Radio age research, manufacturing, communications, broadcasting, television (1941)

RCA Cadettes on Job NEW EXPERIMENT G/VES.OPPORTUN/TV TO COLLEGE GROUP AS ENG/NEERING AIDES ENTER SIX PLANTS OF VICTOR DIVISION By Dr. C. B. Joiiiffe Chief Engineer RCA Victor Division WHAT may turn out to be a milestone in social and edu- cational as well as industrial change was established a few weeks ago at Lafayette, Indiana. The event was a commencement—which is a word used by educators for graduation exercises held to signify that cer- tain students have finished their academic studies—an end that is a beginning. Commencement really means, therefore, that the students are now ready to commence work. None of these particular graduates had any doubts about work. They all had jobs which have been wait- ing until they finished their training. Students Carefully Selected The graduates, seventy-three in number, were all young women, most of them under 25 and a few not yet 20 years of age. They had all been hand-picked from RCA's own plants and from among the nation's thousands of young college women. What is unusual in this case is that the entire graduating class were already employed, and by a single employer. Still further to upset precedent, the students had been at Purdue University for only ten months. These were RCA's first "Engineering Cadettes". These young women are all at work today as Engineering Aides [18 RADIO AGE] in the six plants of the RCA Victor Division. They are the products of the first adventure in the intensive training of young women for spe- cialized technical work in the field of radio and electronics. While they are by no means novices, they rea- lize that they still have a lot to learn. They have completed intensive courses in mathematics, drawing, shop and manufacturing processes, electric circuits, electrical measure- ments, radio theory and electronics. In their training they learned to weld, assemble, activate, age, evac- uate and test a triode tube, as well as to build a six-tube super-hetero- dyne radio set, and learn the theory behind the operation of each. That women can learn to operate milling machines, drill presses, lathes and other power tools, as well as hand tools in assembly and repair work, is no longer news. Many of those who scoffed at the idea prior to Pearl Harbor have lived to admit that on many of these operations women are not only as good as men, but in some cases they have shown even better aptitudes. But if any one had said three years ago to the average edu- cator that women could be taught what these Cadettes have learned in ten months, he would have been re- garded as an impractical visionary. One professor, who has since be- come quite enthusiastic, actually shook his head when the plan was launched and said he could not teach radio theory to students who had not mastered integral calculus. He was willing to try, he found it could be done, and he now is an ardent supporter of the idea. It goes without saying that the war emergency and shortage of manpower impelled the RCA Victor Division to establish this special class of Cadettes. Several corpora- tions in other industries notably aviation, have also undertaken sim- ilar plans. ]\Ir. F. H. Kirkpatrick, Manager, Personnel Administra- tion, was responsible for the far- sightedness in this planning a year ago to meet the need for technically trained employees. A few years ago women engi- neers were as scarce as women lawyers were a quarter of a cen- tury ago; as scarce as women phy- sicians. Today, women have made for themselves a permanent and welcome place in both of these pro- fessions. There is no reason why this should not be equally true in electronic engineering. Show Serious Interest Although it is still too early to say definitely how far these pio- neering girls will go in their pro- fession, there is every reason to believe they are fitting satisfac- torily into the company's opera- tions. It is perhaps significant that of the seventy-three who were grad- uated three were married during the training course, but they stayed to continue their career. This is some indication of the serious in- terest these young women show in their work. Faculty members at Purdue Uni- versity are very enthusiastic about the accomplishment of the Cadettes. Their work was satisfactory. In a few cases the level of achievement equalled that of the best regular electrical engineering students, and the class average was above the usual University average. The high number of seventy-three graduates from an initial class of eighty-six is also evidence of their interest. Of the thirteen who did not complete the course, six voluntarily dropped ENGINEERING AIDE HELEN MUENSCHER, ONE OF THE RCA "CADETTES", IS SEEN AT WORK IN EI-ECTRON MICROSCOPE LAB- ORATORY AT RCA VICTOR, CAMDEN, N. J.