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Technology and You: Working with the Aerospace Industry to Enhance Engineering Education

Russell M. Cummings* United States Air Force Academy, USAF Academy, CO, 80840

John H. McMasters The Boeing Company, Seattle, WA, 98124

Abstract While many engineers in the aerospace engineering profession know that interacting with students is a good idea, few of them know how to do it. Certainly some engineers are asked on occasion to give lectures at various university club meetings, and some are even heavily involved in interacting with students working on various design projects, but the average engineer has little or no interaction with students over the course of their career. A number of companies, including Boeing, have created technical interest groups to encourage mentoring and sharing of corporate knowledge throughout the company. These efforts have been met with varying degrees of success. In an effort to improve this situation, the Boeing Technology Interest Group concept has been modified and expanded to include students within the groups. Concepts for including students (both graduate and undergraduate) and faculty are discussed, including details about how the concept could be integrated into existing research and educational programs. Conclusions are drawn about the feasibility of the concept and suggestions for implementation are made.

Introduction

Tlooseconcept of a guildthedates from medieval times, where their professionalcraftsman formed HE associations for continuance and improvement of merchants and interests. While merchant guilds were primarily created to protect trade and commerce, the craft guilds were created to protect the skills and knowledge that would insure the continuance of the craft. The guild concept has had a centuries-long influence on how people in certain trades are trained. Guilds, among other things, offered younger members the ability to participate in a small group of people who had a shared ability or skill (such as being woodworkers or blacksmiths). The new “member” of the guild would attach themselves to a more experienced member as an apprentice, as shown in Fig. 1. While interacting with the journeyman (skilled but still learning) and/or master (highly skilled and mentoring), the apprentice would learn not only the technical

* This work was accomplished while a Professor of Aerospace Engineering at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, CA.

Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education

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Cummings, R., & McMasters, J. (2005, June), Technology And You: Working With The Aerospace Industry To Enhance Engineering Education Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--15568