KENT, Ohio — Kent State University students have returned to classrooms for the fall semester and many of them are getting their first look at the expanded Aeronautics and Engineering Building.
An additional 44,000 square feet of space was added to accommodate current and future enrollment growth. It includes new classrooms, teaching labs, research labs and air traffic control simulators in five rooms.
"It feels like real. It feels like you're standing there looking out the windows of the tower," said Christina Bloebaum, the dean of the College of Aeronautics and Engineering.
Bloebaum said there's a huge demand for pilots and every other area of aviation due, in part, to of an aging and retiring pilot workforce and more people wanting to travel post-pandemic.
"Overall, as a college, we have more students than we've ever had across both engineering and aeronautics. It is the largest that this college has ever seen," Bloebaum said.
With aeronautics and engineering closely linked in many ways, both fields are taking off, Bloebaum added.
"For instance, aerospace engineering— those are the folks who design the aircraft— so there's a huge demand for them."
Kent State Students Dylan Fusca, of suburban Pittsburgh, and Kelsey Buyankski, of Independence, were both drawn to aviation after initially pursuing other majors.
Fusca wanted to become a physical therapist but became bored with it.
"We have a great (aeronautics) program, so I really gravitated towards it," Fusca said. "If you would have asked me as a kid what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always would have said a superhero, and now, I can fly."
Buyanski, who first thought she wanted to become an orthopedic surgeon, said the importance of women in aviation is not lost on her.
"As women in the field, we're at like 8%, which is really low. But I work with Women in Aviation a lot, which is a club here at Kent, so we work to...encourage young women to be in the engineering field, be in the airline field," Buyanski said.
James Wilson, a flight instructor at Kent State, said he has also noticed the surge in interest among students wanting to fly.
"There's a demand and people just have a big interest in flying," Wilson said.
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