Volume VI Issue 1
January 2010 |
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 Associate
Degrees Trend Upward
 A
new report from the National Center for Education Statistics outlines
growing trends in the number and type of postsecondary awards below the
bachelor's degree (certificates and associate's degrees) conferred over
the decade between 1997 and 2007.
"Changes
in Postsecondary Awards Below the Bachelor's Degree: 1997 to 2007"
showed that the total number of certificates and associate's degrees
conferred increased 28 percent between 1997 and 2007, to 1.5 million.
Fifty eight percent of these degrees are awarded by community colleges,
and health care is the most common field of study in which
subbaccalaureate credentials are awarded -- at 31%. Women earn a
majority of certificates and associate's degrees (62 percent in 2007).
The Sloan Career Cornerstone Center provides extensive information about
career paths in science, technology, engineering, and healthcare that
launch from a two year degree. A new site section easily points out
career areas that require associate degrees, and also explains salary
expectations, employment trends and what an average day might be like
for these fields. Many of the fastest growing occupations require an
associate degree education. Some of these careers include
engineering technologists,
science technicians,
medical technicians,
physical therapist
assistants,
dental
hygienists, and
dental
assistants.
 Find
out about careers launched from an
associate degree...
NASA
Student Launch Initiative
 NASA
has invited more than 350 student rocketeers from 37 middle & high
school, college, and university teams to take part in NASA Student
Launch Projects. The challenge is to build powerful rockets of their own
design, complete with a working science payload, and launch them to an
altitude of 1 mile. These annual rocketeering projects are the Student
Launch Initiative for middle school and high school teams and the
University Student Launch Initiative for colleges and universities. Both
challenges are designed to inspire students to parlay their interests in
science, technology, engineering and mathematics into rewarding careers
in fields critical to NASA's mission of exploration and scientific
discovery. Beginning in the fall school term, each team spends eight
months designing, building and field-testing their rocket. They address
the same physics, propulsion and flight challenges faced by professional
rocket engineers. The students also must challenge themselves as
scientists, creating a unique, on-board science experiment that can
survive the mile-high flight and yield test results after the vehicle
parachutes back to Earth.
Find
out more about precollege STEM
programs and projects...
Get
Ready for National Lab Day!
 A
coalition of educators, science and engineering associations,
philanthropies and other organizations including the Sloan Career
Cornerstone Center is supporting the launch of National Lab Day, a new
grassroots initiative designed to reinvigorate science and math
education in the nation's schools and after-school programs and lead to
increased U.S. competitiveness.
National Lab Day aims to inspire a wave of future innovators and foster
U.S. competitiveness by improving the quality STEM (science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics) education in America. The initiative will
connect students in grades 6-12 to hands-on learning experiences and
promote tinkering in laboratory settings. National Lab Day will promote
hands-on learning throughout the year and culminate each year with
special events the first week of May. Volunteer science and technology
professionals and educators will work together with students to improve
America's science labs and offer inquiry-based STEM experiences in
classrooms, learning labs, and after-school programs. Find out more at
www.nationallabday.org.
Find
out more about career paths in
science, technology,
engineering,
mathematics, and
healthcare...
Degree
Profile: Mathematics
 Degrees
in mathematics can lead to a variety of career options. The Sloan Career
Cornerstone Center offers resources to explore career paths in actuarial
science, mathematics, and statistics.
Actuarial Science:
One of the main functions of actuaries is to help businesses assess the
risk of certain events occurring and to formulate policies that minimize
the cost of that risk. For this reason, actuaries are essential to the
insurance industry. Actuaries assemble and analyze data to estimate the
probability and likely cost of the occurrence of an event such as death,
sickness, injury, disability, or loss of property. Applicants for
beginning actuarial jobs usually have a bachelor's degree in
mathematics, actuarial science, statistics, or a business-related
discipline such as economics, finance, or accounting.
Mathematics:
Mathematicians use mathematical theory, computational techniques,
algorithms, and the latest computer technology to solve economic,
scientific, engineering, physics, and business problems. The work of
mathematicians falls into two broad classes -- theoretical (pure)
mathematics and applied mathematics.
Statistics:
Statistics is the scientific application of mathematical principles to
the collection, analysis, and presentation of numerical data.
Statisticians contribute to scientific inquiry by applying their
mathematical and statistical knowledge to the design of surveys and
experiments; the collection, processing, and analysis of data; and the
interpretation of the results. Statisticians may apply their knowledge
of statistical methods to a variety of subject areas, such as biology,
economics, engineering, medicine, public health, psychology, marketing,
education, and sports.
