Written By: Reagan Flowers, PhD

C-STEM works with students, parents, teachers, and community partners to ensure every student has access to the best STEM education possible. Innovation and Technology are the future, and it continues to evolve every day, so the mission of C-STEM  is crucial for every child, not just those who plan to pursue careers as engineers or mathematicians.

Communication, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics plays an essential role in every business in every industry. That’s why graduate schools are integrating STEM courses into their MBA programs. With Houston, Texas being on track to becoming the third most populous city in the U.S., C-STEM has been working with Rice MBA students to develop a strategy to  cultivate future STEM talent to support anticipated business growth. The Capstone project with Rice MBA students has been  the perfect blend of business and STEM, with the graduate students learning how much it takes to make C-STEM accessible year round.

Learning about STEM at the graduate level is great, but integrating STEM education into the classroom as early as Pre-Kindergarten is necessary to grow talent for  jobs that haven’t even been created yet. Every child deserves to have the knowledge and skills they’ll need, whether striving to become an artist, a financial engineer, a data analyst, a computer programmer,  a doctor, or any other career.

Think about your own job and the technology you use every day.  Everyone is having to learn how to do things differently because of technology, like communicating almost exclusively via email, managing customer records in The Cloud, mobile banking, cryptocurrency (Bitcoins), and staying vigilant of cybersecurity attacks. Having  technical skills and a learning mindset allows us all to succeed as the world continues to evolve and change. By providing students with the STEM resources they need, we are preparing them for any path they want to pursue.