Ohlone College Engineering Program

This story about the Ohlone College Engineering Program was first broadcast during the Ohlone Tri-City News program on May 17, 2023.

Murtaza Naqvi, Reporter

Script

Murtaza Naqvi, Ohlone Tri-City News: The Engineering Department of Ohlone College provides resources and different benefits to students in order for them to succeed within their individual career paths.
Rose-Margaret Itua, Engineering Professor: Students there take the engineering classes here at Ohlone, will be exposed to current technologies in industry. We have really great faculty teaching our classes, faculty that care, and also students exposed to field trips and internship opportunities. But really at Ohlone Engineering, we focus on hands on transferable skills so that our students are competitive in today’s job market.
Reza Barghi, Engineering Professor: We have a lot of students who do various projects. One specific is our Engineering 101 course. When students take the class, there is a lab three that is… the classes taught by Professor Rose-Margaret, and she has this lab called Lab three, where the students design their own project and they can use all the equipment that we have in the lab to manufacture and create their prototype.
Murtaza Naqvi, Ohlone Tri-City News: Students within the engineering department express their own personal learning experiences and benefits they have gained through participating in engineering courses.
Sandra Than, Engineering Student: I think that the engineering department… Well, it’s obviously the department I’ve been around the most, so I might be biased in saying that. I think it’s pretty exciting, pretty friendly. You see a lot of different people that know a lot of different things, and you learn a lot from just talking to the peers and everyone is really friendly.
Edward, Engineering Student: Honestly, learning like all the new programs that engineering’s are using now, like MATLAB, AutoCAD and like multi-SIM is just like really interesting on how to like design new stuff and.
Jose Navarro, Engineering Student: Then through meeting people like, you know, professors Tuem. I just came out of her classroom right now and then meeting people like Reza. He’s in charge of taking care of all the engineering departments. I was able to see kind of what electrical engineering was about, and that is something that really attracted me.
Reza Barghi, Engineering Professor: We have… we can literally make almost anything in this lab. We have, again, we have some more equipment to come in. We have robots, the authentic arms and assembly lines. I would like more people to come into a lab, have an idea what to do. Just the other day, for example, we had a student who needs to add new pickups on their guitar. We took it apart, put in the new pickups, show them how to read an electrical diagram. I learned a little bit myself because you know where I release in certain hobby fields such as like guitar and stuff. They don’t really follow legit diagrams. They have different names for certain things and hook ups. And, you know, it was interesting to read what the… what that side of the at least the electrical field is, even though it’s not really electrical, you know…
Murtaza Naqvi, Ohlone Tri-City News: The utilities and workspace provided by the engineering department staff allow students to work on hands on labs, giving them more potential to learn. For example, students here were assigned a challenge to build a car in a specific amount of time, which allowed them to gain extra credit if they came in first. Additionally, after completing this in class assignment, they were allowed to go outside and race to see which car performed the best. Professor Rose Margaret ensures that students will be able to succeed within Ohlone College’s engineering program.
Professor Rose-Margaret Itua: I want the students to know that they can do anything that they set their mind to do, they can become engineers. I know that often times the students are told sometimes that engineering is difficult. Well, I’m here to say it just takes commitment and they can become great, amazing engineers. They should come with a mindset that they can do anything they set their mind to do, to learn, to create and to innovate and be ready to become the best… one of the best engineers in the country. And the Silicon Valley.
Murtaza Naqvi, Ohlone Tri-City News: If you have any extra questions regarding the engineering department held at Ohlone College, please visit Ohlone.edu/engineering.