It can be difficult for college students to commit to a career path when they haven’t had much life experience. That’s especially true if their path requires a lot of complex training and dedication – they need to focus early, but how do they know they will like what they’ve chosen?
A two-semester class for engineering students at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford helps young engineers explore career options before they’ve committed to studying a certain sub-area of engineering. They explore by hitting the road for onsite engineering tours and adventures as close as master knifesmiths at W.R. Case & Sons in Bradford and as far away as jet engine manufacturer Pratt and Whitney in East Hartford, Conn.
The road trips are led by Instructor Gary Anderson, a retired engineer and former vice president of engineering and research at Keystone Powdered Metal in Saint Marys. He is enjoying a second career introducing students to electrical engineering in the electronics lab at Pitt-Bradford and acquainting them with a wider world of engineering on the field trips.
Pitt-Bradford offers four-year engineering technology degrees in energy engineering technology and mechanical engineering technology. Additionally, students can pursue an associate of science degree in engineering science. They also can complete foundational engineering courses in a small-classroom environment before transferring to complete a bachelor’s degree in engineering, covering areas such as computer, chemical, civil, electrical, and mechanical engineering.
Each semester, Anderson offers trips to places with a variety of engineering disciplines, including manufacturing, aerospace, and environmental. Each spring, he plans a longer trip for students to see something unique. In the spring of 2023, he took students to the Corvette plant in Bowling Green, Ky., where the new electric E-Ray Corvette was being launched.
The trip involved an overnight stay, and students had a chance the night before their visit to the plant to have dinner with a senior engineer who made individual recommendations about the coursework needed for areas they hoped to pursue.
Each semester, students vote on the trips they’d like to take, and each is required to attend at least three trips. Student expenses are covered by the university. Seeing the environments where engineers work can be just as important as understanding the products and projects they work on.
Sienna Gaskin is a first-year student from Perth, Australia, planning to study civil engineering. During the fall semester, she made trips to Zippo Manufacturing Co. and the Seneca Pumped Storage Generating Station at Kinzua Dam.
“I was able to see what the engineering life is really like,” she said. That’s something she was particularly worried about as a young woman with ambitions in science, technology, engineering and math.
“I have always doubted my knowledge a lot, but I’ve decided to give it a crack.” She said she likes studying engineering on the small campus, where some of her engineering professors are women.
It's nicer to have a closer relationship with your professors and other engineering students. Bradford is fun.
Mamady Traore is a first-year student from Upper Darby. “I’m interested in every part of engineering,” he said. For him, the trips are true career exploration. A fall trip to a powdered metal facility where car parts are made by pressing powdered metal under intense pressure and then sintering them introduced a new process to him.
David Niegowski of Bradford and Traore are interested in aerospace engineering, but Niegowski has misgivings about working in the military-industrial complex and was particularly interested in the trip to Pratt and Whitney earlier this month, where students had a chance to see fighter jet engines under construction.
Niegowski said he made the trip hoping to learn more about engineering (and he did), but he came away having learned even more about the business and quality assurance sides of the business that he had never thought about before.
The trip was a rare look at a defense contractor in action.
They will have other possibilities of places to visit this semester, including Case; Morgan Advanced Materials in Coudersport; Napoleon Engineering Services in Olean, N.Y., owned by Pitt-Bradford alumnus Chris Napoleon ’86-’88; HoliMont Ski Club in Ellicottville, N.Y., which designed, patented and licensed its own snowmaking system; a wind farm with solar cells; and Seneca Resources, a natural gas exploration and production segment of National Fuel Gas Co.
Anderson said the trips are a good chance for students to see the big picture of engineering. “I hear a lot of ‘I never thought of that’,” he said. He also noted that the trips give an unparalleled opportunity for students to receive internships and full-time job opportunities.
Students get to see workplaces and cultures as well. “There can be a bit of soul-searching,” he said.