Whether you call it STEM, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, or STEAM, Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math, it is impossible to deny the need for technology skills in today’s school classrooms. Engineering is a part of every educational discussion among teachers, among parents, among students, and among colleges and industries looking to increase the number of students in these fields. Turns out learning the difference between an elcut series and a thermal cutoff is as essential as Algebra and Chemistry once was.
Whether a young teenage girl is learning what it takes to be an electrical engineers or a high school boy is spending hours after school on the Robotics team, students are experiencing engineering many times during a school year.
Moving the average high school math and science student from someone who is curious about how to fix a blow dryer to a full blown desire to pursue engineering as a career is the goal of many high school administrators and counselors as they try to introduce students to the field that is expected to be in the most demand for years to come.
Technical in nature and not simply geared to the consumer wanting to repair home electronics, engineering classes begin students with the basics of elcut series fuses and move on to thermal protectors. While many look at a career in engineering as a way to continue their everyday love and fascination for math and science, these new fields will also include the creation, marketing and distribution of parts through purchasing agents at manufacturing companies.
Most importantly, electrical engineers will become experts in finding or designing quality products that will be used across the entire industry. Where customer service may still need to include a knowledge of the basics of electrical engineering, the next generation of electrical engineers will find themselves both in and out of the laboratory testing and implementing their new designs. Designs for longer lasting elcut series fuses and other thermal fuse functions will be needed as long as America continues to struggle to limit the structural cost of the industry itself.
In America, the electrical manufacturing industry is broken into three areas:
- electrical equipment
- electrical appliances
- electrical components
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded a record 7,791 electrical manufacturing establishments, including the three above categories. As a whole, these three companies employed 371,700 employees in America as of November 2015. Because each of these fields, like all areas of engineering, are expected to continue growing, each of these components will require future generations of researchers and developers as well as an entire service industry. A simple look at an online posting of open engineering jobs include everything from field engineers to field technicians.
