1675813 - Getting youth in droves: Optimizing how we address tough skills shortages

Although the skills shortage for engineers has been known for many years, the pipeline has dwindled which needs an upgrade on how talent intake is done and continually developed.  The traditional path of becoming a civil engineer is not meeting the current demand for professionals to work in the industry.  Some states have a Career Connected Learning model in K-12 and higher education system with productive, innovative, and interesting opportunities much earlier.  This is important when young people have many choices, university is cost prohibitive for too many and engineering in transportation is still not well known as a place of employment to most of the public. 

In the traditional model, many employers seek interns later university years hoping to sign them on full time when they graduate.  Meanwhile along the career journey, candidates drop out from lack of vision and mentoring in isolated classroom environments where they doubt their potential and fit.  Students also spend a great deal of effort in hospitality and retail part-time jobs to support themselves outside of class.  The skills for these jobs can be applied to industry roles experiencing skills shortages.  For a number of youth, extracurricular activities are invested in too much without financial return, and this time could be better balanced with industry experience to build resumes and applications.  Instead of waiting until later, letting young people look elsewhere for part-time work and extracurricular activities, the industry can provide opportunities earlier.  It starts with exposure during early grade school, then into curriculum embedded projects that lead to paid work as soon as they’re eligible in high school and gain documented work time towards a qualification under a licensed PE.  This will prepare for full-time opportunities after high school or towards a flexible pathway of working and gaining an engineering degree without student debt, not leave families economically behind, and gives students confidence to apply principles at work or bring insights from real work experience to do well in the classroom. 

This presentation will explain how to optimize career pathways so various parties can benefit - students, educators and researchers, industry employers, as well as parents and community members.  For anyone who feels times are tough, that young people aren’t showing up, this presentation is packed with tips and tricks that work and pitfalls to avoid.  Get your cheat sheet of technical topics from a licensed PE, ranging from calculating forces on a beam, estimating costs with a cost-capacity model, to social equity applications with the American Disabilities Act and digital technology cases, relatable sample problems and solutions that use course principles in K-12, build upon for the FE exam and upgrade the image of what it means to be an engineer.   Discuss your challenges with a former government officer who’s worked in multiple technical functions, as a consulting engineer training large teams of younger engineers and launching popular youth programs on how to best position and implement success.