Engineering firms are facing the challenge of filling positions, but not finding enough engineers with experience or attracting young engineers to apply. “Engineering firms need to invest more in educating engineers, if only for the selfish benefit of increasing the number of experienced, young engineers many firms are searching for,” says Gust Gianos, author of an article in Consulting-Specifying Engineer, an online magazine.

One point made by the author is that students majoring in engineering need greater motivation than money to stay in the field of engineering. Many leave their engineering major in favor of the business and management fields. Engineering programs need to focus more on what matters to the millennial generation: making a difference and doing something they feel passionate about.

Charles L. Tucker III, Alexander Rankin professor and associate dean in the College of Engineering at UIUC was quoted in the article and spoke to this point. “Many students want to make the world a better place, often on the environmental side in programs like Engineers Without Borders. These programs often do not have enough spaces for students,” says Dean Tucker.

To learn more about the changes in engineering education, and what industry can do to attract the applicants they’re looking for, click here to see the article in full.

More and more students at Illinois want to make a difference sooner in the world with their careers.  Students are starting companies earlier, working to change the world sooner, and generally taking a more active approach toward the world of work.  A post here discusses the way in which leadership/executive coaching can help  students(1) bootstrap the leadership skills you weren’t taught in school and (2) teach the meta-skills necessary for lifelong learning and self-management.

The following is a recent post on IBM’s blog “Student Leadership for a Smarter Planet”.

As a long time faculty member at a major research university (here), I’ve seen many students in action on campus for over 30 years.  Over the last few years, it seems to me that more students come to campus wanting to make a difference in the world.  Now. Student entrepreneurship starts earlier than it once did, and student social engagement and action is pronounced from freshmen year on.  These are exciting trends and the Students for a Smarter Planet initiative is an exciting development in the early moments of an exciting century.

Over the next few weeks and months, I’ll explore a number of topics along the personal, organizational, and societal dimensions of leadership with an eye toward student leaders who wish to make an immediate difference.  Some of these topics will be drawn from experiences in working with student organizations, student entrepreneurs, and and student leaders.

By David G. Goldberg

You can follow the “Student Leadership for a Smarter Planet” blog  here

iFoundry started as an educational incubator in 2007 with precursor activities going back to 2006.  Some of the lessons learned over the last five years are posted here.  15 rules are posted and one is reproduced below:

Move quickly, boldly, broadly, and well enough. The cadence of educational institutions is slow, cautious, narrow, and risk averse. Educational initiatives move quickly, boldly, broadly, and well enough.  This meeting of opposites continually risks turning the change initiative into an element of the bureaucratic blob and the change agent must guard against increasing sloth, caution, narrowness, and risk aversion, especially as time goes on.  Many of the activities of a change initiative are one-off pilots or events and are managed on a project basis.  Good project management procedures should be established with clear goals, authority, scheduling, and reporting.  Helpful resources: Allen, Getting things done. Sims, Little bets. Fields, Uncertainty: Turning fear and doubt into fuel for brilliance.

Other informative posts are available here.

Watch this new video produced by Olin College, featuring iFoundry Co-Founder David E. Goldberg. He talks about the partnership with the University of Illinois and Olin College, and how innovations pioneered at Olin can and are being applied at Illinois. It’s a great 2-1/2 minute video worth watching!

Emerging Student Leaders Workshop with David Goldberg

by Sathvik Vasam, Engineering Student at Illinois

“What do engineers actually do during the day?” This was the first question posed to the audience during the Emerging Student Leaders Workshop: Stories, Success, and You. It doesn’t sound like any other engineering workshop, does it? That’s because it wasn’t. The audience, made up of everyone from first year engineering and business students to PhD pursuing students and esteemed professors, was truly captivated by the information and the presentation of the information throughout the interactive workshop.

