The Case for Corporations
NC State is a consistent top-5 supplier of talent to the engineering workforce. The college ranked recently number two in the nation in number of undergraduate degrees awarded, and number three in total degrees awarded (B.S., M.S. and Ph.D.), by the Engineering Workforce Commission of the American Society for Engineering Education.
Diversity is a central imperative. The college ranks in the top five in degrees awarded to African Americans and to women, and boasts groundbreaking recruitment, retention and outreach programs designed to ensure that our college, and profession, becomes more reflective of society.
Our goal at NC State is always to grow a diverse base of high-achieving engineering students adept at working together to solve problems—a goal that aligns well with corporate workforce demands.
The College also is a vital research resource for corporations. We rank in the top 15 in the nation in industry-sponsored research. And NC State is well known for continuing education opportunities that can strengthen a corporation’s human resources. Our Online Master of Engineering degree was recently ranked as the number-one best buy in the nation.
There are multiple avenues for mutually beneficial interaction between companies and NC State engineering. Strategic corporate investment in scholarships, for instance, helps the college compete for the best and brightest undergraduate students, while greatly enhancing your corporation’s access to those students. Naming opportunities attached to the college’s transition to Centennial Campus allow us to equip state-of-the-art facilities, while providing corporations with heightened visibility to students throughout various stages of their undergraduate and graduate experiences.
Other opportunities are tied to our common interests in the future of the engineering workforce. As a land-grant institution, outreach is written into our DNA. Through groundbreaking programs, we broaden the horizons of qualified students by introducing them at an early age to the exciting world of engineering. This multiplies pathways that are vital not only to the College of Engineering, or to the individual corporation’s bottom line, but to the nation’s economic competitiveness.
There is urgency to these efforts: Numerous recent federal reports have highlighted a looming engineering labor shortfall. The number of jobs in the US economy requiring engineering training is growing apace with the technology boom. But at the same time, the number of US citizens prepared for those jobs is declining, and the average age of the science and engineering workforce is rising.
As the baby boomer generation ages out of the workplace over the next 10-15 years, partnerships in higher education will prove critical to corporate and university recruiting interests, as well as to the nation’s economic welfare and security. NC State’s College of Engineering is uniquely well positioned to provide immediate human resource solutions to individual corporations and the workforce as a whole—as well as the quality educational outreach that will build longterm human capacity in engineering.
We believe that combination is unmatched elsewhere, making the college a place where corporations can achieve tremendous impact through strategic investment. We invite you to engage with us in our jointendeavor in support of the future of engineering.
Content on this site is provided by the NC State Engineering Foundation, Inc.