HERDSA 1996: Scott and Steele - the National Engineering Summer Schools

The National Engineering Summer Schools: History, content, aims and achievement

Jonathan Scott
Department of Electrical Engineering
The University of Sydney
Jeremy Steele
Engineering Advancement Office
The University of Sydney

National Engineering Summer Schools (NESS) have been held since 1993. Their evolution to the present scale has taken time and effort.The NESS are sponsored by the University of Sydney, the University of Technology, Sydney, and the University of New South Wales, under the auspices of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, and by several commercial engineering companies. Visibly, these events are valued by prominent institutions. We look at their format, the motives and expectations of the various sponsors, and feedback from contemporary and follow-up surveys.

Introduction

A variety of programs for school students have been put on over the years. In 1962, a program aimed originally at teachers was redirected to a school student target audience by its founder, Harry Messel (Millar, 1987). The (later International) Summer Science Schools organised by the Science Foundation for Physics at Sydney University were perhaps the most famous, with internationally renowned speakers and televised lectures, but others have come and gone and more run today. Topics ranged from Astronomy to Mathematics. The Siemens Science Schools (SSS) (HERDSA News, 1995) and the National Engineering Summer School (NESS) are contemporary examples. A summer school program was conceived separately by a group working with Sydney University's Engineering Advancement Office, and simultaneously by the Sydney Division of the Institution of Engineers, Australia (IE Aust). When the IE Aust, under then director Jeff Dobell, successfully conducted a pilot in 1992, the Sydney University effort was transferred to the established operation, for which sponsorship had been obtained. The first NESS was held the following year, a less grandiose design reflecting the different economic climate from that current when summer schools proliferated in the 1970s. The cost of such a program, typically lasting days or a week, runs into tens of thousands of dollars in cash, staff time, and facilities. We present here what contributors offer and what they expect and achieve.

Format of NESS

The NESS is run as a week-long, residential program. The 1995 schedule is typical. This is reproduced in Table 1: Program of the 1995 National Engineering Summer School. Events started at 08:30hrs and often finished at or after 22:30hrs. There is a welcoming program on the preceding Sunday including a formal dinner, not shown below.

Table 1: Program of the 1995 National Engineering Summer School

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Breakfast
Newsheet 2 Breakfast
Newsheet 3 Breakfast
Newsheet 4 Breakfast
Newsheet 5 Breakfast
Newsheet 6

UNSW: Intro to branches of Engineering (CE, EE, ME, Comp.E, ChE, Biomed) UTS: Welcome from the Dean.
Lecture: "Women in Engineering".
Video and discussion on Sydney Harbour Tunnel. SITE VISIT
BHP Newcastle Rod and Bar Products Division SITE VISIT
Bill Gates Microsoft Talk SU: Demonstration lectures (CE, EE, ME, AE, ChE).

Lab or Fieldwork in chosen branch Engineering materials testing, experimentation, discovery and learning As above Meeting with young engineers.
Structures competition Workshop in 2 chosen branches (Fluid flow, arcs, vibration, CAD, distillation, Pentium bug, power, control, knee design)

Packed Lunch Packed Lunch Packed Lunch Lunch BBQ

SITE VISIT
Qantas jet base, simulator and engine disassembly plant SITE VISIT
Glebe Island terminal and Powerhouse Museum SITE VISIT
Sydney Harbour Tunnel SITE VISIT
Coca Cola bottling plant and Olympic aquatic centre site Practical design competition

BBQ at UNSW Dinner aboard Dinner Dinner Awards Dinner

Sports at UNSW (squash, swimming, gym, badminton, tennis, billiards, table tennis) Harbour Cruise Relaxation: videos, "Engineering" films, select teams for design competition. Inspect pyrotechnic equipment, carillon. Engineering Trivia Quiz. Fireworks display. Music and dance, prizes.

