Index of:
Previous Issues
Current Stories
Got News

NJIT Alumni Now Coach Students About Career Choices

As a student, Martha Bembry didn't get the kind of encouragement she needed from her math tutor at the NJIT. So she fired him and found a new one.

But more than 20 years later, Bembry and her former tutor -- now her husband -- have returned to the school as a source of inspiration, information and encouragement to disadvantaged and minority youths.

The Willingboro, N.J. couple, who met while in the state-funded New Jersey Equal Opportunity Program (EOP) at the school, give occasional talks to students there about their own engineering careers and the challenges of navigating the professional world.

EOP offers tutorial, counseling and financial-aid services to students in need. A summer program of the same name offers academic enrichment in math, physics, computers and communications.

Recruiters canvass the state looking for students who are economically disadvantaged and "the one, who is trying hard, but isn't doing that well," said Laurence Howell, executive director of EOP at NJIT. "The goal is to take someone who may be just a hair behind the other students and have them catch up and, hopefully, even surpass the regularly admitted students."

At his school, about 78 percent of the program's students graduate, Howell said. Most are recruited for the summer program and then work with program mentors and peers throughout college.

Alumni, such as the Bembrys, help the program not just by mentoring the youths, but by helping corporate executives understand the value of recruiting a diverse workforce, Howell said. Alumni also help the program by soliciting corporate money to supplement the state dollars.

"We believe in our young people," said Walter Bembry, 42, an electrical engineer with his own business.

Although the Bembrys say they have confidence in the talent of the students they mentor, they warn the aspiring engineers that the road ahead -- especially for minority and female students -- may not be an easy one.

"The old boys' network is still alive and well," he said. "It is a reality. It is a fact of life."

Don't get dragged down by buying into stereotypes or blaming others for flaws in the system, he tells students.

"The company pays you not to change the world, but to do a job and produce a product," he said. "Learn your craft. Focus on your craft. No one can take that away from you."

For women, part of the challenge is a lack of early exposure to the skills required for technical careers, said Martha Bembry, 44, an industrial engineer with the Port Authority Trans Hudson Corp.

Careers in engineering came as a surprise to both Bembrys, who studied music and had not considered engineering until they enrolled in the summer EOP in high school.

"It opened my eyes," said Martha Bembry.

Their four children were exposed to the field at an early age. Their oldest daughter, Colean, is a freshman studying electrical engineering at NJIT.

The Bembrys encouraged Colean and her peers entering the school to create an atmosphere of seriousness and learning on a campus that offers such distractions as parties, sororities and fraternities.

"Learn the library is your friend. Develop study groups," said Walter Bembry.

The program is intense, and these students have less time to play, Howell said.

"It's all about academics," he said. "It's all about making up the deficiencies they had in seventh-, eighth-, ninth-, and 10th-grades."

For More, Click: http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2001/01/15/south_jersey/JENGIN15.htm;