Western Digital to Support Future Engineers
Engineering Innovations program at CSUF exposes high school students to engineering.
July 26, 2006
At an awards luncheon on July 28, 2006, Western Digital, Lake Forest, Calif., will present four scholarships totaling $10,000 to top high school students who have spent the month of July participating in a special “What Is Engineering?” class at California State University, Fullerton. The Engineering Innovations program is a partnership between the MESA (Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement) program at CSUF and the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The purpose of the program is to expose high school students to different fields of engineering through college-level lectures, laboratories and hands-on projects. Trips to local industry sites are also part of the program.
Dr. William Cain, WD fellow and executive director of Advanced Product Engineering at Western Digital, will present the scholarships during the 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. luncheon at the Fullerton Marriott. WD is one of the world’s largest makers of hard drives, which record, store and recall volumes of data in desktop and notebook PCs and servers, as well as home entertainment products, such as gaming consoles, video recorders and set-up boxes for cable and satellite TV. WD is the sixth largest public company in Orange County and one of the fastest growing.
Students involved in the “What Is Engineering?” summer experience are from several high schools in Orange County, including Valencia High School in Placentia, Costa Mesa High School in Costa Mesa, as well as Saddleback High, Santa Ana High, Valley High, Segerstrom High and Century High schools in Santa Ana.
“Cal State Fullerton is only one of four sites outside of Maryland to provide this opportunity to high school students this summer,” says Vonna Hammerschmitt, director of the Fullerton MESA Program. “Fullerton was selected because of the College of Engineering and Computer Science’s commitment to MESA and its willingness to provide resources such as the use of engineering lab equipment and computer labs, as well as transportation costs.”
MESA is one of the country’s oldest and most successful programs that nurtures and unleashes student performance in math, science and engineering. MESA serves educationally disadvantaged students by providing academic enrichment so they can excel in math and science and become competitively eligible to pursue degrees in those fields at the most rigorous colleges and universities. The MESA program at Cal State Fullerton serves 1,200 students from six high schools and nine intermediate schools in Orange County.
“Ensuring a steady flow of engineers in the U.S. is critical to maintaining our country’s competitiveness around the world,” notes Dr. Raman Unnikrishnan, dean of Cal State Fullerton’s College of Engineering and Computer Science. “The U.S. Department of Labor predicts that over the decade ending in 2008, jobs requiring science, engineering and technical training will increase 51 percent, a rate four times faster than overall job growth. Today, less than six percent of high school seniors choose engineering as a college major. This represents a 33 percent drop from a decade ago, which makes precollege programs like “What Is Engineering?” and scholarship support like Western Digital’s all the more important.”
| Media Contact: |
Vonna Hammerschmitt, MESA Program Director
657-278-3114
Cell: (714) 290-0310
vhammerschmitt@fullerton.edu |
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