The school is run in residential format in order to allow a great deal to be fitted into the time available. With all participants living in, evenings can be used productively. The day-time program includes presentations on high-profile engineering advances, site visits showing engineering work situations, and practical exercises such as ingenuity competitions or simple laboratory experiments. The evenings include social and sporting events such as dinners and races modelled on the quadrangle run from the film Chariots of Fire, and activities with a scientific/engineering aspect, such as a pyrotechnics display whose preparations are open for inspection and a "trivia" quiz with emphasis on engineering-related topics and with industrial and academic guests present against whom students compete. Emphasis in the NESS "academic" program is put on the "infotainment" approach in order to maintain interest. Lecturers are selected for their ability to perform as well as to inform.

Apart from the universities already mentioned and the IE Aust, the 1995 NESS was sponsored by BHP, and Energy Australia (Sydney Electricity until 1996) - prominent institutions. Site visits included such places as the ABC studios, RTA collision laboratory, Optus satellite earth station at Belrose, Glebe Island bridge, Pacific Power systems control centre, and others. The site tours are put on by each respective host.

Expectations

Supporting institutions were asked to list the objectives they saw for NESS. These included

To increase awareness in school students of engineering as a career choice;
To encourage suitably skilled students (with strength in mathematics and the sciences) to consider engineering as a career choice more suited to their talents than medicine, law, veterinary science, or commerce;
To improve the quality of students enrolling in engineering by attracting more of the talented ones to the profession;
To provide potential engineering students with help in decisions about engineering, and their preferred branch of engineering, by showing them what is involved in the practice of the profession;
To give students some idea of what study at university will be like;
To increase awareness of the profession, and the role that engineers play in the community, both in the students and their friends and family to whom they relate experiences;
To attract good potential engineering students to a particular university by showing them what it has to offer.

1995 Statistics

Of the attendees,

27% came from Queensland,
26% from New South Wales,
16% from Western Australia,
15% from Victoria,
7% from South Australia,
5% from the ACT, and
4% from Tasmania.

A survey was taken of all participants a few weeks after the the end of the program, and 60% responded.

Much of the survey asks students if they liked or benefited from various program items; this elicits a uniform positive response, with a very small number (about 1%) of "outrider" answers where one program item is given a very bad rating by one student.

Importantly, 86% of students say that they learnt "a lot more" (4 or 5 on a scale of 1-5) about engineering as a profession, despite the fact that 41% claimed they knew "a lot" (4 or 5/5) about the profession before the school started. It is safe to conclude that NESS informs people about the profession very effectively.

The survey showed that 43% of attendees changed their minds about their preferences for a particular branch or branches of engineering, implying they picked up some fairly important impressions. Overall, 71% stated, at the end, that they intended to study engineering in the following year, and 15% intended not to study engineering; ten of whom - two-thirds - being students that had changed their preferences for the different branches. (The unaccounted fraction were uncertain.) It is reasonable, then, to assume that the school rescued a number of students from doing engineering who might have been disappointed had they embarked on such a course. When one considers that the school encourages enrolments from people interested in engineering as a career, any change of mind will likely be against engineering, but this is a positive result - better to realise this earlier than later.

Despite the fact that half of the students who eventually enrol at (for example) Sydney University visit universities before making their choice, many reported that a visit was not needed as they had already made their choice of campus (First Year Questionnaire, 1996). They declare that this choice is made on the basis (in descending order) of facilities and equipment, atmosphere and presentation, course flexibility, ease of travel and reputation. Given that the school is national and very few students cross state boundaries for their tertiary education, the NESS cannot have more than a marginal influence on choice of university.

Follow-up survey

There were 73 replies (about 50%) to the follow-up survey. Of these,

27% came from Queensland,
27% from New South Wales,
10% from Western Australia,
15% from Victoria,
5% from South Australia,
6% from the ACT,
and 5% from Tasmania.

Unsurprisingly, 98% of the students felt that they had learnt about the profession from attending NESS. Over 90% reported that NESS had helped them decide about engineering as a career; 50% had changed their mind to some degree, while it helped 80% make up their minds about or among the different branches of engineering. i.e., the long-term influence appears to be greater than the impression left shortly after the school.

