University Advancement

Public Relations and Strategic Communications

MEDIA RELEASE

CSUN Offers Online Engineering Course to Local High School Students

(NORTHRIDGE, Calif., Sept. 27, 2007) — As students from Monroe High School filed into Cal State Northridge’s robotics lab, its director, manufacturing systems engineering and management professor Tarek Shraibati, broke into a grin.

The students, high school juniors and seniors, were making their first official visit to the campus as the newest members of Shraibati’s course, "Introduction to Engineering," an online, college-credit course being offered for the first time to students at eight area high schools: Monroe, San Fernando, Granada Hills, El Camino Real, Chaminade, Fraiser Mountain, Northridge Academy and Fulton College Prep.

"The idea is that hopefully the students will decide to go on to an engineering school, maybe even CSUN," Shraibati said. "But even if that doesn’t happen, these young people are taking a college-credit course that will help them in the future, showing them that college is not inaccessible, but within reach and something they can do."

The students, 71 in all, attend Shraibati’s lectures online—a one-hour session per week—and then do lab work at their schools under the supervision of teachers who have the background and training to support their work, including one who is a former engineer.

"This is not an Advance Placement class, this is an actual college course, similar to one I teach for students here at CSUN," Shraibati said.

Manufacturing systems engineering and management chair Bonita Campbell said the high school teachers participating in the ACCESS (Accelerated Coursework for Computer Science and Engineering Student Success) Program "are exceptionally qualified" and are appointed as part-time faculty with her department.

"The laboratory work performed by the students and the expertise required of their teachers are more than worthy of university recognition," she said.

Shraibati’s lectures include discussions on the field of engineering and the design process as well as study skills, time management and other information that lead to college success.

The students’ lab work at their individual schools will reflect what they are learning in their lectures and culminate with their participation in the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Tech Challenge, a regional robotics competition designed to turn young people on to careers in science and engineering.

Students at each school participating in the online course will design a robot using a Vex Robotic Design System, which Shraibati calls "an erector set on steroids." At the challenge, the robots will undergo a series of tests—including an autonomous period, manipulating three-inch rings onto both vertical and horizontal pipes and handling moveable goals.

"It’s a lot of fun, but a lot of serious work as well," Shraibati said. "Remember, this is a college-level introduction class to engineering. These students are going to discover that engineering is serious work, but it’s not boring."

Karla Johnson-Majedi, director of the Student Services/EOP Satellite in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, which helped set up the program with the high schools, said the online course, though only in its first year, is already in high demand.

"We have people from all over asking us to add their school to the program," she said. "We plan to extend the program next year and in the years to come. But right now, eight schools are what we can handle."

Johnson-Majedi called the project "very exciting."

"Research shows that once you bring a young person to a college campus, they are more likely to return as a student," she said. "There is such a shortage of engineers out there. It would be outstanding if some of these high school kids came back and studied engineering at CSUN."