find that many employers hiring entry level take much appreciation in a quality co-op experience. During my co-op, I interacted like one of the engineering team, ran my own projects, learned lean manufacturing, and designed some systems. Some co-ops only run the photocopier.

ChemE, M.E. EIT
"The only constant in life is change." -Bruce Lee

 

[QCE]

Is an internship or apprenticeship necessary when you work for 3 summers doing engineering summer jobs? That already gives you 12 monthes of experience before you graduate. I found this to be a better route.

Also a lot of schools only let the students with higher marks take apprenticeships.

 

[GregLocock]

I wouldn't get too hung up on definitions, two or three months of real engineering per year while you are at uni, or a whole year before your final year, or just about any combination thereof makes a lot of sense to me. My employer has a big co-op (or intern) program, and we actually like having the co-ops around.

"I once raised this question with an engineering professor who had moved into a bureaucratic position at his university. He said that "after 18 months on the job you can't tell any difference" and besides, there was not enough industry in close proximty to his school to make a co-op program feasible. "

Unh huh. Remind me again why I have such enormous respect for university professors.




Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[QCE]

I'm pretty sure that all universities have summer breaks where people get summer jobs. I'm just noting that it is possible to get experience and not take an internship.

If we had a wish list for engineering school requirements it should be that people take a trade before their engineering degree.

 

[ScottyUK]

I think the idea is great, but the reality in Britain is that there are few apprenticeships to be had, and summer placements with engineering companies are even rarer. The British government is attempting to revive apprenticeships, but has yet to realise that they are still killing off the industries which those apprentices might expect to work in. Until the decline of Britain's manufacturing industry is reversed, there is sadly little chance of either an increase in the number of apprentices or of jobs being there for the engineering graduates.



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If we learn from our mistakes,
I'm getting a great education!

 

[Lorentz]

Hello All:

I gave you a star ScottyUK for the valuable observation:

I think the idea is great, but the reality in Britain is that there are few apprenticeships to be had, and summer placements with engineering companies are even rarer.

Does this not indicate that enrollments in engineering programs are too high?

 

[QCE]

No it indicates that noone in the UK knows what an engineer is!

 

[aspearin1]

The tides will turn soon, in my opinion. Soon all the master tradespeople will retire and the younger, less utilized, and less popular tradespeople will get caught in the wake of surging demand. Perhaps that time has already come to pass, and engineering schools have yet to catch on. Not too long ago, when I entered into the university, they plugged Chemical Engineering like it was going out of style. Guess what? It went out of style, because they ALL jumped on the bandwagon and saturated the market. At the same time, those college prospects who may have been better suited to teach science and mathematics in primary and secondary schools, were pushed into practicing engineering. As a result, we are now in a deficit of technical teachers in our middle and high schools here in the United States. The flip side is that schools will surge to meet this demand for new technical teachers and will soon saturate that market, making room for truly dedicated and qualified engineers to practice their art.

In response to learning a trade prior to graduating in engineering, I agree... not necessarily for the sake of having a fall-back career, but at a minimum for the sake of knowing what we engineers are asking our tradesperson counter-parts to do for us.

I am a chemical engineer by training. Drafting was barely covered in school. But now in industry, I have fixtures and tools machined all the time. It would have been nice to know the limitations of common machines and machinists prior to drafting plans and handing them off. These are things I would only truly know if I had been trained to use these machines myself. I feel the same about plumbing and valving when I design a fluid system. What do I know? I only read about it.

ChemE, M.E. EIT
"The only constant in life is change." -Bruce Lee

 

[ScottyUK]

Thanks Lorentz,

Are the engineering course enrollments too high? To meet the UK's requirement for engineers, yes it is far too high. Why do we need so few engineers? Because our indigenous engineering base is almost gone due to long-term underinvestment, by our successive goverments (of both colours) and by short-sighted management with little or no idea of what they are managing.

The problem of over-supply is compounded because the few areas where the demand is stronger - power engineering, for example - are the very areas which are seen as 'difficult' by the students, and which are expensive for the educational establishments to teach. The net result of these factors is that the shortage gets more acute. As it is there are a dwindling number of experts in the UK who are knowledgable enough to teach power engineering properly, and few who want to learn about them.




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If we learn from our mistakes,
I'm getting a great education!

 

[pmkPE]

I worked for a consulting engineering firm before I attended college. Without that experience I never would have selected the profession that I am now in AND I never would have been able to dedicate myself to the studies to get through college without knowing what I wanted to achieve. (Rather than partying I stayed in and studied - it made all the difference having the desire and discipline). Although I ended up folowing a different path than I originally intended, (I wanted to go into construction as a field engineer), my pre-collegiate work experience was worth more than anything else in helping me to select the engineering path that I am on. I have worded that last sentence such because there are so many different conditions that affect ones career path it is virtually impossible to predict what one will be doing in 5 years let alone twenty five years.

