Industry Ready

The opening of the Sobrato Campus for Discovery and Innovation came with a generous upgrade to some of the University’s laboratories and project spaces. Keysight Technologies, a Santa Rosa-based company that manufactures electronics testing and software, donated oscilloscopes, power supplies, multimeters, and scope signal generators to SCU’s electrical and computer engineering department.

The opportunity to work with this state-of-the-art equipment will arm students with hands-on experience to thrive in professional lab settings after graduation, says Doug Baney, Keysight’s corporate director of education.

“I’ve always been a big believer in students being industry ready, which means being prepared to use the tools that their job requires,” says Baney. “When a medical student is getting their degree, you hope that they’re learning with real scalpels, not plastic ones, and that they use real equipment as they learn their trade. In a similar way, I think it’s important for electrical engineering students to be able to do that.”

Keysight isn’t the first tech titan to tap into Santa Clara students’ creativity and eagerness to learn from companies right in our backyard.

A team of chemistry and bioengineering students have partnered with Bio Spyder Technologies to examine the effects of silver nanoparticles—found in socks and food containers—on human liver cells. While MegaChips, one of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturing corporations, works with SCU on the exploration of robotic sensing and control technology.