Career and technical education students at SME PRIME® high schools in Michigan, Illinois, and New York have experienced firsthand the importance of manufacturing to our nation and the world — and how their classroom studies and hands-on lab work relate to real-world challenges, and can even save lives during the coronavirus pandemic.
Diversity in Action magazine featured the SME Education Foundation’s efforts to reach more students from underrepresented groups and provide them with opportunities to pursue careers in the manufacturing industry.
Manufacturers, communities, educators, students and parents can all benefit from participating in Manufacturing Day: Last year, more than 80% of students said they became more convinced that manufacturing provides interesting and rewarding careers after attending these events.
SME PRIME students at Hawthorne High School near Los Angeles, CA recently graduated from South Bay Workforce Investment Board’s (SBWIB) Aero-Flex Pre-Apprenticeship program. The 23 students from the schools manufacturing and engineering program will leave high school better prepared to directly enter the workforce upon graduation.
Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) continue to transform the nature of manufacturing and engineering work. While low-skill, lower-wage jobs could be phased out, newer technologies will create new high-skill, higher-wage jobs.
Greg Smith earned the 2019 SME Directors Scholarship based on accomplishments that included decades of welding experience and a solid skill set build around his passion for engineering. Today, Greg is a graduate of Utah’s Weber State University and in the beginning stages of his career at the Ogden, Utah division of Barnes Aerospace as a Special Process Engineer.
Julian Rogers earned a 2014 E. Wayne Kay Scholarship with his determination and drive to pursue a Mechanical Engineering degree. Today, he’s applying his engineering skills to his work with drone company Insitu.
This is the second in a series of two blogs focused on manufacturing misperceptions, Industry 4.0 and the next generation of manufacturers.
The SME Education Foundation supports the Additive Manufacturing Competition and Tooling U-SME’s Additive Manufacturing Fundamentals Certification exam at the annual SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference in Louisville, Kentucky by providing scholarships to the high school winners of the contest.
A decades-long national bias against vocational careers continues to inform high school graduates that four-year college degrees are the only option for achieving success. Government data tells us otherwise. There are millions jobs in the United States that pay an average of $55,000 per year and don’t require a bachelor’s degree.