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An engineer, good friend of mine I worked with years ago graduated with an MSEE from MIT. We worked in RF for Scientific-Atlanta at the time and got to talking about educations, etc. He said, MIT was great, theory out the ying-yang, etc. But.....

He asked me about waveguides for RF. He said I know the formulas to show how an RF wave propagates down the guide...couldn’t for the life of him figure out how it’s done... how did they get that RF wave in there in the first place?

I explained it to him and showed him with real hardware....he said, they never taught any of this. This from the pre- and post-war lab (Lincoln)who pioneered radar in this country using British hardware (magnetron).....

>> I showed him with real hardware ...

Agreed - check out the current I3E journals - lotsa numbers and formulas, not much hands on stuff. (Confirmed by my Goddaughter, who got a full ride in Brass Rat’s math department in the 90s.)

On a different subject, can’t help but notice that my undergrad alma mater, the University of Miami didn’t make the list. :o)

Oh well - at least it keeps that short squatty lefty, Donna Shalala out of government. That’s gotta be worth her $1.2 million annual salary.

The lack of “labs” or the “hands-on practical” part of an engineering education is a disturbing trend. It is almost completely driven by money. The O&M to keep a quality engineering lab going in a university or college engineering program is quite high. The siren song of “simulate everything on computers” is most alluring. Its much much cheaper then maintaining a physical lab. However no where near as educational for engineers. Computer simulations have their place but they aren't physical. Consider the following, sparks, the odd "it bit me!" electrical shock, a nonfunctional (but should be!) circuit board or even better a smoking circuit board have an educational value almost incalculable!

Also there might be another reason for this trend and its humanware. When I first started college there was a high percentage of engineering profs with industrial experience. (Even my physics department has some!), now they are as rare as gainfully employed French Literature majors. So an unspoken reason could be, too many professors in the curriculum decision making process with no idea what real industrial-grade engineering is. You have engineering profs who have been on a college campus from eighteen on. many with their world outlook still stuck at 18.

Now mix in the very high number of foreign profs who are not very likely to have an American industrial experience either (or any industrial experience particularly if they com from country where a sharp rock & stick is high tech!) and you have a recipe for increasing educational irrelevance.