The best advice is to learn as much as you can about your job and those of your associates. By helping them, you learn and benefit not only them, the company you work for, but also (most importantly) yourself. You become valuable to your firm and you develop abilities that will help you through all walks of life and when necessary future career opportunities!

 

[moltenmetal]

Engineering is applied science. It stands to reason that application of those principles being taught is an integral part of the educational experience. A formal, structured in-process co-op program generates better engineers because the experience feeds back into the educational process while it's underway. A post-graduate internship, though clearly better than nothing and maybe beneficial in its own right, is at best an after-thought!

Tradesmen often view engineers with the same jaundiced eye that many engineers view university professors with,"...stuck in an ivory tower...", "...no idea how things ACTUALLY work..." etc. etc. Sometimes this is arises from the 20/20 hindsight of a person in the field observing the results of design work that took place hundreds of miles away on a CAD screen, but often it's a well-deserved and accurate observation.

Engineers should not be permitted to move directly from a non-co-op school to a consulting engineering business whose only product is paper. Without a hard grounding in and experience with physical reality, job-site conditions, the limitations of tools and techniques etc., an engineer is prone to design errors arising from "failures of imagination". Without feedback between the design process and its physical results, the system is out of control and learning is accidental at best. An engineer needs well-calibrated commonsense to avoid these problems, and the only way to get that is experience actually doing something other than drawing things in CAD and doing calcs. I agree with QCE that trades experience is extremely beneficial to an engineer's training. But no university, regardless how well funded, can provide this sort of physical experience through labs or projects- work experience is the only way these students are going to get the experience they need.

 

[flickstar]

I took up an Electrical Engineering Cadetship with a large Australian company when I finished high school. It took me seven years to complete my degree (full-time work/part-time study) but I learnt many things that were never even mentioned at Uni and I picked up a trade as an Electrical Fitter along the way. Cadetship programmes such as this one are rare and the application process was pretty competitive. Working and studying was a struggle at times, and I watched my Uni classmates get younger and younger over the years, but I am a much better Engineer for it and I have no student debts as my employer paid all my fees.

I think at most Australian Universities (if not all) Engineering students are required to complete at least 3 months of recognised work experience before they can graduate. After seven years of working I was still required to complete a report to demonstrate I had met these minimum requirements.

 

[28021973]

4yrs apprenticeship (full time), plus your time spent gaining a degree choice.

This would be acceptable.

Anything less would be consider an accident waiting to happen.

There are many companys in the UK that stipulate a full apprenticeship as one of the criteria needed to qualify for a vacant job role in engineering.

The companys that dont require apprentice trained personnel will accept gradutes, so long as they are paid what there worth.

You see many engineering jobs offered as --£15K recently qualified graduates required..!

When they could be earning £25K plus.

 

[GregLocock]

I'm sorry, that is crazy, if you mean a traditional trades apprenticeship, and if you don't then what do you mean?

Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[HgTX]

Isn't the EIT stage in essence an apprenticeship, at least in fields where licensure is needed?

To "moltenmetal": Wouldn't a lot of internships be of the paper-producing variety as well?

 

[Lorentz]

Hello All!

sms is providing some great advice over in the "tailspin" thread, so I thought it worth repeating here. To quote his Aug 11 post:

"As I said, my grades coming out of college were not great, actually a 2.8 on a 4.0 scale, and I did not graduate from a famous school. I received my BSME from New Mexico State University. A fine school, but not famous. So without the grades what led my first employer to hire me? I had co-op experience, which helped a bunch, I had worked during my schooling as a teachers assistant, grading papers and tutoring under classmen, and I had held every leadership position available in the ASME student section at my college, including president. I had also participated in ASME national events including the Summer Annual Meeting, and the Student Leaders conference, as well as regional student conferences. I had also taken and passed the fundamentals of engineering exam. All of that at least got some interest in my resume, beyond to initial reaction to my grades."

Frankly, most employers are far more impressed with experience of any kind than a high grade point average (there are a few exceptions of course). A student may be a wiz at theoretical topics taught in advanced engineering courses, but if a prospective employer has no need for these, he will hire based on experience and this gives the advantage to co-op graduates.

 

[buzzp]

Apprenticeship is good only if the apprenticeship program is good. There are a lot of bad work programs out there where they simply want smart, cheap labor. On the other hand, there are good ones too.
However, I don't see the need to revoke accredidation to Universities/Colleges that have no offerings. This would be adding more politics to the picture (which we don't need). Things seem to work out fine for themselves now and most students understand the value of co-op programs. "Government", whether it be federal, state, city, or county is big enough lets not make it bigger.