Current Event

How to Grow an Engineer: A 10-Step Program

This month's current event speaks to the parent, but is an excellent resource for teachers, school counselors, and anyone influencing a young person's life. Please help us get the word out about engineering by sharing this information. Pass it on!

This 10-step program teaches you how to stimulate, nurture, and expand your child's interest in science, engineering, and technology. If you want to know how to help your child succeed in engineering then this is for you. You will learn what parents can do to help and what resources are available.

1. Your Child Can Do It!
   You must believe in your child. As well as academics, engineering is persistence, determination, and drive.

2. Don't Pass on Bad Math Attitudes.
   Engineering is not all math. It's just one of the tools in the engineer's box. Parents can show that math and science are fun by making it apply to the real world. If a pair of pants is on sale for 20 percent off, make your kids figure out what the price will be after the discount. If they can't get it, you don't have to buy it!

3. Help Your Child Explore Careers.
   Let your child explore all of their interests. They need your support. Exposure is the key to success. Engineering is an excellent launching pad to become anything. Engineers are also doctors, lawyers, CEO's, writers, teachers, and business people.

4. Enroll Your Child in an Engineering Camp.
   Camps are offered by almost all engineering schools. Visit www.engineeringedu.com/summercamps.html for a list of camps in your area.

5. Promote After School Brain Expanding Activities.
   Robotics, chess, or math clubs are great choices. If an appropriate after school program is not available, products such as Roller Coaster Tycoon and LEGO Mindstorms are good choices for home use. Encourage taking things apart and hope they can get it back together.

6. Provide Subtle Communication.
   Make career books, scholarship books, and college catalogs available by placing them around the house. Let kids discover them on their own rather than pushing them.

7. Supply Direct Communication.
   Invite people of different occupations to dinner. Encourage your kids to ask questions about what they do at work everyday.

8. Take Educational Vacations.
   Engineering is all around us, and it's easy to take a vacation or day trip to something interesting. If you need help finding something, visit the Sightseer's Guide to Engineering

9. Find a Mentor.
   Find a friend or neighbor who is an engineer that your kids can talk to. Another great resource is your local engineering society, such as Society of Women Engineers or American Society of Civil Engineers, for example. Many enignieering societies have local chapters that can be found by contacting your local college of engineering. College-level engineering students are also great choices.

10. Teach Kids to Follow Through.
    It's very important to learn to stand up for what you want. Teach kids not to quit when it's hard. Teach persistence. "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." – Eleanor Roosevelt