CUE 2007 Home >> College News >> Engineering Students Earn, Learn Through Work Opportunities Created by College

CUE 2007
Engineering Students Earn, Learn Through Work Opportunities Created by College

Aerospace engineering senior Eric Dickey sets up a wind tunnel experiment in the Integrated Teaching and Learning Laboratory as part of his Earn-Learn apprenticeship.

CU engineering students are finding more meaningful and often better paying part-time jobs as they pursue their education, thanks to a program that helps the college stretch its limited budget at the same time.

Students in the Earn-Learn Apprenticeship Program draw on their educational experiences for a variety of service-oriented work assignments within the college. Student apprentices are assisting faculty with courses, preparing educational materials, designing lab modules, performing computer network improvements or support, assisting with outreach to K-12 students and teachers, and planning and organizing departmental events.

The students typically earn $10 to $12 per hour for up to 10 hours per week each semester, but the department or program where they work pays only half that amount. The other half of the $3,000 to $3,600 per year cost of each apprentice is paid through private gifts designated to support the program or from funds provided by the dean.

More than $300,000 in gifts have been raised to support the Earn-Learn Apprenticeship Program in the last three years. The program is so popular with private donors—many of whom remember the difficulty of finding good part-time jobs when they were in school—and with the departments and programs who sponsor students that more than 70 student apprentices were funded last fall and another 70 this spring.

The program was launched college-wide in fall 2004 by Dean Robert H. Davis, who pioneered the concept 10 years ago in the chemical and biological engineering department while he was serving as department chair.

"I wanted to expand the program college-wide to help alleviate the need for students to work off campus and at the same time to help them learn technical, leadership, communication, and administrative skills," says Dean Davis. "The concept has resonated with our private donors and is helping the college continue to provide high-quality experiential education even in times of restricted budgets. At the same time, the apprentices provide important service to assist faculty in educating other students."

The Earn-Learn Apprenticeship Program is restricted to engineering students, and undergraduate students outnumber graduate students three to one—about the same ratio of undergraduate students to graduate students in the college. Positions are announced by the departments and programs, and selections are made in early fall and spring so as to maximize the number of weeks a student can work each semester.

Applied math major Rachel Danson serves as a course assistant during her apprenticeship in spring 2006.

Jessa Rothenberg, 20, a junior majoring in computer science and Japanese, is applying her programming skills to write dynamic webpage code for the assessment surveys sent out by the college. "This job gives me the opportunity to learn things that I wouldn't otherwise have learned," she says. "It also has given me confidence that I can produce something useful and be paid for it. That's really a nice feeling."

Michael Z. Burns, 19, a junior majoring in mech-anical engineering, says he really appreciates the opportunity to work on campus due to the multiple demands on his time. As a student assistant for the freshman computer-aided design (CAD) class in mechanical engineering, Burns said he is able to take some of the financial burden off his parents, while gaining experience that will help set him apart in the job market after graduation.

Earn-Learn apprenticeships fulfill one of the components of the college's Active Learning Award, which is awarded at graduation to undergraduate engineering students who complete requirements in all three areas of service, discovery, and professional learning. For more information, go to http://engineering.colorado.edu/activelearning/earnlearn.htm.