Webinar Combats Kids' Lack of Interest in Engineering

The American Society for Quality (ASQ; Milwaukee) has made a Webinar titled "Real World of Engineering" available for free on its Web site. Celebrating National Engineers Week, the organization is presenting the Webinar out of concern for ensuring a future work force of highly educated and skilled engineers.The organization's goal in presenting the Webinar is to get more young people interested in the field and to get parents and members of industry to further encourage kids to pursue careers in engineering and science. The National Science Foundation estimates a projected shortage of 70,000 engineers by 2010. Potentially jeopardizing future advances in technology and increasing infrastructure costs, the shortage of aspiring engineers has the organization worried.To try to understand that dark forecast, ASQ employed Harris Interactive (Rochester, NY) to conduct a national survey of kids and young adults about their knowledge of the field of engineering. According to the survey, 85% of kids ages 8–17 said they are not interested in engineering and added that their parents aren't encouraging them to be. This lack of interest is explained in three ways: a lack of knowledge or understanding of the field (44% of respondents from that age group), an assumption that engineering is boring (30%), and a lack of confidence in math and science skills (21%).Further threatening the knowledge transfer from one generation of engineers to the next is the lack of encouragement from parents. Only 20% of the parents of the kids surveyed said they have encouraged or will encourage their children to consider a career in engineering. Moreover, children continue to be negatively affected by the same gender stereotypes that have plagued past generations. Girls who responded to the survey said that their parents are more likely to encourage them to become an actress (21%) than an engineer (10%).Amidst so much talk of tough economic times and renewable or sustainable resources, these statistics can serve as a reminder to industry to continue to invest in its own future by fostering the next generation of engineers. The Webinar will be available on ASQ's Web site for the next 12 months.