Ansys Bridges the Engineering Industry Skills Gap with Flourishing Academic Program

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As it bridges the skills gap in the engineering industry one student at a time, Ansys announced a milestone two million downloads of its free student software, a key component of the successful Ansys Academic Program. The program provides universities with deeply discounted software for use in the classroom while supplying students with free resources for self-learning, all with the goal of enabling students to gain the skillsets they need to thrive in the engineering industry after graduation.

Through its digital learning component, the program currently features more than 200 free Ansys Innovation Courses that make learning easy when coupled with the free student download. Additionally, students can engage and ask questions with experts and peers through the Ansys Learning Forum.

“The University of Connecticut is laser-focused on graduating engineers that have the skills to make a difference on day one of their careers,” said Jeongho Kim, an engineering professor at the University of Connecticut (UConn). “We can identify the critical skills our engineering students will apply on the job, like simulation, so they can hit the ground running and keep up with the rapid pace of technological advancement.”

One of UConn’s closest collaborators is the Connecticut Manufacturing Simulation Center (CMSC), a high-tech research center where Kim serves as director.

“Over the past several years, we’ve trained more than 1,200 undergraduate senior students, and had 34 industry projects with small and medium businesses, more than 75% of which required Ansys simulation solutions,” said Kim. “This has made a positive impact on the employers in our state and better sets our graduating engineers up for success as they begin their careers.”

Bridging the skills gap in the engineering industry by integrating simulation into the curriculum is a common goal among academic leaders.

“We work closely with Ansys because usage of its technology is increasingly a skillset required by employers,” said Sundar Krishnamurty, an engineering department head at University of Massachusetts Amherst. “For the last 20 years, every Mechanical Engineering student has graduated the UMass program with Ansys experience as part of their core engineering curriculum.”

Students across more than 3,300 universities in 91 countries leverage Ansys software and gain hands-on experience using world-class simulation tools. 

“UNAQ has three main approaches to integrate numerical simulation into its academic curriculum: through laboratory subjects dedicated to simulation, through practices in subjects like aerodynamics, and through activities that promote the development of hard and soft skills,” said Dr. Enrique Sosa, President at the Universidad Aeronáutica en Querétaro (UNAQ) in Mexico.

“Through the Ansys Academic Program, students gain access to cutting-edge simulation tools both in and out of the classroom to obtain practical experience, which prepares them to not only enter the engineering industry, but to succeed in their new roles,” said Prith Banerjee, chief technology officer at Ansys and executive sponsor of the Ansys Academic Program. “We are proud to help make this happen and look forward to seeing what the next generation of engineers create.”