Nashoba Valley Technical High School Engineers New Course

The school this year has opened an Engineering Academy, "a school within a school," as Academic and Testing Coordinator Gabriella White called it, in which students who choose to study Engineering or Electronics/Robotics will be clustered into a wing of the building, where they will also be taught a specialized curriculum of Science, Math and English.

The expectation is that the academy will provide an intensive, hands-on education in several aspects of engineering, and open doors to engineering colleges.

Engineering instructor Jeffrey Scheminger is excited about the academy and the opportunity to raise the bar for those interested in pursuing an engineering-related career.

The move toward offering a more intensive Engineering program began more than a decade ago, and it only takes one look at the statistics to see why school officials have pursued the idea.

According to a report by the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, the unemployment rate in STEM-related fields-science, technology, engineering and mathematics - has remained steady at 5.5 percent, as opposed to the national rate, which stood at 7.7 percent in Feb. 2013.

In 2011, the unemployment rate for computer and mathematical occupations was at 4.1 percent, about half the national rate. That same year, occupations related to physical and social sciences, as well as architecture and engineering, had unemployment rates of 3.8 percent and 5.1 percent, respectively.

Wages also tend to be higher in STEM-related fields, according to the report, even among employees who don't have a bachelor's degree but who earn, on average, more than 30 percent more per hour than non-STEM workers with a similar level of education.

It wasn't until Dec.2012 that the school was able to commit monetary resources to the academy. That month, Nashoba Tech was chosen as one of 31 Massachusetts educational facilities to receive grants from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, the goal of which is to increase education in the STEM areas.

Nashoba Tech received $96,665, which was used, in part, to purchase equipment for the academy.

In addition to civil and electrical engineering, which had already been part of the Engineering Technology curriculum, students in the Engineering Academy will soon be learning environmental, geophysical and biomedical engineering.

Scheminger said the academy will follow a nationally recognized curriculum called Project Lead the Way.

According to White, freshmen will still go through the exploratory process, spending time in each of Nashoba Tech's 18 technical programs before choosing one halfway through freshman year.

If a student elects to continue in Engineering Technology or Electronics/Robotics, he or she will become part of the Engineering Academy.