Education At Technical Schools More Directly Tied To Workplace

By Kurt Helin
Editor

If you picture the DeVry University in Long Beach as a place people just go to in order to learn how to fix televisions and toasters, think again.

The most popular program at the school? Accounting. Second is a computer programming class for students who want to design video games or simulation programs (such as flight simulators).

The times are changing and technical schools are changing with them. Out on the city’s Westside, even the name has changed — the former National Institute of Technology is now WyoTech.

All of these schools are benefiting from students who want an education that has a more direct correlation to the workplace, representatives say.

For example, WyoTech is in the Technology Park area of the Westside, the former Naval housing land that is now surrounded by port-related businesses.

What they offer are 18-month degree courses in automotive, diesel, motorcycle and aviation engine repair. There also are classes in watercraft and other marine engine repair and the collision/refinishing industries.

All of which put graduates in a position to get a good job not far from the campus. That helps with the job placement.

But one of the keys, both at WyoTech and DeVry, is that the professors are people active in the industry.

“Not only do they come out of the field, most of them are deeply involved in the field,” said DeVry spokesman Dan Demont.

DeVry has evolved over the years, it is still a technology school but as technology has changed — from overhead projectors to multi-media presentations contained on flash drives — DeVry has changed with it, Demont said.

“Technology is ubiquitous,” he said. “There are a lot of technology jobs out there that are not with technology companies.”

That’s where the numerous business classes at the school come in — 51% of DeVry students are enrolled in various business classes. These are not just technical classes, DeVry is a fully-accredited university that offers associate and bachelor’s degrees.

The ability to both understand technology and business can lead to a lot of opportunities, Demont said, pointing to the popular accounting classes as the perfect example.

“It’s not just auditing or bean counting,” he said. “It’s people working for the IRS and other government bodies looking for things like fraud or doing what’s called forensic accounting, trying to solve crimes through following finances.”

Of course, besides all those business classes in Long Beach, there are cool technology things like video game designing.

“We don’t teach the artistic side, we teach the programming side, the things that make it work,” Demont said.

The technology used to develop video games is basically the same as the growing field of online simulators, Demont said.

While many people are familiar with things such as flight simulators — where a person can practice flying a plane on a computer — the technology is doing much more, such as allowing doctors to practice surgeries online.

To find out more about WyoTech, call (888) 577-7559 or log on to their Web site at www.wyotech.edu.

For more information about the DeVry University Long Beach campus call 427-4162 or check out the Web site at www.lb.devry.edu.