I’ve gone to a number of STEM conferences locally and a few nationally. In nearly all cases, all I’ve ever heard about is engineering. In fact a local STEM conference I’ve attended for 8 years had a single panel discussion on Information Technology this year for the first time. If I didn’t know better I’d think that the only way for a school to be involved with STEM is to teach engineering.
Is engineering sexier? Is it more interesting? Is there more money behind engineering? Is it easier for businesses to support engineering programs in K-12 because kids often produce physical, tangible things as they are developing their engineering chops?
Why when you mention IT do people nod approvingly, but then avoid further discussing this area and including it in STEM? Do other readers see this?
In fact while on that aforementioned panel, I referred to CS in several slides and afterwards, several university and business folks told me I either shouldn’t talk about CS or I need to combine it with IT, because, they exclaimed, businesses don’t do CS – they do IT and their departments are so named (IT or IS or something similar)…then you discover that most of what those departments do is design, develop and implement software…sounds like CS to me. But maybe this is for another post. Maybe I have an incorrect or off-center notion.
Let’s talk! See you here soon!
Hi Joe, I think the issue is related to the nomenclature somewhat. Here in Australia it is currently called ICT – Information and Communication Technology. It covers so much that I just bring it down to computing for conversations, but then have to say I don’t sit and code. The link into secondary schools (high schools) is further confused with multimedia being in different technology streams, and the whole tensions with being a competent user of IT packages or studying to be an ICT professional. I have spent many hours at conferences as well as on advisory boards with the discussion of what we call ourselves going round in circles. I do not have the answer, if I did I would sell it to you all and make enough to retire! Now our national curriculum board are saying IT has too many bad connotations and are floating the new name Digital Technologies… go figure!
Hi Joe,
I just ran across an article that seems to support your feeling: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/01/connecticut-and-texas-aim-grow-stem-enrollment-take-different-approaches It talks about increasing undergraduate participation in STEM, but when you look at the details it’s all about increasing engineering enrollments. I wanted to share.