UCI Tradition Heralds High Jinks, High Hopes : Engineering Week Observed Amid Career Optimism
From cutbacks in large-scale public-works projects to the dismantling of Southern California’s aerospace industry, cash-strapped budget years have meant a tough road for aspiring engineers.
But students participating in UC Irvine’s annual Engineering Week have some reason to be optimistic: Their field may be turning around.
“Things are looking much better for engineers now,” Marlene Dyce, coordinator of on-campus interviews at the UCI Career Planning and Placement Center, said Tuesday. “Students tell us we don’t have recruiters for anything but engineering and computer science.”
After 1992, which was among the worst years for engineering graduates to find jobs, the number of students enrolled in the discipline at UCI and other universities dipped.
There are signs, though, that enrollment in engineering is on the rise again, as administrators renew emphasis on a profession that is as critical as a suspension bridge but often as inscrutable as the inner workings of a supercomputer.
Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening has said that the School of Engineering must increase research to help UCI join the nation’s top 50 research institutions by the year 2000.
Allen R. Stubberud, the acting dean of the School of Engineering, said that his school of 63 faculty members has a good grant and contract record for its small size.
“In the amount of research money we get per person, we do well,” Stubberud said, noting that the school averages more than $100,000 in grants per faculty member. But, he said, the small faculty keeps UCI from competing with such engineering powerhouses as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Stubberud added that the school is seeking a permanent dean, who may be able to hire additional faculty.
Prof. Medhat A. Haroun, chairman of the civil and environmental engineering department, said that his 14-member department is “young and growing.”
Haroun said his department will set up one of the nation’s biggest earthquake simulators--a 100-square-foot table funded by a National Science Foundation grant. Engineers will use the simulator, which may be ready by 1996, to test how structures fracture in major quakes.
“It would increase our visibility,” Haroun said.
In mechanical engineering, Prof. Michael McCarthy recently helped launch an innovative course that familiarizes UCI engineering students with local start-up companies and large firms.
For example, a team of three undergraduate students is working with professors and engineers at Baxter International Inc., a medical manufacturing firm, to develop a tool to crimp mechanical heart valves.
“They’re doing real engineering, and that’s exciting,” McCarthy said.
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Students said they think their engineering studies will pay off, despite the recession.
“Our program is getting stronger,” said Scott Tatalovich, a civil engineering senior specializing in water resources. “It’s more adaptive” to the variety of skills an engineer needs today.
Tatalovich spoke as he watched the Nerd Contest, a competition that is part of UCI’s Engineering Week activities.
From the Rube Goldberg Contest--a competition to design the weirdest contraption capable of coring an apple--to the old-fashioned Egg Drop Contest, activities are geared to test engineering students’ innovation and creative thinking.
“People think we’re really focused, that we work hard and have no life,” said mechanical engineering student Scott Fable, 20.
“Well, it’s basically true,” joked Dameon Wood, 22, a fellow mechanical engineering student.
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In fall, 1994, UCI had 1,335 engineering students, down from 1,469 in 1992. Engineers and instructors said they think students will migrate to engineering again when they see industries rebound from the recession.
“Most people here should receive (job) offers upon their graduation,” said Allen M. Yourman Jr., a geo-technical engineer who watched Engineering Week festivities. “It depends on the field, but UCI is up and coming.”
Stubberud said hiring is cyclical, and prospective engineers may have to seek jobs in other states. But engineers will always be in demand, he said.
“I told a group of undeclared (major) students yesterday that if everything that had an engineering component to it vanished, we’d all be sitting naked in a cow pasture,” Stubberud said. “People don’t understand the extent that engineering affects our life. Engineering will not go away.”
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Future Engineers Engineering is the fifth-most-popular major at UC Irvine, the choice of about 8% of the student body. The School of Engineering offers nine specialized fields, with electrical engineering the most popular. A look at UCI’s School of Engineering during the fall, 1994, semester:
UCI Fields of Study Students Biological sciences 3,636 Social sciences 2,693 Social ecology 1,805 Humanities 1,569 Engineering 1,335 Physical sciences 1,159 Fine arts 697 Information/computer science 697 Medical science 522 Graduate School of Management 516 Education 148 Interdisciplinary programs 59 Undeclared 1,607 Total 16,443
Specialized Engineering Fields Percentage of students in each engineering specialty: Electrical: 33% Civil: 25 Mechanical: 23 Chemical: 5 Unaffiliated: 5 Others*: 9 * Includes environmental, materials science, computer and aerospace Engineering Enrollment ‘94: 1,437 Source: Office of the Dean of Engineering, UC Irvine; Researched by ALICIA DI RADO / Los Angeles Times
