Instructor shares insights from TSTC experience with students

(ROSENBERG, Texas) – Joshua Schott, an instructor at Texas State Technical College, provides his students with powerful tools based on his unique experience at TSTC.

“I’ve been through what they’re doing, I see the problems that they have, and I can actually instruct them in ways that few other instructors can because they haven’t come up through the ranks at TSTC,” he said.

In addition to being an instructor, Schott is also an alumnus of TSTC, having graduated from the Robotics Technology program in 2020.

Schott decided to return to school after a career change, enrolling in the second-ever cohort of students in the Robotics program. He had anticipated pursuing a job in San Antonio upon graduation, but life had other plans for him.

“I started actually growing roots with TSTC and the community around here,” he said.

A department opening — paired with Schott’s background in Computer Electronic Engineering Technology from ITT Technical Institute — enabled his hiring as an instructor at TSTC in 2019. He teaches electrical core classes while also filling in as needed for courses in the Electrical Power and Controls program.

Schott says he did not experience any significant changes in making the transition from student to instructor.

“I looked at it as a job when I first came in, and that’s really what it always has been,” he said.

It is advice he also shares with students.

“I tell them flat out — I teach first-semester students — you look at this as your job,” Schott said. “Your grade is your pay. What you put into it is what you’re going to get out of it, same as your career.”

Treating their experience at TSTC with that kind of perspective comes in handy with at least 20 companies in the Houston region looking to hire Electrical Power and Controls program graduates, he added.

“They’re not coming out with just book knowledge, they’re coming out with hands-on experience,” he said of TSTC alumni. “They’re coming out with the understanding that I just didn’t go to school for two years, I went to a job for two years.”

Electrical and electronic engineering technologists and technicians can make an average salary of $69,310 in Texas, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The projected growth for such positions in the state is 8% by 2028, according to onetonline.org.

TSTC offers an Associate of Applied Science degree in Electrical Power and Controls in a hybrid format, combining virtual learning with in-person, hands-on lab work. The program is part of TSTC’s Money-Back Guarantee initiative. Through this initiative, TSTC students who do not find a job in their career field in six months after graduation will receive a refund of their tuition.

Schott highly recommends TSTC to prospective students.

“I tell them, plan out five semesters, and you’re making more than what you probably ever had,” he said. “There’s no other university I would actually go to. The instructors actually do care. I go out of my way to help out any student I can to give them the understanding they need in order to further their career.”

Learn more about TSTC at tstc.edu.