Suffolk University's ABET-accredited Electrical Engineering (EE) program, located on Beacon Hill in Boston, hosted its first of what will be annual events, Power Engineering Day, whose purpose is to expose high school students to careers in electric power. The motivation for this event came, in part, from Suffolk's partners in the power industry who are in need of recent graduates to replace their aging workforce, and from the knowledge that new and renewable sources of electric power are becoming more important, and that the current aging system of power generation and delivery needs to be overhauled. This event is part of an NSF S-STEM grant awarded on January 1st 2014 to Suffolk's EE program to encourage students from Boston Public High Schools, who are predominantly from underrepresented groups, to study EE and to be exposed to the power industry. The event was held the day after spring semester final examinations, allowing Suffolk EE students to present demos of renewable electricity generation, to lead high school students to the different demos presented by the companies, Suffolk staff and students, and to in general help run the event. Evaluations of the event were obtained from both the companies and the student participants, who were overall satisfied with it although they had a few suggestions for its improvement, such as having more hands-on activities and having more contact time between the high school students and Suffolk EE students as well as more contact time with the industry exhibitors.
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