Parents, educators have new resources to help students in college and career planning

Texas Instruments, Sloan Career Cornerstone Center join forces to bring more awareness to STEM education and careers

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Aug 11, 2010, 11:00 ET

DALLAS, Aug. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Parents and educators now have more resources to help their students make education decisions with an eye toward the future. Texas Instruments (TI) and Sloan Career Cornerstone Center (SCCC) are teaming up to promote planning for careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, collectively known as STEM.

Through TI's Student Zone and SCCC students, parents, teachers and counselors have access to free, in-depth resources to help guide middle and high school students in making decisions concerning their immediate math and science education. These tools also help them understand how these decisions could impact their future careers. Detailed information explains to students the kinds of career fields that require math and science skills.

According to the ACT Educational Planning & Assessment System (ACT EPAS), students most likely to major in STEM fields in college - and persist to earn their degrees - are those who develop interest in STEM careers through early career planning and take challenging classes that prepare them for college-level science and math coursework.

TI provides the learning tools and resources that enable teachers to more effectively teach critical math and science concepts and to make subjects more accessible to all students. TI has made a grant to SCCC that will help the organization provide more STEM career information for students and distribute it more broadly. This information will help parents and educators answer the common question from students, "When am I ever going to need math and science?"

The Sloan Career Cornerstone Center includes comprehensive preparation tips, salary data, job hunting ideas, personal interviews with hundreds of people who offer candid insight into their own diverse careers, and updated lists of summer camps, national programs and projects, and scholarship opportunities for middle and high school students. A free newsletter is available to those interested in keeping up with the latest STEM news and career planning tips. The TI grant to the Sloan Career Cornerstone Center will support the development of state-specific STEM tools and resources. The new state pages will be available in the fall.

"TI is committed to building student interest and success in STEM subjects and helping to establish a foundation for the skills that are critical to be successful in tomorrow's workforce," said Lisa Brady Gill, executive director, Office of Education Policy & Practice, Texas Instruments Education Technology Group. "At TI, we believe STEM education, particularly math and science, hold the key to economic growth and to solving challenges facing our world like energy, health care and national security. Though this relationship with Sloan Career Cornerstone Center, we are helping to provide students and their parents important information that will help them make informed decisions about future career paths."

"We are pleased to have the support of Texas Instruments to help us provide state-focused portals," said Joanne Van Voorhis, executive director, Sloan Career Cornerstone Center. "We know that many students considering STEM careers would like to attend a university or community college within their own state, and also hope to then find work in a STEM field in the area where they grew up. The new state portals within Cornerstone, sponsored by TI, will offer these localized resources to students and the teachers, counselors, and parents who help advise them."

"It is heartening to see TI's recognition that simple exhortation is by itself not sufficient when it comes to seeing more students opt for engineering, science, and math-based careers. Students also need to know about the way of life and other particulars about careers in these fields. TI's support for Cornerstone will strengthen this information resource in significant ways, and make it even more useful to a student contemplating a career decision," said Frank Mayadas, a senior advisor at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which has provided resources to both launch and expand the Sloan Career Cornerstone Center.

"Despite decades of investment in STEM education in PreK-12 schools, little sustained attention has focused on getting relevant, timely and comprehensive information about STEM careers directly to students, parents, teachers, and guidance counselors. The Sloan Career Cornerstone Center is the leading national organization addressing this vital issue. The opportunity provided by Texas Instruments for SCCC to start customizing state-specific portals in six states will make this career planning information even more targeted and useful for its intended audiences," said Dennis Cheek, a member of the Cornerstone Advisory Committee and a senior fellow at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and visiting scholar at the Center on Contemporary History and Policy at the Chemical Heritage Foundation.

About The Sloan Career Cornerstone Center

The Sloan Career Cornerstone Center is a non-profit resource center for those exploring career paths in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM). Initial support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has made the resources on this site possible. The extensive site explores over 185 degree fields and offers detailed education requirements, salary and employment data, pre-college ideas, and career planning resources. For more information, visit www.careercornerstone.org.

About Texas Instruments

Education Technology, a business of Texas Instruments, provides a wide range of tools connecting the classroom experience with real-world applications, helping students and teachers to explore math and science interactively. TI's products and services are tested vigorously against recognized third-party research, which shows that the use of graphing calculators helps improve the mathematical skills of students and their attitudes toward mathematics. For more information, visit www.education.ti.com.

Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) helps customers solve problems and develop new electronics that make the world smarter, healthier, safer, greener and more fun. A global semiconductor company, TI innovates through manufacturing, design and sales operations in more than 30 countries. For more information, visit www.ti.com.

SOURCE Texas Instruments