Create relevancy to facilitate understanding and application of STEM concepts.
The world of work is changing, and helping young adults make connections in the classroom to the real world is key. During our panel, Fessia phrased it as, “It’s not necessarily a skills gap, but a gap in how we bridge classroom learning and real-world application.” Mentorship from industry professionals is a crucial way to facilitate this; universities should seek opportunities to create relationships with local companies and professionals, whether it’s through guest lectures, offsite field trips, or other opportunities. By equipping students with the hard and soft STEM skills they’ll need and show them how they apply to existing jobs, they’ll be better enabled to explore the jobs they may want, or want to create, to solve the problems that matter.
Partner with local companies to provide maximum exposure.
Even corporate philanthropic investments are supported by strategies that map back to what’s good for businesses, so universities need to take advantage and seek opportunities to factor themselves into the equation. Seek internship opportunities, access to laboratory equipment and build space, or explore dedicated scholarships for your university’s student body. At FIRST, we’ve found universities and other organizations are eager to partner with us to create scholarships for FIRST participants pursuing STEM education. Companies welcome opportunities for employee engagement, tech integration, and talent pipelining, so look for local companies’ corporate responsibility or philanthropy leads and target those folks as you work to start those conversations.
The sooner we expose kids to hands-on, real-world, STEM learning opportunities, the better chance we have at fueling their interest in pursuing careers in the field. In a rapidly changing world, the one constant is that all students, regardless of the field they elect to pursue, will need a solid STEM foundation to find professional success.
Don Bossi is the president of the global nonprofit FIRST and has more than 20 years of experience as a successful technology executive. Bossi is eager to develop the next generation of innovators and has made it his mission to help educators empower kids to reach their full potential, making hands-on STEM programs more widely available to underserved students across the country and around the world.
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