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Ask HN: What to include in presentation about STEM to high school students?

8 points by roland35 ↗ HN
I recently volunteered for an opportunity to speak to local high school students about engineering and our company at a STEM-related class. I was wondering if anyone had some examples of good presentations or some ideas of interesting things to highlight about engineering in general?

I'd like to make the presentation engaging and fun and hopefully encourage some students to pursue an engineering education! I had a few ideas of things to include:

- Engineering is a flexible and well paying career with good work life balance

- You get to work on new things every day

- It is fulfilling to see your work in products that people use in the real world (sometimes, if the project isn't cancelled ha)

- Many skills are useful outside of work, knowing how things work in general

10 comments

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smartis2812
I would definitely encourage the girls to pursue science and math careers. Tell them about some great woman in the STEM fields.
_Schizotypy
How about adding in something about scientific research? Personally I find fundamental research more fulfilling than creating products. Learning things about our world is a fascinating adventure. Discarding the S in STEM would be a tragedy, as the S informs the T and E.
chrisbennet
Unfortunately, the Sciences don’t pay very well. It would be interesting to know what percentage of science majors or phds in science, work in there chosen profession.
_Schizotypy
I guess the question then would be do you care THAT much about money or do you want to help further humanity's knowledge? Plus private R&D can pay quite nicely, people only seem to consider University research as "science work" when that is absolutely not the case, its just the worst compensated science work. (which is another problem, because for the information we get it SHOULD be well compensated)
ThrowawayR2
Emphasize that engineering is the power to create. Everything around them, from the building the sit in to the computers and cell phones they use every day, is a result of teams of engineers using their knowledge and creativity to make them functional, reliable, and safe.

> Engineering is a flexible and well paying career with good work life balance

While somewhat true, that's not really the kind of thing that's worth emphasizing. You're trying to inspire the imaginations of students so that they choose engineering, not bribe them into becoming an engineer.

wrestlerman
I finished high school not that long time ago... I'm gonna say... Think Lean (startup lean) go to the high school and ask the kids what they want to know and what could make the presentation better for them and their friends.

As a kid, I really disliked listening to presentations from some random folks, because they were just talking and talking and talking about their job, lol. Make them interested in the field, show them why it's so cool. A million words are not gonna convince them, but if you show them something cool and show them the path to do it at home, some will get interested :)

jotjotzzz
I would emphasize that the workforce is going to change in the next couple of years -- due to automation, AI, robotics, etc.. And a STEM education is vital as most jobs we know of now may no longer be here.
ausbah
I wouldn't forget to emphasis how hard STEM can be.
ioddly
Talk about ethics. You probably won't convince anyone to pursue STEM in a presentation but if you talk about things like Therac-25 you might leave an impression on those who choose to pursue it.