{"id":92122,"date":"2020-07-13T11:12:28","date_gmt":"2020-07-13T15:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=92122"},"modified":"2020-07-13T17:11:44","modified_gmt":"2020-07-13T21:11:44","slug":"growing-season-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2020\/07\/13\/growing-season-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing season"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Mark Johnson, lecturer in mechanical engineering at Lake Campus, and mechanical engineering major Brittney Hiestand. About 130 are studying engineering at Lake Campus.<\/p><\/div>\n

The value of an engineering degree from Wright State University\u2019s Lake Campus<\/a> is no secret. The word is out.<\/p>\n

In its 10-year lifetime, the engineering program has exploded in popularity, expanding from seven students in 2010 to about 130 today. More than 100 students have graduated from the program since it was launched.<\/p>\n

The Lake Campus engineering program<\/a> has become a gold mine of talent for local employers such as Honda, Crown Equipment and Coldwater Machine, who love the strong work ethic of the students and the fact that many of them want to stay in the area after graduating.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey know they will have these graduating engineering students for the long term,\u201d said Mark Johnson, a lecturer in mechanical engineering at Lake Campus.<\/p>\n

Jordon Coffman, who grew up in Rockford, was one of the seven students in the first engineering class at Lake Campus. He interned at Crown Equipment and was surprised at how much responsibility the company gave him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey threw me into engineering work,\u201d he said. \u201cThe co-op experience was a huge factor in me learning what engineering is and what type of responsibilities I would have when I graduate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crown offered Coffman a full-time job before he graduated. Currently, he works in the advanced energy unit of the company\u2019s product development group.<\/p>\n

Johnson said the co-ops and internships enable students to apply the theories they learn in class and incentivizes them to master the material because they realize they will have to know it in a real-world job.<\/p>\n

Many of the freshmen and sophomores in internships and co-ops are usually tasked with working on engineering drawings to learn design. Juniors and seniors learn more project management.<\/p>\n

Students must learn how to juggle classes with their internships and other responsibilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe work ethic is just incredible up here,\u201d said Johnson. \u201cThey need that work ethic in order to keep up and make sure they are able to do what\u2019s needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mechanical engineering student Brittney Hiestand, of North Star, co-ops at Crown Equipment, where she works in product development.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an engineer, I learned a lot more about CAD modeling, which is big,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t realize how much I would actually use that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previously, she worked in manufacturing, helping Crown engineers make improvements to the assembly line.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned a lot of people skills, especially having to talk to the shop floor employees,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Jordon Coffman landed a job at Crown Equipment after interning for the company in the engineering program at Lake Campus.<\/p><\/div>\n

Students who have graduated from the engineering program who work at Honda have told Johnson they really enjoy working there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat they\u2019re doing matters,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are taking products that consumers are going to be using and they feel that kind of pride about the company and themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson earned his bachelor\u2019s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Wright State and is working on his Ph.D. After graduating with his master’s degree in 2016, Johnson came to Lake Campus.<\/p>\n

The engineering program has four faculty members \u2013 three who teach mechanical engineering and one who teaches electrical engineering.<\/p>\n

Students can complete their bachelor\u2019s degree in mechanical engineering at Lake Campus, while electrical engineering students can complete their degree by taking a combination of classes at both the Lake and Dayton Campuses.<\/p>\n

Johnson said the small classes enable him to better know the students and give more personal attention to those who need it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd because of the small number of students we have, we are able to make our classes a little bit more hands-on with projects,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Senior design projects have included building a working quarter-scale tractor from scratch and a treadmill-like apparatus to measure the speed of fish.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an interesting project because they had to deal with a propeller and the fluid dynamics to make sure they had the laminar flow so that it was nice and smooth for the fish to swim through,\u201d said Johnson.<\/p>\n

The engineering program is more than just classwork and internships. Students are also offered cultural opportunities.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mark Johnson earned his bachelor\u2019s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Wright State and is working on his Ph.D.<\/p><\/div>\n

During the past two summers, Johnson has taken about a dozen of his engineering students on study-abroad trips to Jena, Germany, which features research institutes as well as an optical museum and the remains of a 15th century monastery. The students attended classes with German students at the Hochschule university of applied sciences.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that at least two students last year had never been on a plane before,\u201d said Johnson. \u201cIt allows them to open their eyes and see the bigger picture of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Engineering students also take part in community outreach events, holding robotics and trebuchet competitions to introduce engineering concepts to middle school and high school students.<\/p>\n

That community spirit doesn\u2019t end with graduation. Coffman, for example, helps with a Crown STEM program in which high school students participate in engineering-related activities, making presentations on mechanical engineering.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt tries to get students interested and help determine what engineering field they may be interested in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lake Campus engineering program has become a gold mine of talent for local employers who love the students’ strong work ethic. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":92138,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,2034,4268,743,725,731,4269,715],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-career-services","category-electrical-engineering","category-engineering-computer-science","category-home-news-sidebar","category-lake-campus","category-mechanical-and-materials-engineering","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92122"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92202,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92122\/revisions\/92202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}