where does your future lie?
With the current job market as competitive as ever, Texas Tech is working with students of all ages to help get a leg up heading into the job market.
WGBH Boston, a PBS affiliate, premiered a new reality competition television series Feb 21. The show, called ‘Design Squad,’ is geared at getting teens interested in the field of engineering.
The Tech engineering department and KTXT-TV hosted a ‘Design Squad’ premier Feb. 21 at the Lubbock Science Spectrum.
“We’re celebrating that by having kids out from K-12 schools to watch the show,” said Robert Waller, “and to do a bunch of hands on activity so they can get a sense of what engineering is all about. It’s a great event and we’re all having a great time.”
Waller, a communication specialist for the Tech T-Stem Center, said students from all over West Texas came to the Science Spectrum for the ‘Design Squad’ kick-off party.
“We’ve got five projects for them,” Waller said. “It’s everything from a wind turbine, to demonstrating environmental engineering and green power, all the way to rubber band cars where they wind things up with rubber bands and let them go across the floor. So lots of fun hands on experience.”
‘Design Squad’ is set to air at 9 a.m. every Saturday on KTXT-TV with a total of 13 half-hour episodes that will air throughout the spring and summer.
"It’s been a five year project,” Waller said of ‘Design Squad.’ “They’ve taken the time to really sit down and figure out what kids really need to know about engineering and how to get them excited about engineering careers. So we’re thrilled to even be a part of it in this small way.”
While the teens are learning about a possible career in engineering, students at the college level are being encouraged to better their career opportunities by taking internships while still in school.
“I think doing an internship is probably one of the most valuable experiences a student in college can do,” said Aleesa Ross, an assistant director in the Tech Career Center. “It gives the student a chance to get that real world experience before they graduate and that is something employers and recruiters want to see. They want to see that students have experience outside the classroom.”
Leta Page, the manager of Snelling Personnel Services in Lubbock a recruiting firm, said in today’s job market experience is as important, if not more important than grade point average.
“If you graduate with a 3.5, for instance,” she said. “It’s a lot different if you don’t have any field experience than if you graduate with a 3.0 while working a job in your desired field. That might be more desirable for an employer.”
Journalism is one of the few majors at Tech in which students are required to have an internship before graduation. Dr. Jerry Hudson, dean of the Tech College of Mass Communications said the reason for requiring only journalism majors to get an internship is based on the number of journalism students at the university.
“The journalism faculty thought that with the smaller number of students graduating in journalism than in the other two disciplines that they could require an internship,” Hudson said. “With the number of advertising and PR students that we have we can’t require it because many of them don’t have access to them here in Lubbock. It would mean that they would have to go out of town to complete the internship.”
Hudson said there are definite benefits for a student having completed an internship during school.
“Even within Mass Comm a student who completes and internship or a practicum is going to be far more likely to get a job competing with someone else who has not completed an internship or a practicum,” he said. “I don’t know why a student wouldn’t want to complete and internship or a practicum.”
Ross said although internships are not required for all majors, she suggests all students look into the possibility of doing an internship while in college.
“Because I’m not familiar with every college’s curriculum 100 percent I can’t really say for sure,” she said, “in Mass Comm it’s only journalism students required to do an internship although it’s strongly suggested that all majors do one. I would think that same principle would apply to the other colleges that it should be strongly recommended and pushed by faculty members about the value of an internship and why students should do one.”