They probably got scared away by all the boomer wingnuts.
Most "kids these days" are more liberal than their parents, and learning analog design from grumpy 60 y/os is....well it's an exercise.
Feels like some guys would prefer it all die with them than share it with anyone outside the clique. Okay, well, so it goes.
No, they are taking a lot of social-justice courses, which are easy. Electromagnetics and Signals+Systems and control theory are now electives, and are hard, so they don't sign up.
Yeah, learning is almost like "work."
I teach my guys (and girls) what I know. Teaching is fun, provided the audience is interested.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing precision measurement jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Don't know. I have the hardcopy.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
I don't think it has a lot to do with the difficulty of the courses - there are plenty of tech/STEM majors in all sorts of fields who could certainly handle a control theory course.
From talking with some of those kids who are in college for tech it seems a big issue is that they want to get a job where they feel they can exercise their creativity. A software engineering or comp sci program of study "feels" a lot more creative than reading crusty old signals and systems textbooks the purpose of which is unclear - you can immediately start banging out code and see the results pop up on your screen. It feels good, there's incremental reward.
Analog hardware design "feels" stodgy, claustrophobic, and terribly old-fashioned by comparison. A kid can get a four year comp-sci degree and if he does the work it's pretty much guaranteed he'll be able to find a job or internship out in the real world applying his or her knowledge working on the real codebase of a real project.
There's definitely no such guarantee with a four-year EE degree that you'll ever touch real hardware professionally; actual design work seems to be an area completely dominated by "gurus" who've been doing it since five years old and where newbs are basically delegated to menial tasks or end up flying a desk in an administrative position.
There's a decent chance a driven kid in the software world can become a "rockstar" coder at some tech startup in the valley. There's slim-to-none chance a driven kid will ever end up a "rockstar" analog designer at Linear Technology. You can be your own software startup with just a laptop. A hardware design/manufacture startup is an enormous financial risk.
On 06/09/2017 10:15 PM,rex wrote:
From talking with some of those kids who are in college for tech it seems a big issue is that they want to get a job where they feel they can exercise their creativity. A software engineering or comp sci program of study "feels" a lot more creative than reading crusty o signals and systems textbooks the purpose of which is unclear - you can immediately start banging out code and see the results pop up on your screen. It feels good, there's incremental reward. Analog hardware design "feels" stodgy, claustrophobic, and terribly old-fashioned by comparison. A kid can get a four year comp-sci degree and if he does the work it's pretty much guaranteed he'll be able to find a job or internship out in the real world applying his or her knowledge working on the real codebase of a real project.There's definitely no such guarantee with a four-year EE degree that you'll ever touch real hardware professionally; actual design work seems to be an area completely dominated by "gurus" who've been doing it since five years old and where newbs are basically delegated to menial tasks or end up flying a desk in an administrative position. There's a decent chance a driven kid in the software world can become a "rockstar" coder at some tech startup in the valley. There's slim-to-none chance a driven kid will ever end up a "rockstar" analog designer at Linear Technology. You can be your own software startup with just a laptop. A hardware design/manufacture startup is an enormous financial risk.
Not here. I hired a 22 year old Mexican girl right out of college and within a year she designed this:
Like everything we do, there was group brainstorming and design reviews, but she was the lead engineer. She likes real electronics and doesn't like to code. Kids like that still happen once in a while, people who want to work with physical things and not just type code.
I have another recent EE grad here who doesn't like analog design: it's too fuzzy for her. She likes to code, especially FPGAs.
My embedded systems programmer now wants to do all the design on a product, hardware as well as the code. That's great.
I interviewed at HP once. The interviewer guy looked at my resume, gave me a sour look, and said "You've got to make up your mind: are you an engineer or a programmer?"
Jerk.
I disagree. There are already hints of a glut of coders around here. And a decline in VC funding. There's sure no glut of real electronic designers. I know that anyone who can manage a mixed group of hardware and software engineers is very much in demand.
