Summer Engineering Institute Builds Diverse Pipeline
In conjunction with the Leadership Education and Development program (LEAD), the College of Engineering began its second year of the Summer Engineering Institute (SEI). In an effort to increase the number of American students pursuing careers in engineering, LEAD worked with Felicia Benton-Johnson, the COE Director of Engineering Education Outreach, to provide a real project and engineering experience for these selected LEAD high school students. “The LEAD Summer Engineering Institute is a way to build a pipeline into engineering for underrepresented minorities,” said Benton-Johnson. Only four institutions in the country are currently providing these LEAD summer engineering institutes. The goal of the summer institute is to expand the pool of highly qualified, ethnically diverse leadership in engineering.
Two rising seniors in a Soldering Lab at LEAD Summer Engineering Institute at Georgia Tech
LEAD Program
LEAD is a 27 year old summer leadership development nonprofit that initially was limited to business leadership development in order to provide a diversified management pool for American businesses. LEAD launched the summer program for engineering to lay the foundation for more diversity in engineering and technical fields. Open to rising juniors and seniors from across the nation, last year Tech admitted 23 juniors. This summer, nine of the inaugural group returned and were joined by another 15 seniors and 12 juniors “From our perspective, we needed two years for students with the first year grabbing their attention regarding engineering, while the second year worked to solidify their interest in engineering as well as the relationship with Tech,” said Benton-Johnson. “We were looking at students who not only qualified academically but excelled overall.” About 40% of the participants in this year’s SEI were Hispanic and 60% African American.”
The focus of SEI is on a major project which teaches students some of the basic engineering and computer science techniques using programs such as HOMER, MATLAB and Google Sketch-up.
Solving Real-World Engineering Problems
“We have seen a need for raising awareness in engineering so with the LEAD SEI; we can challenge these high school students to solve real-world engineering problems with hands on experience,” said Benton-Johnson. “Making a social impact is important to our students so three projects this year were chosen for these students based on how engineering can make a social impact.” This year the high school students worked on the following projects: Water Quality Testing and Water Filtration; Food Refrigeration with Renewable Energy-Overview; and Aerial Surveillance, Sensing, and Communication.
Members of Tech’s faculty, staff and students assist the students during their three-week stay on campus. The SEI participants were involved in corporate visits, evening workshops, and “Fireside Chats” such as visits with industry representatives. Classroom lectures concentrated on topics such as electrical engineering and designed systems; mechanical engineering emphasizing designing machines and gadgets; computer engineering and database design and data communications; and civil engineering with an emphasis on architecture to solve problems of project planning, site planning and building design.
The success of Tech’s SEI program may best be described by the parents of one of the students who participated this summer who wrote, “I could write a book about LEAD and how I have seen it change children’s lives and characters. The LEAD SEI program provided an awesome, life changing and eye-opening experience for all youth participants with a genuine interest in the area of engineering.”
Click here for more info on Engineering Education Outreach.
>>Engineers help shape the future.