2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Data centers are large, centralized clusters of computing hardware. Enterprise and economic activities that rely on internet services (e.g., cloud-based computing, online commerce, video and audio streaming) require significant data center infrastructure to ensure continuity of services. To provide these services, data centers require significant capital investment, ongoing operational maintenance, and the engineering workforce capacity to support continued growth. Northern Virginia in particular has the largest data center footprint of any region in the world, and strong demand for a skilled technical workforce means the industry has ongoing difficulties reaching talent. Data center capacity is forecasted to double in Virginia during the next 10 years, with most of that growth concentrated in regions of Loudoun County and Manassas (Miller, 2018). The jobs created as a resul0t of these investments offer high salaries for entry level technicians, especially compared with other regional opportunities to 2-year degree holders (Patil, 2019; Schneider & Vivari, 2012). Despite attractive wages and a growing field, student and educator awareness of the industry remains low, with the sector operating invisibly to most stakeholders (Peery, 2022).

This paper reports on project results from Northern Virginia Community College's (NOVA) summer bridge program in Data Center Operations (DCO). This 2-week program for high school juniors and seniors seeks to increase recruitment towards careers in the data center industry. Over these two weeks, students complete introductory hands-on labs in engineering technology, spend two days onsite at data center partner STACK Infrastructure, and earn their OSHA 10 certification. Using quantitative and qualitative survey data from four cohorts of bridge program participants, this paper investigates the extent to which student participation in the program improved their knowledge of data center careers, important industry skills, and the educational pathways required to obtain those careers. These results are then generalized to practitioners with an interest in improving high school student recruitment into new and emerging technological fields.