Schools updating courses, technologies to prepare students to meet demand for engineers

This story first appeared in Engineers Week 2025, an annual special section that showcases a variety of local engineering topics to celebrate all that engineers contribute to our world.

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When Sam Pattison was young, he loved to take things apart and put them back together, much to his parents’ chagrin.

It is this love of learning how things work that propelled Pattison to enroll in Coe College’s newly formed Engineering Physics degree program, which offers a broad course of engineering classes.

“At Coe you have kind of this big umbrella of engineering, which I enjoy because I like learning about everything to see what I want to do in the future,” Pattison said.

Coe Physics Professor Mario Affatigato said this generalized approach to teaching engineering was a deliberate choice to meet the demands of the marketplace.

“Many of the local companies here in Cedar Rapids told us that they wanted engineers that had breadth, so we thought this was a good fit for the city,” Affatigato said.

While engineering has been around for thousands of years, recent advances in technology like Artificial Intelligence and challenges such as climate change have changed how engineering is being taught to better help prepare students to meet increasing demands.

“We are constantly changing. I don’t think I’ve ever taught my classes the same way twice,” said Steph Reddersen, professor of construction management and computer-aided design mechanical engineering technology at Kirkwood Community College.

Students in her programs earn a two-year degree that they can use to either enter the workforce directly or transfer to a four-year degree program. Every student of hers who wants an internship or job gets one.

“There is just a demand for engineers and designers,” Reddersen said.

Ann McKenna, dean of the University of Iowa’s College of Engineering, said today’s generation not only sees engineering as a pathway to a successful career but is passionate about doing something that adds value and improves lives.

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“We sometimes take for granted the technology that surrounds us, and all of it an engineer usually is involved in the process of designing and implementing,” McKenna said.

The UI admits engineering students to the college as freshmen. To help them identify which field to pursue, every student takes an engineering problem-solving course that gives them a taste of the different options. The College of Engineering also partners with industry to stay current on workforce needs and help students get internships and jobs post-graduation.

McKenna said that Iowa engineering grads have a 97 percent job placement rate within six months of graduation.

“I regularly hear from industry that they need engineers; they need technical talent. So we’re doing everything we can to prepare our students to be successful in industry and getting input from industry on what they need,” McKenna said. “At the same time, we also have to make sure that we have an incoming group of students so that we have students wanting to pursue engineering. So we work at both ends.”

Other Corridor schools are also looking at how to encourage younger students to pursue careers in engineering.

Every year in April, Reddersen and her colleagues in the Electronic Engineering and Pre-Engineering programs host an event at Kirkwood for high school students to learn more about engineering. The students — invited from all the high schools in Eastern Iowa — work on a fun project and can pick three different areas of engineering to learn more about.

Starting in the 2027-28 academic year, the Cedar Rapids Community School District will offer as part of its College and Career Pathways program a School of Aerospace and Engineering at Jefferson High School; a School of Engineering and Technology at Washington High School; and an Academy of Construction and Engineering at Kennedy High School.

The Iowa Department of Education expects the building trades (architecture, construction and engineering) to have continued growth due to increased retirements and a steady demand for residential and commercial infrastructure (i.e. highways, power grids) projects.

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Engineering graduates make an average starting salary of $78,000, and ZipRecruiter lists Marion as being in the top 10 cities in Iowa for average annual salaries for engineers.

There are dozens of engineering fields, some more specialized than others: from the building trades of civil, mechanical, structural and electrical to aerospace engineering to biomedical engineering.

Some of the emerging fields include robotics engineering, environmental engineering and data science. Students are being trained on how to use AI as a tool to process data quicker.

At Coe, Affatigato sees 3D printing as another quickly evolving technology that will change how engineers do their jobs.

“We might be teaching kids how to do metal manufacturing or ceramic using 3D printing by the end of the decade,” he said. “That will allow you to have a small factory quite literally... even in a small company, mostly run by engineers.”

Engineering careers offer flexibility, since there are so many fields to work in and engineers are needed in every community across the country.

“Wherever you want to go, you can figure out how to get there,” Reddersen said.