Using Entry Level Engineering Courses as a Method of Promoting Industry Awareness

In today's service-based culture, certain industrial and manufacturing jobs have gained a reputation for being dirty, boring, and outdated. Even more, due to the ingrained nature of this reputation, many students have learned very little to nothing about these jobs and industries. Due to negative stereotypes, students may dismiss possible employment in these areas before they can even learn about the industries. This research describes a method aimed primarily at integrating information about industrial establishments, particularly those in iron and steel making, into first-year materials engineering curricula in order to acquaint students with a major national and international industry. A second goal is to educate students about the close relationship between steel and their engineering studies. Through these unique integration measures - which involve using aspects of industry as examples, and providing samples of manufactured products to add a tangible quality to classroom learning - not only would students have a wider array of information leading to more informed career decisions, but steel companies and others would be aided in recruiting a new foundation of employees. The effectiveness of the implementation of this approach has yet to be determined, as it has only recently been put into place, but a survey gauging students' knowledge and interest in the steel industry was given at the beginning of the course and was followed by a second survey, both aimed to help measure the success of the new teaching tools. Through accumulation of these surveys over a span of time, the success of these methods will be determined.