Founded in 1933, North Idaho College is a comprehensive community college providing a wide array of academic, professional-technical, and workforce training programs. NIC enrolls over 4,500 students in its academic programs and totaled over 9,300 course enrollments in various non-credit courses last year. The school is located on the scenic northern shore of Lake Coeur d'Alene.
Until recently, NIC had a typical machine technology program. Most of the program focused on teaching students traditional machine shop skills, squeezing CAD/CAM into the last two semesters or what equaled a 20 hour course. This meant that Mastercam was just a small percentage of their program. NIC was like so many other schools in the US that had inherited a CNC program. The instructors had a very full workload and were struggling to find and develop curriculum for a changing trade. They concentrated their efforts on teaching students basic machining skills.
In an effort to better their skills and find new ideas, Victor Gilica and Jim Straub, the primary Mastercam instructors at NIC, attended Mastercam's Summer Teacher Training in 2000. At that time, Mike Freimann, Educational Training Center Manager at CNC Software's Educational Division, was developing the certification program and looking for exceptional instructors to assist in the program. Vic and Jim were excited about the certification process, and decided to accept an invitation to join the Mastercam Certification Committee, a group of Mastercam Instructors from schools around the US who would help to influence and design the final program.
The Certification committee, with the help of their school advisory committees, defined the skills necessary for CNC operators and programmers and later approved the Mastercam Handbook Curriculum as the first recommended curriculum. That curriculum is written to be taught in 80 to 100 hours of instruction and can be used to produce programmers who can pass the certification practical test. The goal of the certification program is not only to produce skilled programmers, but to give their students the ability to adapt their talents to the ever-changing technologies in the manufacturing world.
"We wanted certification to be more than a wall decoration. We worked hard at defining what industry is looking for in a CNC programmer. Then we developed a test that could measure those skills. Next, we looked for a curriculum that could give the student the knowledge and, with practice, the skills to pass the test. We never could have developed such a strong program without the assistance of great instructors like Jim Straub and Vic Gilica. Their insight and experience in both the world of teaching and close ties to industry has proven invaluable," explains Mike Freimann.
Influenced by their involvement in the Certification committee, Vic and Jim began drafting some radical changes to their program. They became one of the Mastercam Certification pilot schools and were responsible for testing both the newly adopted curriculum and the testing processes. When Jim and Vic presented their plans to their program's advisory committee, the committee wondered whether such radical changes and such emphasis on CNC machining and CAD/CAM was appropriate for the needs of the employers in the Northern Idaho region.
NIC decided that it would be best to survey local area machine shops to see if the new skills would fit their needs. One of the questions in the survey asked the shops to rank the importance of having employees trained on Mastercam. The survey found that companies with 15 or more employees ranked having employees trained on Mastercam as important as having employees trained to operate a CNC machine.
The survey information was a surprise to both the school and the program's advisory committee. The survey illustrated that NIC was on the right path with the Mastercam Certification Program and the increased emphasis on CNC setup and programming. The advisory committee decided to fully implement the certification program and continued on with the 100-hour Mastercam courses.
Since instituting the Mastercam Certification Program, NIC's machining technology program focuses on creating skilled machinists who are prepared to work in the most demanding shops. The changes we made to our program have had outstanding results for both the college and our students. Virtually all of our second-year students have a job waiting when they graduate," explains Vic Gilica. "Our graduating students are able to more easily adapt to the ever changing machines, materials, and demands of manufacturing in the 21st century."
For more information about North Idaho College, please visit http://www.nic.edu/
For more information about the Mastercam Certification Program, email certification@mastercamedu.com. |