The Current Issue With High School Student’s Image of Engineering
Recently there has been a push to encourage science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education in schools across the country. Science and Math are standard parts of high school curricula everywhere, and kids are exposed to technology every day of their life. Kids often have much less experience with engineering and what it entails. Their image is that engineering is just building bridges and sitting in a room and doing math – we all know that this is not the case. We want to change this by providing high schoolers with an introduction to the true experience that undergraduate engineering students have.
Mission
Access Engineering is an organization that seeks to demonstrate to Philadelphia high school students what engineering is about: a thought process and an option for a future career. As Penn Engineering students, we are in a unique position to do so. We can relate to the challenges they face as high school students deciding on what path they wish to take in college. Many prospective students do not apply to engineering schools because they don’t know what engineering is, or have misconceptions about what it entails. We want to change this by providing high school students with an introduction to the true experience that undergraduate engineering students have. Access Engineering offers a weekly lab based course that acquaints students to the various majors within engineering, a programming course, and workshops that span varied topics, such as entrepreneurship or Arduino programming.
What to Expect
All of our classes meet on the University of Pennsylvania Campus, typically within the engineering quadrangle or in the Van Pelt library. Transportation subsidies are available for qualifying students. Lessons will start on February 13th and end April 23rd. The classes always take place on Saturday mornings, and run from 10 AM to 1 PM. Every Saturday lesson is broken into two hour and a half blocks, with a short lunch break in the middle.