{"id":7890,"date":"2020-08-07T15:36:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-07T19:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/?p=7890"},"modified":"2020-08-07T15:42:17","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T19:42:17","slug":"eagles-in-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/2020\/08\/07\/eagles-in-demand\/","title":{"rendered":"Eagles in Demand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

First Graduating Manufacturing Engineering Class Rapidly Finds Jobs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Lianjun Wu, Ph.D., assistant professor (L) , trains students (L to R) Jesse Davis, Cameron Crater and Jacob Lindsey in the robotics laboratory.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse Davis (\u201919), one of the first graduates from Georgia Southern\u2019s Bachelor of Science in Manufacturing Engineering, didn\u2019t have to wait long to find a job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I woke up the day of graduation, they called me at eight in the morning and told me I had the job,\u201d he said. \u201cSo the day I graduated, I had a job offer from Lummus Corporation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As rare as it might seem, Davis\u2019 story is not unique among recent program graduates, and it\u2019s easy to see why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Manufacturing Engineering (MfgE) is one of the fastest-growing careers today. Employment of manufacturing engineers is expected to grow by 10 percent through 2026 \u2014 faster than all other occupations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adding to this demand is the fact that Georgia Southern offers one of the few undergraduate programs in the nation, the only one in Georgia and one of only three in the Southeast United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are only about 20 nationwide. They are scattered around, but the closest for the B.S. MfgE degree are in Virginia and Texas,\u201d said Daniel Cox, Ph.D., professor and founding department chair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though he moved across the country into a tight job market, program graduate Craig Ward (\u201919) still found an incredible career, and now works with NASA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI moved to the D.C. area after I graduated to be with my girlfriend, and didn\u2019t have a job lined up,\u201d said Craig, who works at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland as a contract engineer for Newton Engineering and Product Development. \u201cD.C. is a very tight market and I didn\u2019t have any contacts there, but in about two months, I had this one and a couple other opportunities. The manufacturing engineering program is so hands-on and very diverse. It covered many different areas of engineering and that\u2019s what people look for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

True Hands-On Experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Vladimir Gurau, Ph.D, assistant professor (Standing Center) coaches students (Seated L to R) Ryan Kent,
Cameron Crater, Ana Ordonez, (Standing L to R) Jesse Davis, Jacob Lindsey and Craig Ward on programming
the equipment.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Giving students hands-on experience with automated manufacturing technology is one of the selling points for the department, which opened its doors to the first class of students in fall 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department houses several manufacturing laboratories, which include computer numerical control (CNC) equipment such as milling machines, lathes, wire electrical discharge machining (EDM), 3D composite and metal printers and waterjet cutters. There are also reconfigurable advanced manufacturing laboratories for robotics and automation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the students, all of this technology means relevant experience in the workforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of what I learned basically matched the job description,\u201d said Cameron Crater (\u201919) who started his career at Samsung Electronics in Newberry, South Carolina. \u201cAnd what I was interested in really matched what my job criteria was, which is process improvement, reducing defects and things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe manufacturing engineering program gave me the skills,\u201d said Ana Ordonez (\u201919) who works for an Atlanta-area plastics manufacturer on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. \u201cBecause of the job in the lab I had as a student, I was able to apply what I learned every day. From programming the CNC to using the waterjet, the 3D printers, from computer skills like AutoCAD and SolidWorks. So it gave me a lot of exposure to what I wanted to do and played a big part in why I was hired.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experience Valued by Employers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Ana Ordonez (L) discusses robotics with Lianjun Wu, Ph.D. (R).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

On top of their hands-on training and technology experience, the program also offers robust co-op, apprenticeship and internship programs. Jacob Lindsey (\u201919) benefited from an apprenticeship program sponsored by JCB and is now employed as an engineer in their Pooler, Georgia, facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI started out in JCB\u2019s apprenticeship program going to classes at Savannah Tech,\u201d he said. \u201cJCB encouraged me to move to Georgia Southern when the MfgE program first started, and it has turned out great for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department is seeking accreditation from the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc. now that the first cohort of B.S. Manufacturing Engineering students graduated last May. The accreditation will only make the program more desirable to students and to the employers eager to hire them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIndustry is always asking for more students,\u201d said Cox. \u201cThe entire class of 2019 got jobs, with the exception of Ryan Kent who is a teaching and a research assistant as a graduate student here. Some students are getting job offers before they graduate. It\u2019s just an indication that the companies are really after them, there is such a high demand.\u201d \u2014 Liz Walker<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First Graduating Manufacturing Engineering Class Rapidly Finds Jobs Jesse Davis (\u201919), one of the first graduates from Georgia Southern\u2019s Bachelor of Science in Manufacturing Engineering, didn\u2019t have to wait long to find a job. \u201cWhen I woke up the day of graduation, they called me at eight in the morning and told me I had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":7978,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64],"class_list":["post-7890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-summer-2020"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}