Led by the Jerry S. Dobrovolny Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Entrepreneurial Engineering Professor David Goldberg, the workshop aimed to enable those with an engineering mindset to understand the importance of language in a workplace environment, but also in daily life.  This brings us back to our initial question: What do engineers actually do during the day? After splitting up into small groups and discussing, the majority of the people surmised that more than anything else, engineers are constantly communicating, with their colleagues, with customers, with other engineers, about their ideas, their work, and their goals. Thus, Prof. Goldberg maintains, it is language and the ability to understand and use it well that is key for an engineer, or for that matter, any other profession, to succeed.

After allowing the audience members to ruminate on the meaning of language, Prof. Goldberg then moved the audience members along onto the main interactive session of the workshop: the Distinction Listening Exercise. Distinctions, he said, enable us to discriminate between things as different, to dimensionalize stories, to give them a deeper meaning. After partnering up, the audience members were then told to exchange stories and listen at level-two (level-one involves relating the story to your own experience; level two is listening to the story from other person’s perspective), making sure to make distinctions throughout the story and ask open-ended questions. This exercise allowed the audience to immediately put this into practice, and for many, it was the most enlightening experience of the workshop. Not only were people amazed at how much they took from the stories than they normally would, they realized how these stories meant more to them because they imagined being in the other person’s shoes.

After another round of discussion, Prof. Goldberg moved onto the last main topic of the workshop: making distinctions between assertions and assessments. In short, assertions are “committed to the truth,” while assessments are “committed to expressing an opinion.” Thus these distinctions are key to understanding whether a statement is information-based (assertion) or a judgment (assessment). Making these distinctions, thus, is critical for open discourse.

After discussing some key takeaways from this workshop, Prof. Goldberg ended the workshop with a beautiful poem, reminding us to be always mindful and present. This workshop was unlike any other engineering workshop, again because there was no technical information covered, but because the information presented was not just presented; it was truly experienced.

Click here to see photos of the event:

Photos on facebook

Check out this article that calls out iefx and iFoundry’s efforts at the University of Illinois to add more design, projects, and teamwork in the first year, and our initiatives around supporting aspirations and leadership development.

New York Times, Nov. 4, 2011

Click here to watch this video of Richard K. Miller, Ph.D.- President, Franklin E. Olin College of Engineering:

From the Ground Up: A Comprehensive Systems Approach to the Redesign of Engineering Education

Creativity, wit, and thoughtful commentary was the hallmark of the October 22 iFoundry Faculty lunch. Sharra Vostral, David Lange and Stephen Levinson presented a series of remarks on the topic – Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of iFoundry.   Each presenter had 6 minutes to deliver their remarks.  Running through the remarks was a thread of perspective, innovation, and multidisciplinary critical thought.  The discussion that followed was lively and showed the importance of this sharing of ideas and opinions. Each presenter deserves our thanks and appreciation.

Wednesday, November 9, 5:30 – 6:30pm, 151 Loomis Lab

RSVP via DSAC Facebook Event: Engineering Student Town Hall or reply to this email
Questions? Email Amy Koester at akoester@illinois.edu or call 244-1816

PIZZA!

Student action, ideas, observations, and aspirations are central  to transforming the educational experience in Engineering. Join us for a townhall session to help generate ideas and practices critical to cultivating meaningful and sustained change in your engineering education at Illinois. Help us build the student-led learning communities essential to this effort.

Your voice matters, and the College, DSAC and iFoundry, are listening!

Topics of conversation include:

• What has the College, iFoundry and ifefx done to date to support and encourage and support student success?
• How can we build upon the initiatives and continue to move the needle on enhancing engineering education at Illinois?
• How do we grow and  develop better student-to-student support networks?
• How can we create engaging and motivating courses and experiences throughout the four-year curriculum?
• How can we create and sustain an engineering community, of support and trust, during these years?

Sponsored by:

- Dean’s Student Advisory Committee

- iFoundry, the Illinois Foundry for Innovation of Engineering Education

- College of Engineering