Field Trip As Complement To Engineering Technology Education

In many engineering technology programs, the primary focus is to provide students with the educational resources to apply cutting-edge tools of the technology in industry. This objective of technological empowerment is achieved through student projects, capstone courses, and sometimes internships. Such activities are designed to ensure that students acquire a firmer grip of principles and application of concepts and tools. Capstone courses and student projects are designed to encapsulate several essential components of a course or program content. These approaches are effective in institutions that have a wide array of industry standard equipment for students to use in real world applications. Internships, however, allow students to train on equipments whose prices far exceed the financial resources of the institution. This paper looks at the manner in which field trips to local industries have been used to increase students’ understanding, and therefore appreciation of procedures and concepts that have been discussed in courses. Field trips to industries allow the students to appreciate the relevance of the technologies discussed in class and to experience their application in industry. Students are able to discuss with employment opportunities with employers and to find out from operators their experiences in working with specific equipments and to glean additional knowledge about the equipment. For students in institutions that are unable to afford expensive equipment, seeing that equipment in use reinforces the knowledge that they obtain in class. Between the telecommunications engineering and the surveying technology programs, field trips are conducted to Commonwealth Telephone Industries, Adelphia Cable and Television Company, Verizon Switching Centers, Historic Electronic Museum and the Pennsylvania P ge 10628.1 Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education Department of Transportation as part of the academic activities. Although the companies differ in their products, the experiences of the students are identical. This paper discusses the relevance of industrial field trips to complement instructions in engineering technology programs.