Outreach focused enterprise network design

Abstract

University engineering programs are facing challenges with students switching majors or dropping out of school because of reasons such as inability to cope with studies or general lack of interest in the topics that they are studying. This lack of interest can be ascribed to students choosing engineering courses in university under the influence of various reasons such as family, teacher, past education and career paths. Without exposure to engineering specialized subjects, students are unable to develop strong motivation for the subjects that they are taking and interests for engineer topics are hard to develop by the time they are in university level. Outreach programs provide students exposure they need and fundamental knowledge on engineering topics that they require before university to understand if engineering is suitable and which engineering major are they most interested in. Outreach workshops can also encourage interaction between students and industry professionals and experts. It will also be able to bring awareness to what Nanyang Technological University has to offer in terms of engineering majors. This report presents the outreach workshops designed and created that are based on computer networking. Computer networking industry is growing at a rate unlike any other industry due to its increasing popularity in terms of growth of Internet users and benefits it can bring. Outreach workshops will be based on three areas of networking namely: Organisational Internet access; Internet of Things (IoT); Client-server model of Internet. Three workshops that targets pre-university students, specifically junior college, secondary school and primary school students will be discussed. Each workshop will consist of lessons, lab simulation using Cisco Packet Tracer, hands-on activities and discussion sessions.