Find
out more about careers in
actuarial
science, mathematics, and
statistics...
Riding
on the Crest of Wave Energy
 The
ocean is a potentially vast source of electric power, yet as engineers
test new technologies for capturing it, the devices are plagued by
battering storms, limited efficiency, and the need to be tethered to the
seafloor. Now, a team of aerospace engineers is applying the principles
that keep airplanes aloft to create a new wave-energy system that is
durable, extremely efficient, and can be placed anywhere in the ocean,
regardless of depth. While still in early design stages, computer and
scale-model tests of the system suggest higher efficiencies than wind
turbines. The system is designed to effectively cancel incoming waves,
capturing their energy while flattening them out, providing an added
application as a storm-wave breaker. Supported by a grant from the
National Science Foundation, the researchers developed a system that
uses lift instead of drag to cause the propeller blades to move. "Every
airplane flies with lift, not with drag," says lead researcher Stefan
Siegel from the U.S. Air Force Academy. "Compare an old style windmill
with a modern one. The new style uses lift and is what made wind energy
viable--and it doesn't get shredded in a storm like an old windmill.
Fluid dynamics fixed the issue for windmills, and can do the same for
wave energy."
Windmills have active controls that turn the blades to compensate for
storm winds, eliminating lift when it is a risk, and preventing damage.
The Air Force Academy
researchers used the same approach with a hydrofoil (equivalent to an
airfoil, but for water) and built it into a cycloidal propeller, a
design that emerged in the 1930s and currently propels tugboats, ferries
and other highly maneuverable ships. The researchers changed the
propeller orientation from horizontal to vertical, allowing direct
interaction with the cyclic, up and down motion of wave energy. The
researchers also developed individual control systems for each propeller
blade, allowing sophisticated manipulations that maximize (or minimize,
in the case of storms) interaction with wave energy.
Find
out about careers in engineering...
Boosting
Graduation Rates with Technology
 The
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently announced $12.9 million in
technology-related grants that promise to fundamentally change how
community college students are educated and, ultimately, improve their
graduation rates. While more students are enrolling in some kind of
educational program after high school than ever before, not nearly
enough leave with a degree in hand.
Three-quarters of first-time community college students do not graduate
within three years. Often it's not a question of effort or motivation.
Rather, these students face multiple challenges: many are not
academically ready for college-level work; they juggle school and family
responsibilities; the courses take too much time or cost too much; or
the class work is not engaging or relevant. The Gates Foundation aims to
double the number of low-income students who earn a postsecondary degree
or credential by age 26.
The new funding is designed to help advance the role of technology at
community colleges beyond online courses. The emerging technologies that
will receive funding from these grants promise to change the community
college landscape for all students, but especially those that are least
prepared when they arrive on a college campus and who also often face
the pressure of balancing work, school, and family responsibilities. For
example, online and digital courses have the potential to greatly reduce
costs and promote flexible scheduling, allowing students to learn when
and where it is convenient for them. Multimedia elements, social
networking, and educational games can make learning interactive,
enjoyable, and relevant. Recent trends suggest that teachers and
technology developers are finally poised to make a substantial impact on
our educational system. For instance, 20 percent of college students
already take at least one online course, and Congress is weighing
legislation that could pump $500 million into the creation of open,
online courses.
Online
Labs Can Enrich High School Science
 There
is a growing gap between the practice of science the way researchers at
Northwestern University and other institutions are conducting it -- and
what science looks like in high school," says Kemi Jona, research
associate professor at Northwestern University. To help close this gap,
Jona and his partners at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to take
the concept of online laboratories, or iLabs, and put them into high
schools. iLabs are experimental facilities that can be accessed through
the Internet, allowing students to complete experiments from anywhere,
at any time via a webcam and remote controls. The high tech equipment at
iLabs is real and yields real
scientific data. The nine instruments available on the site include an
inverted pendulum at the University of Queensland, and a
microelectronics device characterization lab, a dynamic signal analyzer,
an educational laboratory virtual instrumentation suite, a polymer
crystallization experiment, a shake table, a heat exchanger, a force on
a dipole lab, and neutron spectroscopy labs, all at MIT.
Find
out more about career paths in
science...
Career Cornerstone News is a publication of the
Sloan Career Cornerstone Center. Click here
to subscribe.
The Sloan Career Cornerstone Center has a
limited number
of endowment and sponsorship opportunities for organizations,
foundations, or corporations who wish to support those
considering career paths in science, technology, engineering,
mathematics, or healthcare.
Find out more...
This newsletter may be reproduced in other
non-profit publications with credit and links to
the Sloan Career Cornerstone Center.
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