Confessions of an Engineering Washout

Tech Central Station ^ | 9/21/05 | Douglas Kern

[ladyrustic]

Any of our freeper engineers care to comment on this man's experience? What was your experience at school?

[snowsislander]

I think that if the student had perceived the economic rewards of being an engineer as far greater than being an investment banker or lawyer, then he might have made more of an effort: "You party and blow off homework now, but in ten years, you'll be making merely wonderful money as investment bankers and consultants, while I'll be getting laid off from a great job at General Electric."

But his observation is accurate: it is simply more economically sensible to go into another career than engineering. Unless that dynamic were somehow to change, and I don't see that happening, our best and brightest will tend more toward careers that make more money and are less subject to lay-offs. (Though I might point out to the young man that while the legal profession doesn't seem to have many lay-offs, investment banking is not immune to them.)

[jocon307]

Well, I could certainly never be an engineer, or anything else that requires a good grasp of pure mathematics, but my conclusion is that our author needed to study more. I think he gives us a good example, in himself, of Americans who only want to do the things that come easily; and to be grandly rewarded for their mere competance. And yes, if that continues to be our attitude, we will remain dependant on harder working foreigners.

[cowboyway]

Find a way to teach engineering to verbally oriented students who can't learn math by sense of smell.

I think that Kern he is bitter because he didn't have the 'knack'. Verbally oriented individuals should become english majors, history majors, lawyers, etc and I commend engineering departments that weed out all the non-hackers, because if an english teacher screws up a sentence, you just have a screwed up sentence, but if an engineer screws up, a bridge could collapse or an airplane could fall out of the sky and kill a few people.

The Knack

[TotusTuus]

It's all part of the weeding process. Self motivation is key to an engineering degree.

The probable truth is that the author couldn't survive on an average of 4 hrs of sleep per night.

[fzx12345]

Back when I was an engineering student, there was a legend about an old civil engineering professor who had a unique grading system. His tests consisted of four questions, each graded all-or-nothing. If you answered four of the four correctly, it was an A, 3 was a B, 2 was a C, 1 was a D, and none correct was an F. One student asked him, after a disappointing result, why partial credit wasn't awarded. The professor stated, "If you build a bridge, and it falls down, no partial credit".

[js1138]

Any of our freeper engineers care to comment on this man's experience? What was your experience at school?

I know that in good schools of archotecture there are more incoming students than the schools wants to graduate. The goal of the teaching staff is to convince at least half to drop out before the end of the second year. If you don't get the message in class they simply refuse to admit you to the upperclass courses.

If you find yourself at a schools that doesn't teach, look for one that does.

[boris]

"'What happened?' said the comment on my second test. I wish I knew."

Someone set you up the test.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Find a way to teach engineering to verbally oriented students who can't learn math by sense of smell.

In many ways I agree: Don't know his school (deliberately concealed! - which is a politically correct way to conceal poor performance, and NOT engineeringly accurate way of concealing FEEDBACK and getting improvement in their product!), but you don't need to know math to be an engineer.

you have to LIVE IT, to understand it intuitively and to be able to USE IT without thinking and fighting it.

Granted math majors, then physics majors, then engineering majors treat math differently in each field - with engineers using it as brute force rather than intrically and intimiately, and we engineers don't play with math the way math majors do (I have a Math/Physics double BS as a daughter, so I know all three disciplines.)

But you have to understand and sense inside your head to movement of the steel, the flow of a current ina wire network, the compression of a screw thread inside a bolt, or the twist of an airflow in an HVAC duct as you design circuits and dams and buildings.

Or they break.

[Fierce Allegiance]

First day of class, the profs said only 2 in 3 will make it. It's tough, and it ain't for everyone.

However, I've found a great deal of respect based on the title. However, the one thing schools do not teach is interpeersonal skills, which for me is probably the most important part of my job.

[Fierce Allegiance]

I worked a night shift, and still managed to finish in 4 years. I was married and had 2 kids by graduation, too.

[Fierce Allegiance]

Back when I was an engineering student, there was a legend about an old civil engineering professor who had a unique grading system.

One of my profs had a single-beam balance for grading. At the far left (the light end) it started out with 'd' and worked up to 'a' about 2/3 the way. anything heavier than the 'a' was an 'f'.

I was lucky na d had all PE profs who were military veterans. We had no TA's. All my profs also hosted ASCE keggers at their houses.

[patton]

Hey robert - want to fight? I dropped out of engineering because it was BORING.

Got a degree in maths, instead - silliest thing I ever did. LOL.

Ah, well. what we don't know as kids...

And the author of this piece knows nothing. What an idiot. LOL.

Oh, look - a chicken!

(/adhd)

[Robert A Cook PE]

See, that's the difference: I HATED all of my math courses because they were NOT "problem-solving" but rather theoretical.

And physics was little better: Again, not problem-oriented enough for my poor be-fuddled want-to-grab-the-part-and-see-it/make-it-work mentality.

(Not that you can exactly "see" neutrons too good.

[patton]

I loved the theoretical part - I hated the crank-turning.

So I switched to math.

Idiocy. I have worked my entire career as an engineer.

Oh, well, LOL.

[Fierce Allegiance]

I disliked the math stuff as well. Physics was better. Statics was ok. Circuits & thermo killed me. Structures was cool, and water (clean&dirty) was better, but soils rocked! I loved making 18,000 psi floating concrete, rolling clay in my hands to find pl, ll, etc.

My prof was a jokester and in class defined N value, standard penetrastion resistance as 4 wine coolers.

[xsmommy]

i believe you, robt. you are the smartest man i know. : )

[Fierce Allegiance]

Civil Engineer Ping List:

[caver]

I think Mr. Kern here suffers from an inflated sense of self-esteem. He may have gotten great grades in high school so he thinks he's a genius and his teachers and parents told him was. So he goes into the real world where the rubber hits the road and he's just chopped liver.

The younger ones right now have never been told that they are wrong. They always been congratulated how how smart they are and how great a job they did and how much effort and so on, when usually all they are doing is barely getting by with normal involuntary bodily functions. They get out in the real world and it's an eye opener.

[sauropod]

I'm not sure I would advise anyone to go into engineering right now, given all the outsourcing that is going on.