Author Archives: curiouscat

Diversity In Engineering – Canada

Via Celebrating Engineering in the Globe and Mail – the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers: What can diversity bring to engineering (pdf format):

Strategies to encourage more women to take up engineering are being adapted to reach out to other under-represented groups. Making engineering more inviting to a diverse pool of future practitioners holds tremendous promise for a profession dedicated to the public interest.
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There is no doubt a renewed emphasis on diversity reflects–some would suggest belatedly–the changing demographic of engineering in Canada, and especially Ontario. While female engineers still represent only about 10 per cent of membership in most Canadian jurisdictions, there has been significant growth in membership from international engineering graduates, particularly in larger urban centres. In some ways, this indicates how the evolving demographic of engineering practitioners is coming to reflect the changing Canadian population.

Educating Scientists and Engineers

Business Week has an articles discussing what business would like to see from graduates, Biotech’s Beef:

The problem is a disconnect between what universities are teaching and what biotech wants. “The focus of academia is getting basic and theoretical knowledge in place,”
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There are several weaknesses. First, recent grads lack the technical knowledge to carry out applied research in areas that straddle engineering, math, and computers. Second, job candidates have little awareness of what the Food & Drug Administration is looking for when it considers whether or not to approve a drug. Recent grads simply aren’t familiar with issues such as quality control and regulatory affairs.

This general idea is not new. But, as always (and probably more so if the nature of what is needed is changing faster today than in the past) the changing environment does require universities (and students, at least those that want to work in industry) to adapt.

But with H-1B quotas filling up earlier every year, Invitrogen has chosen to do more drug development in Japan, China, and India. It may also open facilities in Korea and Singapore, says Rodney Moses, Invitrogen’s vice-president of talent acquisition. Compensation in China and India is lower than in the U.S., but that’s not what motivates the move offshore, says Moses. “If the talent is located in Singapore, it’s just easier for us to go there.”

U.S. colleges take the problem seriously. State university systems in California, Wisconsin, and elsewhere are adding more industry-oriented classes.

60 Acre (24 hectare) Spider Web

Two interesting articles Millions of Tiny Spiders Spin Mystery in a British Columbia Clover Field, and Spiders weave huge natural wonder in B.C. cover a story from 2002:

A biology professor in northern British Columbia has spotted a clover field crawling with spiders.

Brian Thair of the College of New Caledonia in Prince George said he saw a silky, white web stretching 60 acres across a field.

Related: Another remarkable natural event, giant wasp nest. Also see a post on spider thread.

Residence Halls for Engineering Students

Three residence halls allocated just for engineering students at Southern Illinois University by Alexis Boudreau

The National Science Foundation in September granted SIUC $1.2 million to help fund the endeavor. Chrisman said more than half of the grant would go toward funding the peer mentors’ salaries.
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Nicklow said there would be approximately five students per mentor, and the mentor would attend at least one class per week with the students, along with providing tutoring and guidance.
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“The whole purpose is for them to interact with one another,” Lorentz said. “They will be able to live, learn and study together. It will enhance the student experience.”
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The new program will also involve faculty mentors, free tutoring available in the halls four or five nights a week and 36 practicing engineers who will periodically speak to students.

Some of the ideas sound good. I am skeptical of the advantage for completely separate dorms, but I believe in experiments so I like the idea of trying this. It will be interesting to see the results of this effort.

High Pay for Engineering Graduates

Undergraduate engineering degrees top the list of best paid: Most lucrative degrees for college grads. This article offers a slight update to Lucrative college degree post from July.

Student Loan Forgiveness for Teachers

School of Education creates $20 million loan-forgiveness program to encourage students to become teachers

This program from Standford is one of the many good ideas being applied currently. Alone it really is a pretty small step but as one small step of many it is a good one.

$10 million gift matched by Stanford will create a $20 million loan-forgiveness program at the university’s School of Education to encourage students to become K-12 teachers.
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Under the program, half of a STEP student’s loan will be “forgiven”-effectively cancelled-when the graduate has taught for two years. After four years, the loan balance will be forgiven. Research has shown that a teacher who pursues teaching for three years or more is likely to stay in the field.

Sick spinach: Meet the killer E coli

Sick spinach: Meet the killer E coli:

O157 is unusually infectious, adds B. Brett Finlay, professor of microbiology at the University of British Columbia, who has studied the devious bug’s genetics and tactics. “Ten organisms can make you sick, while salmonella takes 10 million. And E. coli O157:H7 is resistant to acid in the stomach that normally kills most things.”

Read more in this detailed articles from the why files.

iWoz

iWoz book cover image

iWoz, autobiography of Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder is now available. Quote from Guy Kawasaki:

Every engineer—and certainly every engineering student—should read this book. It is about the thrill of invention, the process of making the world a better place, and the purity of entrepreneurship. I, Woz is the personal computer generation’s version of The Soul of a New Machine. It is, in a nutshell, the engineer’s manifesto. I hope that the so-called “innovation experts” and MBAs choke when they read it.

Cobert report interview with Steve Wozniak. NPR interview: Computer Pioneer Steve Wozniak Tells His Story

New Visualization of the Periodic Table

New Visualization of the Periodic Table from the New York Times.

Erasmus Mundus Scholarships

The Erasmus Mundus program is funded by the European Union to strengthen European co-operation and international links in higher education. To do this it supports high-quality European Masters Courses, enables students and visiting scholars from around the world to engage in postgraduate study at European universities, and funds European students and scholars to learn outside the EU. The program is funded for five years (2004-2008) for 230 million Euro.

In concrete terms, Erasmus Mundus will support about 100 Erasmus Mundus Masters Courses of outstanding academic quality. It will provide grants for some 5,000 graduate students from third countries to follow these Masters Courses, and for more than 4,000 EU graduate students involved in these courses to study in third countries. The programme will also offer teaching or research scholarships in Europe for over 1,000 incoming third-country academics and for a similar number of outgoing EU scholars. Last but not least, Erasmus Mundus will support about 100 partnerships between Erasmus Mundus Masters Courses and higher education institutions in third countries.

Student nationalities for 2006-7: China 81, Brazil 43, Russia 36, India 31, Ethiopia 38, USA 31, Malaysia 25, Mexico 21. There is also a special Asia program with an additional: 288 from India, 99 China, 53 Thailand…