How Can Today’s Global Engineers Successfully Compete? American Society for Engineering Education Launches Survey on the Skills Required to Succeed

What skills and experiences will today’s engineering students need to develop while in school and throughout their careers to successfully compete in today’s global workplace? This question is the focus of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Corporate Members’ Special Interest Group (SIG) for International Engineering Education of which I am Co-Chair. We recently released an online survey aimed at enhancing the preparation, performance and employability of engineering graduates living and working in an increasingly global context.

Educators, employers, students, and professional engineers throughout the global engineering community are encouraged to participate in the survey at http://ifees.net/activities/Attributes-of-a-Global-Engineer-Survey.cfm. To obtain feedback from the largest possible audience, ASEE has collaborated with the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies (IFEES), to make the survey available in Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish.

The mission of our group is to foster, encourage and support high-quality engineering education around the world to assure a global supply of well-prepared engineering graduates. Over the past two years our SIG has developed, presented and vetted an assessment of the skills and experiences required by engineering graduates to work effectively in a global environment. This short survey will help measure how people from around the world involved with the education and employment of engineers perceive the importance of each of these attributes at different stages of an engineer’s career – as an incoming university student, a university graduate, and an experienced practicing professional.

Quanser has long fostered, encouraged and supported the establishment and promotion of high-quality engineering education. As a member of the American Society for Engineering Education and the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies, we encourage you to participate in the survey.

No personally-identifiable information will be sought, participants may choose to not answer any question, and only summarized responses will be reported. Findings will be published upon completion of the survey at the end of 2010.

Inspiring Future Engineers

A few days ago, we received a letter from Let's Talk Science, a Canadian charitable organization focused on creating and delivering science learning programs for children and youth. Through fun, hands-on and minds-on activities, these programs help turn the young generation on to science and show them the connection between science and real life.

Let's Talk Science depends heavily on the help of volunteers - students, scientists and engineers who bring science to life of kids and youth. In the letter, the President of the organization, Dr. Bonnie Schmidt, thanked two Quanser engineers - Cameron Fulford and Sunny Ray, who volunteered their free time and participated in several activities, such as a high school career panel or the science fair. Schmidt wrote "Sunny and Cameron are important role models for young Canadians and have made significant impact on the youth they have reached."

At the OCE Discovery 2009 conference, Let's Talk Science presented an interactive earthquake simulation using Quanser's Shake Table I-40.

And they are not the only engineers from the Quanser team who help excite young kids about science and technology. In one of our previous blogs we mentioned Jacob Apkarian, Quanser's Founder and CTO and Michel Levis visited a Toronto elementary school, and Quanser's Heidi Wight spoke to girls at a high school workshop.

Dr. Jacob Apkarian, Quanser's Founder and CTO demonstrates how electricity in our body can be used to make artificial limbs move.

We also hear a lot about outreach activities of universities: Cornell University's Dr. Ingraffea participated in a High Jump program. High school students built structures which were tested for earthquake resistance on Quanser's Shake Table. Other Quanser systems can be used for outreach activities - contact our Academic Solutions Advisors at info@quanser.com to learn more.

The earthquake engineering experience High Jump Program students got at Cornell motivates many to pursue careers in science and engineering.