Leading the charge on the new program, professor and drone lab Director Jay Seidel said he hopes it will fill a growing need for expertise in autonomous systems, which have become increasingly influential in a variety of fields from telecommunications to public safety to real estate.
In 2020, the Federal Aviation Administration launched a program to help train colleges in best practices on unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) education. Of nearly 150 schools in the program, 13 are in California, and only two of those 13 offer bachelor’s degrees in a related subject. The rest, including Fullerton College, offer associate’s degrees, certification programs or both.
“The disconnect isn't necessarily due to academia not moving. It's due just to the nature of academia moving slow,” he said. “That’s one of the things that I wanted to do with this program, and as I built this program, is try to be on the front side, so I can try to keep up and keep pace. I'll be maybe a little bit behind industry, but I want to be right there with industry as much as possible to meet the needs.”
Fullerton College offers two associate’s degrees in this area — one more focused on piloting drones, and another focused on their design and development. The programs already work with local government and business partners to provide hands-on experience, which will happen with the bachelor's program as well.
Seidel said the difference between an associate’s and a bachelor’s is that the latter gives students the ability to see the whole picture of a project involving UAS. An associate’s degree sets graduates up to be technicians or operators, while a bachelor’s degree sets them up for a more managerial role.
“This is somebody that can maybe run an operation, or maybe has a greater documented, overview perspective of how things run,” Seidel said. “So, it gives them a broader appeal.”
The new bachelor’s degree will work in tandem with Fullerton College’s existing associate’s degrees in a “two plus two” style, meaning the first two years of coursework align with the requirements for an associate’s degree. This design allows students to transition easily from an associate’s to a bachelor’s. Seidel said it also means that students can start working toward a bachelor's degree now, even though the program won’t launch until 2026.
The degree program will be designed to allow flexibility in students’ paths, allowing double majors to cover the many applications of autonomous systems.
In the meantime, Seidel said the school is focused on scaling up.
“We’re looking for more growing spaces and resources not just on campus, but in the community where we can have outdoor projects, maybe even at the airport, whatever the resources can be,” he said.
The college will also use existing industry partnerships to stay up to date with workforce needs and new technologies as much as possible, he said. He’s working on collaborations around advanced air mobility, or using larger drones for things like cargo and human transportation.
“If we can train our students to where they do the right things, the good things, legal things, and the effective things and efficient things, and they embrace the technology,” he said, “then it’s going to make things a lot more efficient and make the technology adoption a lot easier as it gets developed.”