While a total of 96% did enrol in a university course (possibly with deferment), less than 62% chose any sort of engineering. By comparison, before the NESS, the slightly larger proportion of 66% (two-thirds) reported that they intended to do engineering, while 33% (one-third) indicated that they were not sure if they wanted to do engineering, the remaining 1% stating that they thought they would not want to pursue this course of study or career.

Only 29% derived any assistance at all in choosing the particular university in which they preferred to enrol. The great majority of students expressed a preference for a university geographically close to their home address, or in the nearest capital city, as would be expected from existing statistics.

Conclusion

NESS does not appear to have much more than a confirmatory role in the choice of (or against) engineering. However, this appears typical for much career information. It does assist would-be engineers to choose type of engineering (Electrical, Civil, etc). It does not have influence on choice of campus, and is thus of no direct benefit to individual host institutions. Here again, it is typical in Australia for university campus to be chosen for geographical proximity rather than any educational or professional reason.

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance of Sally Chapman from The Institution of Engineers Australia, the Deans of Engineering at The University of Technology, Sydney and The University of New South Wales, Brian Jay from Energy Australia, Robert Wheen at the Sydney University, Anthony Parker from the School of Mathematics, Physics, Computing and Electronics at Macquarie University.

Bibliography

First Year Questionnaire (1996). First Year Questionnaire 1996: Analysis. Internal report, Department of Electrical Engineering, The University of Sydney

HERDSA News (1995). Community Service: A Science School in Summer: The Siemens-Curtin University of Technology Experience. HERDSA News, 17(2), July 1995.

Millar, D. D. (Ed) (1987). The Messel Era. Pergamon Press (Australia).

Authors: Jonathan Scott, Department of Electrical Engineering, The University of Sydney. Email: jbs@ee.usyd.edu.au
Jeremy Steele, Engineering Advancement Office, The University of Sydney. Email: J.Steele@eng.usyd.edu.au
Please cite as: Scott, J. and Steele, J. (1996). The National Engineering Summer Schools: History, content, aims and achievement. Different Approaches: Theory and Practice in Higher Education. Proceedings HERDSA Conference 1996. Perth, Western Australia, 8-12 July. http://www.herdsa.org.au/confs/1996/scottj1.html

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Created 1 June 2002. Last revision: 2 Dec 2002.
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Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Breakfast Newsheet 2	Breakfast Newsheet 3	Breakfast Newsheet 4	Breakfast Newsheet 5	Breakfast Newsheet 6
UNSW: Intro to branches of Engineering (CE, EE, ME, Comp.E, ChE, Biomed)	UTS: Welcome from the Dean. Lecture: "Women in Engineering". Video and discussion on Sydney Harbour Tunnel.	SITE VISIT BHP Newcastle Rod and Bar Products Division	SITE VISIT Bill Gates Microsoft Talk	SU: Demonstration lectures (CE, EE, ME, AE, ChE).
Lab or Fieldwork in chosen branch	Engineering materials testing, experimentation, discovery and learning	As above	Meeting with young engineers. Structures competition	Workshop in 2 chosen branches (Fluid flow, arcs, vibration, CAD, distillation, Pentium bug, power, control, knee design)
Packed Lunch	Packed Lunch	Packed Lunch	Lunch	BBQ
SITE VISIT Qantas jet base, simulator and engine disassembly plant	SITE VISIT Glebe Island terminal and Powerhouse Museum	SITE VISIT Sydney Harbour Tunnel	SITE VISIT Coca Cola bottling plant and Olympic aquatic centre site	Practical design competition
BBQ at UNSW	Dinner aboard	Dinner	Dinner	Awards Dinner
Sports at UNSW (squash, swimming, gym, badminton, tennis, billiards, table tennis)	Harbour Cruise	Relaxation: videos, "Engineering" films, select teams for design competition.	Inspect pyrotechnic equipment, carillon. Engineering Trivia Quiz. Fireworks display.	Music and dance, prizes.