6 Reasons We’re Geeking Out About SOTU 2015
Engineering is a key component of the 2015 Presidential State of the Union Address. Here’s why.
1. OUR TRACK RECORD ON STEM EDUCATION IS CHANGING
“We believed we could prepare our kids for a more competitive world. And today, our younger students have earned the highest math and reading scores on record. Our high school graduation rate has hit an all-time high. More Americans finish college than ever before.”
Not too long ago American students held some of the lowest ranks in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) among industrialized nations. But thanks to The White House’s support of redesigned national education standards (such as the Next Generation Science Standards) that’s changing.
You can see this in action here at NYU. When creating STEM programs, our Center for K-12 STEM Education uses national standards to help NYC schools and teachers define and advance their goals. The center’s extensive STEM summer program, recently expanded in response to Obama’s call for “an all hands on deck approach to STEM,” helped 70 percent of the 3,200 participating students between 2009 and 2012 increase their grades in STEM subjects by a half or full-letter grade.
2. FUTURE US JOBS ARE IN TECH AND MANUFACTURING (I.E. ENGINEERING)
“Our manufacturers have added almost 800,000 new jobs. Some of our bedrock sectors, like our auto industry, are booming. But there are also millions of Americans who work in jobs that didn’t even exist 10 or 20 years ago: jobs at companies like Google, and eBay, and Tesla.”
“21st century businesses will rely on American science and technology, research and development. I want the country that eliminated polio and mapped the human genome to lead a new era of medicine: one that delivers the right treatment at the right time.”
We have a strong entrepreneurial spirit at NYU with student startups ranging from a gel that instantly stops mass bleeding to games for the broken hearted, but we also have a long history of educating the engineers that keep New York running. So, whether its rapid prototyping, computer programming, or designing transportation systems, engineering graduates go on to create the things we all rely on every day.
Here are the top ten employers of NYU engineering grads (in no particular order):
Long Island Power Authority
NYC Department of Environmental Protection
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
3. TOWARDS A FREE AND OPEN INTERNET
“I intend to protect a free and open Internet, to extend its reach to every classroom, and every community and help folks build the fastest networks, so that the next generation of digital innovators and entrepreneurs have the platform to keep reshaping our world.”
In addition to building the very future of the 5G wireless internet at NYU WIRELESS, one of our newest labs, The GovLab, is dedicated to creating modern, previously unimaginable partnerships between civic groups and government leaders through the use of open government data.
4. ENERGY IS OFFICIALLY A NATIONAL PRIORITY
“America is number one in wind power. Every three weeks, we bring online as much solar power as we did in all of 2008.”
The White House is big on energy change, which is great for engineers eager to take on real-world problems. At the Urban Future Lab, NYU’s cleantech startup incubator, companies are tackling cutting edge energy problems–like resiliency–by creating microgrids and alternative energy in innovative (and lucrative) ways:
BlocPower is helping nonprofits and schools in under-served communities incorporate greener technology into their microgrids.
HevoPower is working with the City to make wireless electric car charging a reality for city vehicles.
Smarter Grid Solutions develops real-time, automated controls for grid edge technology (such as wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicles).
5. CYBER SECURITY REACHES NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS
“No foreign nation, no hacker, should be able to shut down our networks, steal our trade secrets, or invade the privacy of American families, especially our kids. But we are making sure our government integrates intelligence to combat cyber threats, just as we have done to combat terrorism. And tonight, I urge this Congress to finally pass the legislation we need to better meet the evolving threat of cyber attacks, combat identity theft, and protect our children’s information. That should be a bipartisan effort. (Applause.)You know, if we don’t act, we’ll leave our nation and our economy vulnerable. If we do, we can continue to protect the technologies that have unleashed untold opportunities for people around the globe.”
With high-profile hacks of Sony and Home Depot, 2014 certainly proved itself to be an important year in the history of cyber security. The School of Engineering is home to one of the preeminent Cyber Security programs in the country (which boasts an astounding 100% job placement rate) and hosts the largest college cyber security competition in the world, CSAW. The university has its very own Hacker-in-Residence, in addition to an all-star staff of security experts researching a variety of security issues including child safety, the psychology of cyber security, automating cyber security, and hardware security.
6. A RETURN TO EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
“Tonight, together, let’s do more to restore the link between hard work and growing opportunity for every American…That’s what middle class economics is: the idea that this country does best when everyone gets their fair shot, everyone does their fair share, everyone plays by the same set of rules.”
The address was delivered on the heels of an Oxfam report that the richest 1% of people are now poised to control the majority of the world’s wealth, the highest concentration of privately-owned wealth since 1929. And Obama’s comments harkened back to the lessons of the 1930s, specifically to the writing of a famous Polytechnic alumnus and engineer James Truslow Adams who coined the term "American Dream" in his 1931 book The Epic of America:
“A land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."
Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls, Flickr Creative Commons License
