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January 19, 2007 Vol. 77,
no. 2S
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| WIRED: El
Cerrito students lay out their breadboards on a Saturday morning
in Cory Hall.
PHOTO COUTESY OF IEEE
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IEEE class helps local high schoolers build circuits and electrical engineering know-how
As a high school student, EECS junior Ashik Manandhar
didn’t have a clear idea of what electrical engineering is. Neither
did EECS sophomore Priyanka Reddy. Now they BShave a darn good idea
and believe high school students are missing out. Along with other
officers
in Berkeley’s chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE), Manandhar and Reddy are teaching an introductory
class for local high school students based on the
chapter’s successful
DeCal course.
“High school students around Berkeley probably don’t have
an opportunity to learn much about electrical engineering, so we thought
this would
be a good way to give them some exposure,” says Reddy.
“High school is such a good moment in people’s lives to
check out what they want to do in the future,” adds Manandhar. “Electrical
engineering has so many different applications, but no one knows about
them. Schools in our area are pretty underprivileged, so we wanted
to reach out to them.”
To get their class off the ground, IEEE officers needed recruits; that task fell to Manandhar, the community
service officer. Getting a response from high schools IEEE outreach proved challenging. After making no headway, he
called his former science teacher at El Cerrito High. The science teacher
pitched the class to his students and facilitated the sign-up process.
Manandhar expected five takers, but three times that many showed up
for the first class in November.
So, for four weeks last year, teenagers from El Cerrito High crashed
Cory Hall on Saturday mornings to learn about electrical engineering. “Hands-On
Electronics” is a 15-week program (to resume this month) designed
for those with no prior knowledge, say IEEE officers. As its name suggests,
it focuses on learning through projects. Along the way, teens find
out about circuits, transistors, digital logic and the foundation of
semiconductor physics and will pour their learning into a final, uber
circuit. Thanks to a grant from the IEEE University Partnership Program,
all supplies and materials are provided free of charge.
Reddy teaches some of the lessons and marvels at how driven the students
are to understand electrical engineering. “When their circuits
lit up for the first time, they got so excited, and I felt really good
about that,” she says. Teaching also helps Reddy understand her
own studies, she says.
When asked why they took the class, the teens gave varying answers.
Some already plan to major in EECS and want to expand their knowledge.
Others see dazzling possibilities. “On the first day of class,
they said if you have electrical engineering skills, you can modify
a game system, and that’s what got me really interested,” says
El Cerrito student Alvin Yee.
It’s also having the desired inspirational effect. “Electrical
engineering has definitely entered my pool of possible majors,” says
15-year-old Alisha Manandhar. “It’s fun!”
For more information, go to www-ieee.eecs.berkeley.edu.
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