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| Aerospace Engineering Job Market Open | ||||||
| Feb.1, the Columbia space shuttle was supposed to return home to Kennedy Space Center, but suffered major technological failures, ultimately resulting in the loss of the spacecraft over Texas and the deaths of all seven astronauts onboard.� Despite the disaster earlier this year and uncertainties in the national job market, Cal State Long Beach aerospace engineering students are enthusiastic about entering the field. | ||||||
| "At the present time, the job market is fairly strong, and [there are] a lot of activities in both the commercial and government industry," said Hamid Hefazi, head of the Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering department at CSULB.� "Most of our graduates get employed fairly quickly and almost all of our seniors have some sort of internship or other type of employment already before they leave school." | ||||||
| Regarding the Columbia disaster, Hefazi does not think it has had major detrimental effects on students or the field. | ||||||
| "I think it could be positive because new programs probably will come out of this disaster to address technical issues." | ||||||
| Hefazi also said he has not noticed a major change in students' perspectives choosing to enter the field. | ||||||
| "People choose this discipline because of deep devotion and interest to either aviation or space travel," Hefazi said. | ||||||
| Kevin Helm, a 25-year-old aerospace engineering graduate student, said "there are three sectors in the industry - the satellite and space field, defense field and commercial field.� Usually there is always at least one sector that is up."� Helm added that post-Sept.11, the commercial sector "tanked," but because of the war on terrorism, the defense sector "increased to some extent." | ||||||
| The Columbia disaster, Helm said, "was a terrible tragedy, but did renew interest in the field."� Helm said he saw the disaster as a "reality check" for NASA, but said it was a "positive thing for the sector because it renewed a sense of safety and reliability in what [students] are doing."� Helm also said the disaster did not discourage him but he does believe it may have affected and deterred some students in greater ways. | ||||||
| NASA's total budget for the year 2001 was more than $14 billion, but despite this, the agency still "has the smallest budget of the major agencies in the federal government," according to NASA.� The budget is divided between four divisions: human space flight, which provides funding for the Space Station and Space Shuttle programs. The division of science, aeronautics and technology fund NASA's research and development activities.� Mission support provides funding for NASA's civil service workforce, and the inspector general division performs audits and evaluations of NASA's programs and operations.� Aeronautics "is one of the nation's strongest industries, employing almost 1 million Americans," according to NASA, the organization "employs 17,700 civil servants and generates thousands of high-tech jobs in the private sector."� The national aerospace industry, according to NASA, "generates more than $40 billion in annual exports and almost $30 billion in positive balance of trade each year." | ||||||
| All things considered, the future for aerospace students looks very bright, even in the wake disasters such as the Columbia earlier this year. | ||||||
| Copyright Gerry Wachovsky, 2003, and Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. | ||||||
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