Shelby Fischer spent the summer of 2015 working as a marketing intern for Bishop-Wisecarver. Shelby is currently studying Business Marketing at San Jose State. Shelby was eager to gain marketing experience and broaden his skills set. The internship program at Bishop-Wisecarver provides our interns with real world business applications and teaches them skills that are applicable to all industries. Read Shelby’s account of this past summer.
JJ Galvin spent his summer interning at Bishop-Wisecarver to learn about manufacturing, engineering and marketing. The third-year mechanical engineering student at Santa Clara University wanted to see engineers work on a product from start to finish. He wanted to learn about the manufacturing process and machines used in the guided motion industry. He also wanted to brush up on his technical writing and study the way engineers communicate within the company and to the customer.
“The FIRST program provides teenagers who are 1-4 years away from adulthood with a highly interactive and influential program that could pave the way to potential and stable career options.”
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math—STEM, in colloquial parlance—are the tools we're using to build a better future. We like to think that the rock stars of the future will be robot-building, mechanically and scientifically inclined geeks.
A decade ago, WIRED magazine ran a story about four high school students from a tumbledown high school in Phoenix, Ariz., beating MIT in a sophisticated and nationally watched underwater robotics competition.
Right now, we're in the thick of competition season for FIRST Robotics. Some 400,000 kids in more than 80 countries are duking it out in a series of bouts with robots they designed and built themselves. It's all in good fun—intensely competitive and widely watched.
A 2014 study by the American Society for Engineering Education noted that STEM education is so successful because the teaching methods are inquiry-based and centered around students. It engages students in solving real-world challenges. It encourages teamwork. It shows how to use mathematics in a meaningful way that students will actually use later in life.
As we see kids head back to school it reminds me of my role as a business leader to invest and support our next generation of team members. As a woman running manufacturing, distribution and engineering companies I see a real gap in the education and experiences we are providing to our kids.
