Engineering Entrepreneurship For High School And Early College Students

Project Lead the Way, Inc. 1 is a national pre-engineering curriculum that involves partnerships among public schools, higher education, and the private sector to increase the quantity and quality of engineers and engineering technologists graduating. More than 660 state high school students are currently enrolled in the curriculum. The Engineering Design and Development (EDD) module is a capstone course for senior high school students, focusing on invention and entrepreneurial skills. Dr. Karen High serves as a trainer for this course. The module includes innovation and invention, and shows students how to take engineering one step further. A one-credit hour engineering orientation course was developed in the fall of 2006 that introduced engineering entrepreneurship to former Project The Lead the Way students— now enrolled as college freshman—as well as other freshman engineering students. Engineering and business faculty members, along with a focus group of entrepreneurs, were involved in the course’s development. At the beginning of the course, the design cycle for product and process innovation, as well as problem definition, was described. A number of outside business speakers provided insight into the world of entrepreneurship, including teamwork, intellectual property, business and marketing plans, international and social entrepreneurship, and ethics. The students engaged in critical thinking exercises and worked on projects to develop marketing and business plans for projects based on inventions. Examples of course curriculum, and retention and recruitment statistics, are presented.