Here is the problem: You want the most numerate students entering college to select a profession where pay is marginal, layoffs are rife, status is low (how many engineers have a secretary?), the positions are constantly under threat of outsourcing, and your bosses are technically and mathematically illiterate morons.
So you are saying, “Gee you have special and valuable skills, how about taking a low paying job for a career where you will be dumped for younger cheaper labor when you are in your 40s.
Had I thought more about the real world, I would not have gone into engineering school. I would have gone into business school, made my millions, spent my two years in a low security prison playing ping pong with Jack Abramhoff, and have gotten out with three homes, 5 cars, and my kids college education fully funded.
If you want more people to be engineers, pay them more and make their employment more stable.
Engineering Encouragement for Youth(Subscription Required)
Aviation Week & Space Technology
06/11/2007, page 13Edited by Patricia J. Parmalee
Printed headline: Engineering Future Talent
A New Jersey fifth-grader will get a taste of the future this summer as winner of a Lockheed Martin-sponsored essay competition, a part of its national Space Day initiative. Victoria Geyer’s entry earned her a spot at Space Camp at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala. See http://www.spaceday.org. And BAE Systems has launched a nationwide competition offering a team of students the chance to be ‘test pilots for a day’ at their Military Air Solutions site in the U.K. where they will fly the Typhoon simulator. See http://www.baesystemseducationprogramme.com