Posted on 05/01/2016 11:46:48 AM PDT by JimSEA
Ugh advanced calculus. Totally necessary for Electromagnetic Theory (another ugh course) why oh why didn't I just major in Computer and Systems Engineering?
Ping; saw you on the Millenials thread this AM, don’t remember if you were on this one, thought you should see the silliness.
“Nowadays “there’s probably an app for that” more than likely.”
I’m sure you see the problem with that when it comes to your kid. With myself and my daughter, math got easier after algebra when the need to know became more obvious in geometry, trigonometry and even calculus.
That's what tables of integrals are for. Somebody has already figured them out.
In my high school days we were profiled into three basic categories: university prep, trade/technical/crafts, and simple HS Diploma. The three groups were roughly equal in numbers. Algebra only appeared in the first. I was fortunate to go to a large high school, and the first category was further broken down into arts/sciences. I don't know how this is done today, but am sure the size of the school is still an important factor.
Regarding courses that seem irrelevant at the time, I recall from my days of a 2nd year general requirement for EE's to take a Surveying Engineering course, plus a one-week "surveying camp" after exams. We were also required to take a course in contract law. My EE friends and I complained about "the camp", but to no avail. Twenty years later, as an engineering director for a major broadcasting corporation, I was faced with reviewing land surveys for mountain top transmit/tower expansion. Glad I knew surveying basics, and was thankful the university had exposed me to legalese. Moral of the story.....never shy from learning as much as you can, for you just never know what you will face in the future. God bless.
I was in school a long time, having received both an Arts degree and an Engineering degree, and experienced the full gamut from wizard to dead wood. The combination of technical excellence and teaching ability, a rarity, can be positively life-changing for the recipient. In a way, our future rests in their hands.
Unfortunately, all is not well in today's schools. My sister is a professor and I had occasion to meet several of her colleagues at a party. They all fear for the current crop of students. Something negative has happened to student behavior in the last 3 or 4 years. Egos, arrogance, disinterest, cheating and disruption run rampant. Twitter revolts occur where they refuse to take tests, do homework, or attend labs....and then DEMAND A's! Teachers are openly threatened. They tell me the current crop is absolutely without precedent. Sadly, my sister, an award-winning educator, after 30 years, is completely discouraged, considers the situation virtually hopeless, and is thinking of getting out.
Are there other stories about this out there?
In the 80’s, if we didn’t have Maxwell’s Eqns memorized in Differential/Integral format, then we were flunked out of the sophomore EE program.
I bumped into a recent grad who was just receiving his PE EE. I wrote down Maxwell’s Eqns from memory, after not having really looked at them for about 20 years, and left one negative sign out. I handed it to him to see if he could catch the error.
It is an exercise, I’ve discovered over the years, to expose those who fraudulently pretend to have EE credentials. It’s also a catharsis to celebrate the learning experience with fellow engineers.
He didn’t even know what the variables represented, let alone the mathematical expressions. I later read a blog discussing the value of Morse & Feshbach’s ‘Methods of Theoretical Physics’, only to discover many recent curricula for the BA/BS in Physics don’t even require partial diffEQ.
I’m incredulous how anybody can understand either EE or Physics without a grasp of these concepts in an intuitive fashion.
It makes me worry how much longer we’ll continue to have electrical power utilities with such ignorance.
One thing I would tell any student today college or Voc/Tech. Be diverse enough in your education to where you can quickly adapt to another field. That saved my hide several times. The economic situation of the early 1980’s especially after a failed Worlds Fair followed by two major bank failures in my area in 1982 tanked the local economy. I ended up being a truck driver for about 8 months.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.