In the six months since we caught up with Ayanna Howard, dean of Ohio State University’s College of Engineering, a lot has happened — not all of it good.
The broader economic slowdown has been felt deeply in the robotics industry, across the board, from the smallest startups to the biggest tech giants like Alphabet and Amazon.
Understandably, much of the coverage focused on the impact and the companies and those who lost their jobs in the process.
One of the key things we don’t discuss as often is the people who are currently looking for work – both those who have recently left work and people who are completely new to the market.
Catching up with Dean Howard is a great opportunity to discuss the latter.
In terms of what the market looks like for recent and soon-to-be grads, and what companies can do to recruit and engage people who are completely in the job new. market.
We start this week with this Q&A, then dive into the first batch of jobs we promised last week and move on to your regularly scheduled robotics roundup.
TC: How do your students feel about the job market—specifically robotics?
AH: I think there is a bit of concern, but the fact is that there are still jobs that are open, especially for new hires.
When you are a new talent, of course you have a lower price.
Sometimes you’re more creative and willing to do a little more than what work is because you don’t know what it is.
Before the downturn, were students more excited about going into the world of Big Tech or startups?
It was mixed. I really depended on whether [they had] a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree.
I found that a lot of students, if they wanted to go into the startup world, it would be with a mature startup.
It wasn’t one that had only been out for a year or two. It was a company that had at least a Series A.
I think the focus now is more on, ‘Let’s go with a big, more established company, just because it’s going to last.
Now, robotics is something that touches every other category, so there are many robotics jobs outside of strictly robotics companies.
Repair. I consider self-driving cars to be robotics. it’s all. You have control systems, you have autonomy, you have interaction with people.
It’s a classic robotic system that happens to be shaped like a car.
You’ve seen a lot of startups shut down in this area as well, but the big companies have invested a lot more in that and in electric cars.
What can schools do to prepare students for the job market?
In the state of Ohio, we’ve launched several startup entrepreneurship programs in the past year, in very specific areas.
For example, manufacturing, healthcare. Things we know we’ll always need to innovate on.
Large companies need this entrepreneurial mindset and mindset because it allows them to innovate within the corporate structure.
When companies don’t innovate, they tend to be archaic, and when startup culture comes back, they’ll eat their grain.
In terms of your own experience running a startup, how did you determine when to hire a student and someone more senior?
They were really new hires for tech talent.
It was because I needed new ideas. We needed to know the latest and greatest and they would have the education.
It was much more established in marketing and sales. We hired much more experienced individuals.
A robotics engineer is a highly trained and qualified professional who designs, designs, builds and maintains robots or robotic devices.
Robotics engineers can spend endless hours working on a computer, testing designs and discovering new ways to imagine how robots move and even think.
Their work includes high-level skills in engineering and computer science, among other things.
Some robotics engineers spend endless hours trying to figure out how to make robots move as efficiently as possible.
This can include designing sensors that provide the robot with information about its environment or decision trees that help it determine the exact right move for a given situation.
Self-driving cars, for example, are a type of robot that can react to constantly changing traffic conditions to avoid an accident.
Others may work on other aspects of robotics, such as how they process information, including artificial intelligence.
An engineer spends time building a robotic intelligence that matches its overall design and function.
A self-driving robot car needs an on-board computer capable of handling things related to driving and accident prevention.
On the other hand, a manufacturing robot only needs a database of information related to its part of the assembly line.
Source: Techcrunch | universityhq.org