Ask HN: In person industry tours and site visits?

87 points by helghardt 2 years ago | 41 comments

The head master of my primary school took a small group of students every semester on industry site visits.

I believe these site visits played a meaningful role in developing my engineering and entrepreneurial interests/thinking. Although I only vaguely remember the details, I do have a strong lasting impression of the locations/factories we visited and people we met.

I got to see a plastic pipe molding facility, coke cola bottling factory, first wind power turbines in Cape Town area and assembled a door alarm prototype at the neighboring university. This was all before the age of 13.

In university I had similar practical exposure doing an internship at a boiler manufacturing factory, chicken processing plant and finally a tech startup.

I truly cherish these experiences and glimpses into the real world. Obviously I knew very little of what was really going on, but these experiences helped me build a sort-of mental map to unpack my options at the time.

Do you think practical site visits as a teenager is a good idea? Have you had similar exposure and did it have a lasting impact on you too? Do you think we need to create more opportunities like this for students?

vogt 2 years ago |

Yes, practical exposure to any industry - particularly ones the teenager has an interest in - is a great thing.

I went to what was called a “vocational” high school in the US. In schools like this you rotate between a week of academic class and a week of your chosen specialization. Every week for four years. I was in the “graphic design and publishing” shop so I was learning Photoshop, Illustrator and running offset lithographic printers (small ones lol) with actual industry vets. Other students had auto body, facilities management, electrical, cosmetology, nursing. Freshman year is called your “exploratory” year, where you select something like ~8 of the available trades the school has on offer, with the end goal being you try them and figure out which to commit to. I remember going through Culinary Arts and nearly spilling a bowl of hot soup all over a table of elderly people. That line of work was never in the cards for me.

I’m not in graphic design anymore and “desktop publishing” barely exists as it did then, but the path certainly lead me to where I am today. I have NO clue what I’d be doing without that education.

blueridge 2 years ago |

In the US you can ride along at almost any fire department or private EMS company for a 12 hour day shift. They won't let you ride over night, but you can come back for multiple ride-alongs.

If you're more interested in the fire side, you can get on an engine. You'll respond to structure fires, car accidents, lightning strikes, and all sorts of well-being checks for people who just need help getting up off the floor.

If you're interested in medical stuff, you can get on an ambulance. You'll run 911 calls and get some real exposure to the human condition. It's a great way to learn about pre-hospital and emergency department care. It's also a great way to get a reality check on how the US healthcare system works, and how it helps or hinders the people who need care the most.

In many parts of the country fire and EMS are part of the same service and system, so you'll get exposure to a little bit of everything. I'd highly recommend fire and EMS as an alternative career path for anyone who is looking for something different, other than tech.

imadethis 2 years ago | |

EMT here: highly recommend this! If you’re in the US, there’s a pretty big need for EMTs everywhere. A 3 month community college course will get you an intro job essentially no questions asked. From there you can pivot to fire if you’re physically capable, or go the paramedic route (2 more years of school). The starting pay for an EMT will be garbage, but firefighters and paramedics can make pretty good salaries depending on location.

The most important part to me was feeling like I was actually making a difference in people’s lives. I’ve done more for others in a single shift than in 5 years of one of my tech jobs. It doesn’t put food on the table, but it does help me sleep at night.

And if you are working in tech, there’s some interesting crossover applications. I’ve applied knowledge from EMS to working on EMRs for instance.

fastneutron 2 years ago |

Local and university chapters of the American Nuclear Society sometimes organize tours of nuclear power plants in their respective regions. I went on a few of these tours in college and it was truly a unique experience. It's easy to talk about a gigawatt of power, but to actually feel it screaming past you in the turbine hall really opens your eyes to the immense scale of the electrical infrastructure we've built to power our civilization.

_hzw 2 years ago |

Slightly off-topic: I didn't have the opportunity to visit industrial sites when I was a kid, so I made it up to myself by watching lots of "THE MAKING"[1] as an adult.

[1]: "THE MAKING" is the Japanese equivalent of "How It's Made." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps_X1TqiJZQ&list=PLOEDIkStOh...

suyash 2 years ago | |

what a nice suggestion, always fascinated by Japanese engineering and design.

javiramos 2 years ago |

I went to a STEM summer camp in Switzerland where they took us to see a variety of industrial sites including the Turbomach generator manufacturing facility, the Gotthard tunnel when it was under construction, an optic fiber connector company, a nuclear power plant, and a few other places that I cannot remember. The visits had a profound impact on me and inspired me, in a large part, to pursue engineering.

century19 2 years ago | |

What age range was this? Do you have the name of the camp. Sounds like a great idea.

