Another Step Towards STEM

[BJC]

Hey all, I've got a story for you:

Today, I had my first day of school. This year our school introduced CAD as a new class and of course I jumped on it. The class, however, seriously suprised me as the teacher introduced what it was all about. Basically, this is the deal. Apparently, our school was chosen out of all the schools in the United States to be a pilot for this new program which is a response to the low level of engineers graduating out of the USA. We recived a large government grant to aquire and use Catia v6 (a version which is not even avalible to the public.) This class will include guest teachers and speakers from companies such as Ford, will involve us collaborativly working on projects with the University of Georiga via internet, and will be monitored by the government.

Here is the important part, if declared successful similar classes will be introduced into schools around the country within the next several years.

How's that for cool!
Bryan Culver

[sanddrag]

neat!

[Kovs]

That sounds like an awesome program to be in! (Even though being a guinea pig creates its own set of problems) I hope it goes well.

[GCentola]

Best of luck in the new program! It's great to hear that there is initiative being taken in response to the US's STEM performance! The program sounds like a great oppurtunity!

[M. Mellott]

CATIA is a powerful, high-end CAD system with advanced free-form capabilities. It's also VERY expensive--upwards of $100K for a full license, though I would imagine some of the additional advanced packages would not be in an educational license (who knows), nor would it cost schools what companies pay for a seat. It's used by many high-tech companies, including several automotive manufacturers and just about all of the aeronautical industry. Due to it's complexity, CATIA designers are in HIGH demand, commanding high-end salaries as well. Congrats to your school on getting such a great opportunity.

[BJC]

Thank you, hopefully the program is deemed successful and implemented across the USA. I'd imagine many more students would become engineers if they were exposed to such opportunities. As a culture, we get what we celabrate.

[staplemonx]

Thats very cool

Check out this school. It has one of the largest high school engineering programs in the world. Might be a good school to connect with. Plus they have an FRC team.

http://alumni.sehs.net/?page=Aca_PreEng_Home