Gavilan College faculty will again offer an engineering program
beginning in fall 2011. The lower-division program prepares
students to transfer with full junior standing to engineering
programs at four-year colleges and universities.
An engineering program was offered at Gavilan College until the
mid 1990s and again for three years in the early 2000s. Both times
the program was discontinued for budgetary reasons and low
enrollment. This time the program has the benefit of support
through institutional grants and higher levels of student interest
and preparation, according to a press release from Jan Bernstein
Chargin, the public information officer for the college. Grant
funding from the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math programs
has provided equipment and resources, and Title V funds will make
it possible to identify potential engineering students at the time
they begin their education. As the college prepares to bring back
the program, more students are enrolling in higher levels of
calculus and science, prerequisites for engineering.
Gavilan College faculty will again offer an engineering program beginning in fall 2011. The lower-division program prepares students to transfer with full junior standing to engineering programs at four-year colleges and universities.
An engineering program was offered at Gavilan College until the mid 1990s and again for three years in the early 2000s. Both times the program was discontinued for budgetary reasons and low enrollment. This time the program has the benefit of support through institutional grants and higher levels of student interest and preparation, according to a press release from Jan Bernstein Chargin, the public information officer for the college. Grant funding from the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math programs has provided equipment and resources, and Title V funds will make it possible to identify potential engineering students at the time they begin their education. As the college prepares to bring back the program, more students are enrolling in higher levels of calculus and science, prerequisites for engineering.
“We don’t want to start and then stop,” said Kathleen Rose, the Gavilan College vice president of instruction, in the press release. “We are committed to providing support at a number of levels.”
The program’s director Russell Lee said he is excited about the opportunity to both help students complete the course requirements for transfer and to be prepared when they reach their transfer destination.
“There’s a big distinction between offering a program and offering the course work,” Lee said, in the press release. “The program is two-fold. One part is to have a sequence of courses to prepare students to transfer to four-year schools, to get a degree in engineering. The other goal of the program is to offer support for students and to make sure they understand what engineering really is. They have a resource available to them to help them be successful in the courses they have.”
Lee said the faculty wanted to emphasize both goals when reinstating the program. A strong effort was made “to establish an academic infrastructure to ensure that students in our service area have an excellent academic experience that will prepare them for transfer to, and success at, the four-year engineering school of their choice.”
Students who meet the prerequisites can enroll in the program or those who are interested can take the Introduction to Engineering course that will be offered in the fall and Math 1A, first semester calculus.
“The engineering courses have pretty rigorous prerequisites,” Lee said.
He added that students who completed the engineering program in the past and transferred to four-year programs have been successful in getting jobs in the industry or getting into graduate programs for further study.
As for what type of students may want to pursue a career in engineering, Lee had a few suggestions.
“[The student] should find interest in the physical world – they should want to know why things work; they should want to know how things work and how to make things work,” Lee said.
He added that a lot of engineering students get jobs and they tend to be high-paying jobs.
“So after you’ve gone through all the trials and tribulations of being an engineering student, usually you’re rewarded handsomely at the completion of your efforts,” Lee said.
The curriculum will follow the pattern established by the California Engineering Liaison Committee, an organization with representatives for all of the two-and-four-year engineering programs in the state. Students will be able to transfer to other campuses and complete the required program in four years.
For more information on the program, e-mail Russell Lee, a physics instructor, at rl**@ga*****.edu.