ddhhyy 2 years ago |

I have visited wastewater treatment plants in two of the cities I have lived in and I honestly think such a visit should be required for everyone--young and old--who lives in a house or apartment serviced by a municipal sewer. It is eye opening to see what happens to every drop of water you flush or wash down the drain, and especially to see what kinds of things make it into the wastewater stream and to the treatment plant. The tours are often run by folks who actually work (or have worked) at the plant as operators and are quite knowledgeable at all the processes in play.

helghardt 2 years ago | |

This is interesting. Not only giving you exposure to how things work, but also encouraging awareness of things easily taken for granted.

yellow_lead 2 years ago |

I think it's good. I got a chance to shadow a surgeon and watch some surgeries. I thought the field was interesting, but I was bored out of my mind, during some of the most 'interesting' surgeries. If I didn't know that, I might have wasted a lot of time. (I'm not saying it's boring in general, but this was my opinion, meaning I'm unsuited for it)

solardev 2 years ago | |

When ya think about it, what is a body but a pile of unmaintained code made by two drunken people a few decades ago, using a framework with a few million years of tech debt?

Everyone wants to do the upfront coding, but nobody likes maintaining it afterward...

H8crilA 2 years ago | | |

Commented out code, self modifying code, overlapping code, copy pasted code, code integrated from other species, even code integrated from malware. Execution of fragments requires solving quantum mechanics for large particles and in practice is done by random changes followed up by measurement of the result. Execution of the entire thing past a few initial bootloader steps has never been achieved in vitro, let alone in a controllable simulation with something that resembles a debugger.

phreeza 2 years ago |

I went to visit a post office sorting center with my team at Google in Switzerland once. And honestly even as a grown up, it was a great experience, especially since the thing the sorting center was doing was sort of analogous to what some of our (software) pipelines do. Gave me a new appreciation of how powerful and fungible software is. I believe these tours are also offered to school classes.

progbits 2 years ago | |

Zurich also does free recycling center and water treatment facility tours. There is also a nuclear power plant tour, but of course they don't let you near the interesting bits in that one.

https://www.zuerich.com/en/visit/tours-excursions/from-sewag...

pseudolus 2 years ago |

A number of cities have "open house" weekends where public and private buildings and infrastructure that is generally closed off is temporarily made open to the public. I've always hoped that these weekends would be expanded to include both manufacturing facilities and many of the utilities that are essential to our lives. I've been fortunate enough to have visited some of these facilities (as an adult) and have both always learned something and gained a greater appreciation of the role technology (non-IT) plays in our lives. In short, practical site visits are a fantastic idea that I'm sure my younger self would have enjoyed tremendously.

nayuki 2 years ago | |

Yeah, I love Doors Open Toronto (end of every May), https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/festivals-events/doors-... . Many of the sites are related to arts or churches, but some are infrastructure like a water treatment plant, public transit maintenance garages (TTC bus, streetcar, subway), natural gas power plant. I would love to see an expansion to more industrial sites in the open house.

tonyedgecombe 2 years ago | | |

Open Doors Oxford (UK) is this weekend.

https://www.oxfordpreservation.org.uk/content/oxford-open-do...

solardev 2 years ago |

As a college student in the environmental sciences, I toured an awful lot of facilities and parks.

Outdoors, we visited national and state parks, national forests, wastewater treatment ponds, community farms, private hobby farms, ranches, zoos, renewables projects, and more -- from both the visitor's side and also from a behind the scenes perspective, talking to the employees and owners there about how they work.

Indoors, we went to aquariums, landfills and transfer stations, sewage processors, high efficiency refrigerator manufacturing shops, private net-zero energy homes, schools, museums, city councils, public meetings, arboretums, barns, and whatnot.

It was a good swath of the parts of society that touch the environment and outdoor recreation, and profoundly shaped how I view Americana and rural areas in particular. No longer were they globs of indistinguishable wastelands, but filled with interesting (if sparsely populated) peoples and functions that operate largely beneath the radar, unknown to most of the country. That was especially the case after having spent time in the Silicon Valley tech and strip mall bubble.

Most places in my experience would be happy to organize a group tour like that if you just ask nicely (I ran a few). Totally worth it.

piva00 2 years ago |

I absolutely loved all of my school's trips to industrial sites.

We went to:

- A Coke bottling facility (when the bottles were still mostly returnable glass ones), it was mesmerising.

- A chocolate and confectionery factory (as you may have guessed, kids were ecstatic about this one).

- A recycling plant processing paper and plastics.

- A nuclear power plant.

All of those between the ages of 10-13 as well, mentioning it now made me realise how vivid those memories are, thanks for helping me to remember them :)

helghardt 2 years ago | |

In hindsight, it takes a special kind of teacher to go through the effort of organizing these trip. Only later I heard that this head master funded it out of pocket since he could not take everyone on the excursions.

huevosabio 2 years ago |

I love industrial visits,and I hope it was much more widespread and also available as an adult.

