Green Tech Career Field Benefits From Distance Learning College Degree Program Grads And Their Skills

In Utica, NY, they devised a “rain barrel” program where recycled steel drums equipped with hoses capture rain for irrigation rather than risking sewage overflows into area waterways. In Tennessee, they're working to create solar-assisted charging stations for electric vehicles. In Delaware, they can tour an Air Force Base to help come up with ideas for cleaning spilled chemicals that can contaminate ground water supplies.

These professionals are all engineers, and a June Newsweek magazine report suggested that green engineers particularly can expect to enjoy one of the most secure occupations of the next 10 years. Why? Because businesses want to save money on electric bills and can receive tax credits, and President Barack Obama earlier this year announced a plan to create environmentally-friendly jobs, according to the report. Employment in renewable energy also is accelerating as traditional power company employees retire, an article on a Power Engineering magazine web site reported.

Engineers work in a variety of fields. Civil engineers might assist with urban planning and help devise solutions for problems such as air, ground and water pollution and water conservation. Environmental engineers might develop solar and wind energy products. Engineers also specialize in everything from chemicals to computers, aeronautics to acoustics, petroleum, mechanics, electronics and biomedical science. Ocean engineers, with expertise in different areas, might create robots and remote control vehicles for exploring the world's seas, the Junior Engineering Technical Society web site notes. Engineers in any of these disciplines can be green, according to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University web site.

Focus Product Design sales and marketing vice president John Myung in July told an online publication known as Electronics Design, Strategy, News that his company already is seeing a lot of growth in green engineering. He cited desires in transportation and energy particularly. Customers want new and improved automobiles and solar panels, Myung noted.

Students might find green engineering classes at several colleges, universities and technical schools with campus-based and online degree programs. A Virginia Tech minor in the subject area educates engineering students about water, air and soil issues and details ways that the engineering profession can impact the environment. The program also advises ways that engineers can develop products, processes and systems that might resolve or reduce problems related to the environment.

Ivy League schools have added green engineering programs to their offerings as well. A Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale University, for example, is designed in part to support and advance green engineering research. A Green Engineering Program from the Environmental Protection Agency, with an emphasis on pollution prevention, helps colleges, universities and technical schools to incorporate a green philosophy into the classroom. The EPA offers senior through graduate level chemical engineering students a green engineering textbook, the agency's web site shows.

The EPA site also provides a list of principles of green engineering that it reports engineers and scientists developed as early as 2003. Among them: Conserving and enhancing natural ecosystems while protecting the health and well being of humans and minimizing natural resource depletion. Green engineering principles also include making strides to prevent waste and improving and developing technologies that can create sustainability solutions, the EPA web site shows. Many engineering jobs require a bachelor's degree at minimum, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The payoff is considered one of the best, with engineering degree graduates in at least four disciplines ranked among the top five in terms of 2010 salaries and earning as much as nearly $75,000 a year, a National Association of Colleges and Employers Salary Survey suggests.

The Junior Engineering Technical Society, along with Power Engineering magazine, provides academic scholarships to high school students seeking their online engineering degree. The Society of Automobile Engineers offers scholarships from the high school graduate to graduate college and university levels. Students interested in scholarships, fellowships and grants for college, university and technical school programs in engineering might look toward the Engineering Service Center web site and how distance learning online degree programs apply.