Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/740

 A College-Factory Engineering Course

��A plan for combining college prep- aration with factory experience

���The student takes his place regularly beside the other workmen in the factory

BY combining their regular Univer- sity studies with shopwork in the fac- tories, shops and engi- neering plants of the city, the Cincinnati Uni- versity has worked out a practical scheme for the training of engineers. Under this co-operative plan, which has been in force for several years, the engineering student spends half of his time in shop and half in school. In the factory he takes his place be- side the regular machinist; or other work- man, and becomes an actual producer. If he is a student of mechanical engineering he will probably be put into a foundry as a helper or in charge of a simple machine tool. Im- mediately he becomes a regular employee, sub- ject to all the shop rules and regulations, being paid for his services the same as any other man doing the same kind of work.

There are two students for each job. One man goes to the University

��He alternates two weeks in the shop with two in school

���As the school work advances in grade the shop-work also progresses according to a prearranged plan of instruction

��No Latin and Greek, no desks, but they are going to college just the same

for two weeks, while the other man, called an "alternate," works at his bench in the shop. Then at the end of each two-weeks period, the alternates switch about; the student becomes a workman, and the workman a student. The course is completed in five years. As the student ad- vances in school from year to year, his shopwork likewise progresses according to a pre- arranged plan. For instance, a first year student who begins in a foundry, machine shop or power plant, will, during his fifth year, be engaged in designing, estimating, pro- duction, or other work of a higher grade. A representa- tive of the University, usually a head professor, looks after the interests of the students in the shop, and sees to it that they get the proper ex- perience under proper conditions.

The college work in- cludes the usual studies that go to make up a regular four-year theo- retical course.

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