As part of the master's degree we went to multiple industrialized construction sites in Sweden over the course of a week.

I sort of wish I could do something like that every year as an adult. This year semi conductors. Next year, cars. The next one, TVs.

simonbarker87 2 years ago |

Yes, they are fun as adults as well. The Toyota plant in Guelph in Ontario is a good one and Amazon fulfilment centres do them in some locations and are quite fun as well.

robbiet480 2 years ago | |

https://amazontours.com

anfractuosity 2 years ago |

There's an interesting looking Japanese website encouraging industrial tourism.

https://www.jetro.go.jp/en/eccj/ind_tourism/foods.html is the link for food, but there's a lot more categories such as life sciences and heavy industry.

(I found that link from HN a little while ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33680460 is the HN submission, which might have other interesting info on it)

helghardt 2 years ago | |

Thanks for sharing the link! Will check it out. I am curious about digging into how this type of site visits could be more streamlined for teachers that don’t have the time or resources to organize it.

reghardtpret 2 years ago |

Hi Helgardt, Reghardt van Katstraat. I think Henrik has written about what he calls onramps in society for younger generations, I am struggling to find the exact reference to it. But his blog is full of ideas similar to what you have written about here.

As economies develop and more specialization is allowed, it takes longer and longer for young people to "actually do work". Which is a good and bad thing.

https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/apprenticeship-online

helghardt 2 years ago | |

Thanks Reghardt! Sal dit uitcheck :-)

vinay_ys 2 years ago |

As a kid growing up in pre-computer/internet era, we did a bunch of things to engage our curiosity and learn and have fun. But in today's world with access such rich content at your fingertips, it's all very different. These days I spend hours watching interesting stuff on Youtube in the comforts of my bedroom. But I do miss the learnings I would have had through engagement with fellow students in an actual physical tour. So, I would say, do best of both worlds.

tomatocracy 2 years ago | |

Depending on who's giving the tour, having the opportunity to interact with people actually working at a place (especially eg shift supervisors/foremen/etc - ie not senior management but experienced people who are still close enough to the "sharp end") and ask them questions is incredibly valuable in gaining an insight into how a business or industry works - site visits are a very important part of many investment decisions for this reason.

helghardt 2 years ago | | |

Yes, I think the in-person experience helps you process the context of the work environment better. What type of people work there, what a typical day may look like, sheer scale required to do certain stuff. I remember vividly how enormous the wind terminal seemed up close. And realizing someone had to get the thing on the pole - and asking how they did that.

kevin_nisbet 2 years ago |

When I was a kid my dad took me to his work a couple of times at the nuclear plant. I remember a little the visitor center and also I think where they did training. So I have a vague memory of being able to pick up and move around pipes simulating fuel using a remote camera system to do the online refueling of the reactor which was new around that time.

I have no idea the exact impact, but I would suspect that these types of experiences are important to build intellectual curiosity.

edmundsauto 2 years ago |

I remember site visits more than anything else from elementary school. The newspaper printing presses and the local tv news station really stand out.

mtmail 2 years ago |

In school we visited the local newspaper. There was nothing interesting to see because the printing was outsourced. Two dozen people sitting in front of computers (CRT grayscale monitors), conference rooms, some print-outs on the wall. We got featured in the next issue and all I remember is how uninspiring the afternoon was.

angmarsbane 2 years ago |

I’ve been taking myself on field trips like this most of my adulthood; jelly belly factory, distilleries, breweries, watchmaking, vinyl pressing, chocolate factories, coffee roasteries. “How it’s made” tours are a top thing I look for when I travel.

PeterStuer 2 years ago |

Over here we have a yearly 'Open Bedrijvendag' (Open company day) event. It is very successful and draws big crowds every time. You can e.g. have a tour of the clean room chip production facilities at IMEC. https://www.openbedrijvendag.be/

TuringNYC 2 years ago |

Not the same thing, but I remember all the site visits from Mr Roger's Neighborhood, even 40yrs later! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Rogers%27_Neighborhood

suyash 2 years ago |

It's a good idea but for software engineering work, there is not much to see, it's just code on a computer screen. For folks interested in engineering these days, I would recommend going to hacker/maker spaces and meetup events.

ragebol 2 years ago |

Would still love to do such visits!

madengr 2 years ago |

Look up Engineering Explorer Post for high schools students. Each month the attend a presentation on an engineering discipline, and the a site tour. My kid got to visit a nuclear reactor, food packaging manufacturer, biomedical device development, aircraft maintenance depot, etc.