Anderson-Rowland, M. R., & Rodriguez, A. A., & Grierson, A. (2012, June), Determining the Community College Audience  Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--21171

\bibitem{asee_peer_21171}
  Anderson-Rowland, M. R., \& Rodriguez, A. A., \& Grierson, A. (2012, June), \emph{Determining the Community College Audience}
  Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, San Antonio, Texas.
  10.18260/1-2--21171

Mary R. Anderson-Rowland, Armando A. Rodriguez, and Anita Grierson.  "Determining the Community College Audience".  2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas, 2012, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2012.  https://strategy.asee.org/21171 Internet.  09 Jun, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_21171}
  Mary R. Anderson-Rowland, Armando A. Rodriguez, and Anita Grierson.
  "Determining the Community College Audience".
  \emph{2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, San Antonio, Texas, 2012, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2012.
  https://strategy.asee.org/21171 Internet.  09 Jun, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_21171
author = "Mary R. Anderson-Rowland, Armando A. Rodriguez, and Anita Grierson"
title = "Determining the Community College Audience"
booktitle = "2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2012"
month = "June"
address = "San Antonio, Texas"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://strategy.asee.org/21171}
number = {10.18260/1-2--21171}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -                 Determining the Message to a Community College Audience                                            AbstractWith the continued need for more engineers and computer scientists in the United States, effortsto educate and to encourage more students to consider engineering are increasing at thecommunity college (CC) level. Many CC students are undecided in their career choice andengineering is not on their radar screen. In order for CC students to be aware of engineering andcomputer science as careers, someone needs to talk to them. Since many CCs were establishedbecause there is no easy access to a university for those who live in that community, these non-metropolitan (rural) CCs may have students who have no contact with engineers and littleknowledge of engineering, let alone have any engineering role models.Therefore a question that needs to be answered is this: “How can a university best do outreach toa non-metropolitan CC?” In our experience, having a captive audience in the classroom is thebest way to reach CC students with information about engineering. In this way, their attention isfocused on engineering for at least a few minutes. The next question that begs itself is: “What isthe most effective engineering message for rural CC students?” That question needs thefollowing one answered: “Who is the audience at the rural CC?”This paper describes the results of a short questionnaire given to over 100 students one day at anon-metropolitan CC. The questionnaire was given at the end of a 20-60 minutes presentation ina classroom. Three different speakers were used in mathematics classes that ranged fromtrigonometry and pre-calculus to calculus III, a chemistry class, and an Intro to Engineeringclass. We note the gender, ethnicity, year in school, and mathematics class enrollment. We askthe students about their plans to get an Associate’s degree, a Bachelor’s degree, and a degree inengineering or computer science. We also inquire as to their intended school to which theywould transfer and their intended major. We also ask how supportive their family is for them toobtain a bachelor’s degree and what could prevent them from obtaining a bachelor’s degree. Wealso asked the students the check which topics (from a list) they would like to know more aboutand if there were topics not listed that they would like to know more about. Finally we askedthem to leave their name and email address if they wanted follow up. The students were alsoinvited to meet with the speakers after class for more information.This paper summarizes our findings. First, it was of interest to us to note for which topics thestudents felt they needed more information. We then note the information by gender, ethnicity,year in school, and mathematics class. As would be expected, few in the low level mathematicscourses were interested in engineering, while almost all of the students in Calculus III intendedto be engineers, while a few of these students were pursuing physics or mathematics. Studentswho intend to be doctors were surprised to learn that Biomedical Engineering was an excellentundergraduate degree for them in preparation for medical school and also gave them otheroptions in addition to medical school. The time spent at a table between classes and at the end ofthe day proved to be useful for some students who had not heard the class presentations and forsome students who had questions after the class presentation. One surprising result was that atleast two students had been accepted into a Technology school thought that they had beenaccepted into engineering because the major was listed as (Major) Engineering Technology.Suggestions are given for using these results to advantage when designing the engineeringoutreach message according to the audience.
AU  - Mary R. Anderson-Rowland
AU  - Armando A. Rodriguez
AU  - Anita Grierson
CY  - San Antonio, Texas
DA  - 2012/06/10
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Determining the Community College Audience
UR  - https://strategy.asee.org/21171
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--21171
ER  -