Friday, August 3, 2012
Ventura County Area College Explores New Engineering Program
A local, Ventura County based college appears to be in the early stages of exploring starting an engineering program, to help local employers and employees. According to a survey sent out through a local professional engineering organization this morning, a local college is exploring whether it would be meaningful to the Ventura County community to start an engineering program to service the needs of employers in the area. Ventura County, despite a wealth of high tech companies, does not have a major engineering program. Unlike Los Angeles, San Diego, and Orange County--all of which have a number of schools with an engineering focus--and even Santa Barbara, which has benefited greatly from having a strong engineering program at UCSB--Ventura County does not have a major engineering school. Traditionally, the county has seen lots of engineering students instead head either South to schools such as UCLA, USC, and Caltech, or farther north to UCSB. The unidentified college did not say how far along it is in its thoughts, but did say it is hoping to help identify current and future shortages in engineering talent of local employers. Image courtesy of Bigstock.