Say you only have five minutes to talk to a student and convince them that engineering is the way to go. What do you say?
Before you answer, remember your audience. You are probably talking to a Millennial so keep in mind that Millennials are altruistic, tech saavy, and enjoy working in teams and collaborating.
Here’s a few examples of comments I’ve heard lately from students:
I was on a robotics team in high school but don’t think there are any jobs in robotics.
This can be a great segway into many altruistic careers. Equipped with the proper sensors, robots can inspect the quality of meat, measure the pollution emissions of manufacturing plants, assist in surgery, detect corrosion in sewer pipes, investigate the depths of a volcano, save people from burning buildings, explore underwater “problems” or assess the speed of a tornado. Robots can improve our standard of living and give us more information about our planet or even the solar system. Robots are the future and increasing in popularity as we learn to program them with extended capabilities.
I want to major in psychology.
There’s a great profile on the USA Science and Engineering Festival website about a woman in the field of social robotics (Dr. Cynthia Breazeal) that is working on giving a robot a personality. In her lab, one such project (called Playtime Computing) involves creating a virtual reality play environment for children in which they can interact in real time with computer graphic characters, including a robot named “Alfie,” in interactive play and story-telling situations. In this setting, children, using simple tools available in the project’s 3D system, can imbue the characters with different characteristics, thereby enhancing the interaction for kids in meaningful ways. http://www.usasciencefestival.org/theniftyfiftybios
To be continued…
