Engineering the Future

Jenny Donaldson is at the vanguard of efforts by Montgomery College to help boost the number of U.S. engineers, especially among women and minorities

IT'S A THURSDAY MORNING AT 9:15, the week before spring break, and Jenny Donaldson is one of a group of 17 students in her physics class at Montgomery College in Rockville watching their lab instructor demonstrate how to use an instrument called a cathode ray tube.

One of only three women in the room, Donaldson leans forward to get a better view, then picks up an instruction pamphlet and heads back to her work station. She surveys the equipment in front of her: a diagnostic oscilloscope, perhaps the most common instrument in science.

The metal box, sprouting an abundance of intimidating wires and knobs, is used for everything from medical image displays to automobile repair. Donaldson and her lab partner will use the oscilloscope to manipulate a beam of blue light particles projected by the cathode ray tube onto a screen, similar to the basic technology behind a TV or computer display.

A willowy young woman in a turtleneck with her light brown hair swept back in a ponytail, Donaldson could pass for a high school student. But she's a 22-year-old mother of a toddler and a full-time undergraduate at Montgomery College, where she is studying aerospace engineering, a rigorously competitive field dominated by men. Sitting at her lab table, carefully reading the instructions and adjusting the dials on the oscilloscope, she is a picture of concentration.

This class is just a small part of an ambitious game plan for Donaldson. After completing a second year at Montgomery College, she plans to transfer in 2008 to a four-year institution for a bachelor's degree in engineering. Ideally, Donaldson says, she hopes to attend graduate school before launching a career designing and building spacecraft.

"I'm a hands-on person," she says. "I didn't just want to look into a telescope for the rest of my life, so that's why I chose engineering. I really want to make a contribution."

The path to Donaldson's dream career has been rocky. A few years ago, she graduated from George Mason High School in Falls Church with a 3.8 GPA and a transcript that reflected her love of science, with International Baccalaureate courses in calculus and physics. But after enrolling at American University, she still had no idea what she wanted to do with her life.

"I just picked a school and went," she says. Her lack of direction led to sliding grades, and, after three semesters at AU, she took a leave of absence in the spring of 2004 to work full time at the CD Game Exchange in Tenleytown. That summer, she discovered she was pregnant by her longtime boyfriend, who works as a private landscaper.

Last spring, bored by her work and with her young daughter finally sleeping through the night, Donaldson decided it was time to get back on track. She first heard about Montgomery College from a friend who told her of his own experience there, emphasizing his surprise at the availability and enthusiasm of his professors.

"He wasn't an engineering student, but he told me almost every class he took was like that," Donaldson says. "That was what made me start to look into the program."

The school's engineering program has such an impressive track record for attracting good students that it recently received a competitive, three-year, $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to increase the number of women and minorities pursuing degrees. Nationally, enrollment in engineering programs has been decreasing since hitting a peak in the mid-1980s, according to Sanjay Rai, instructional dean of science, engineering and mathematics at Montgomery College. In a technology-based global economy driven by innovation in science and engineering, the long-term consequences of this trend could be significant, he says.

"The numbers are against us," Rai says. "China is opening several new universities just to teach engineering. India is doing the same thing. South Korea produces the same number of engineers as the United States, and their population is one-sixth of ours."