is a lecturer in the Electrical Engineering department at California Polytechnic State University. He has a BS in Engineering with a Computer concentration from LeTourneau University and a PhD in Engineering with an emphasis on Microelectronics from Louisiana Tech University. His current activities focus on project based learning and online student assessment.
The field of electronics has made immense advancements in affordability and portability that have transformed engineering education. Engineering course curricula have increasingly incorporated modern technology that has made a positive impact by creating more hands on activities and experiments. Specialized laboratory equipment and setups are being replaced with off the shelf devices and components. Customized printed circuit boards can be purchased cheaply and fabricated in days instead of weeks. Creating these hands on activities has many times corresponded with an increased expense that is passed on to the students in the form of a required parts kit or lab fee. At the same time laptops have become ubiquitous among students allowing universities to save money on computer labs and IT expenses by requiring students to provide their own laptop. Not all students are able to afford laptops, and even among those that can there is a disparity between the quality and capabilities of the laptops purchased. These increased expenses can add an inequitable burden on students of different social and economic status. This paper explores the impact of these expenses on students of different social and economic status. The impacts are measured using student survey data from a variety of computer and electrical engineering courses.
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