I read one report that says that English majors are better programmers than EEs.
Coding is cheap to teach. Colleges just need each kid to buy a laptop. Lab benches, scopes, power supplies, generators, parts, are big and expensive. They are increasingly rare. I walked through the Cornell EE department and saw dozens of computer screens and one oscilloscope.
This is an electronic design newsgroup. Only a minority of the posters here seem to do serious electronic design.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
There's a glut of Web 2.0 JavaScript monkeys, probably. It used to be if you could throw together some SQL and scripts well enough to make a front and back end you could get a job in industry. It's not that way anymore. Standards are higher. JavaScript is good to know - it's just one thing.
Being able to read and write effectively should be a sine-qua-non of any tech job. You can probably train someone who can already read and write well to be a pretty good coder. It's going to be a lot harder to train a code prodigy to read and write well.
Take it from someone who's dating an English teacher; the biggest problem with college students now isn't that they're all taking courses in feminist basket weaving or not taking enough math classes, it's that they don't really know how to read and understand what they've read well enough to write good writing about it.
She doesn't "mark off" points for writing that's contrary to some elitist SJW ideology. She marks off points for writing that doesn't make logical sense, doesn't give the impression the student actually read the assigned material, or is full of spelling/grammatical errors. And for using a cell phone during class.
Well, not everyone has the skill, drive, or talent to do it as a full time profession, as it's certainly not easy. That's why I went to "art school" for a liberal arts program with a focus on mathematics and audio. Leaned some of that coding stuff along the way, too. I've done okay with hedging my bets.
If all goes well I'll be getting my first srs electronics design I hope to sell in quantity out for manufacture this summer, hurrah.
I wonder if clear thinking can be taught. I think so, to some extent, but it would have to be taught by clear thinkers. I can sort of imagine some ways. "Puzzle Solving 101" would be qualitative. The
200-level stuff would be quantitative.
I bet most of her kids had 3.7 or so averages in high school.
The "all kids should go to college" thing has diluted the relative talent pool. But a few kids still like real stuff and have instincts for physical design; they are valuable.
I see a lot of, well, less than brilliant mechanical engineers too. Same problem: too many kids, too many computers, too little genuine talent, too little hands-on.
Real electronics? Good. Let me know if I can help.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
Maybe many do not post because the group is so hostile? And it seems that most threads seem to evolve into political confrontations.
Those are easily ignored. Unfortunately, many EEs are secretive about their designs, either from perceived NDA issues or just not wanting to share their (likely not truly original) ideas.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
But that's not the entire problem. I saw the conflict that was generated by your comment that latching relays had infinite gain. I knew instantly what you meant, but you were attacked for that. Who wants to post under those circumstances?
Yeah but then you run a high risk that they'll end up liberals! UH OH.
I couldn't tell you, it's mostly ESL for the kids who have enough conversational faculty to pass a TOEFL and come from wealthy Chinese businesspeople and party members who can afford to send their kids to an American school; the idea that all Asians are somehow innately gifted students is a complete myth, you have good, bad, and indifferent in the group just like kids from anywhere else.
And it seems a lot grew up with some weird ideas about things that apparently makes them often read some op-ed piece about say world politics and in their quiz they'll write with full conviction that the argument the author is trying to make is the exact opposite of what it actually is.
I mean, if you're okay to stooping to "audio stuff"
Apparently the Taiwanese students are somewhat better informed, basically sitting in the back of the class rolling their eyes every time the mainlanders talk about Asian politics
In a public forum, there will always be people who want to be a pain in the ass, and who want to endlessly debate definitions and philosophical silliness. Note the pattern: the lower the technical content, the longer the thread.
I post in hopes of the occasional informed reply. I've met a few cool people here, too. Just filter out the noise.
Some of the political and climate stuff is interesting, for the system dynamics/causality issues, and to examine the "experts" problem.
I am sometimes surprised by how many interesting technical points invoke no interest. And by how many intellectual and even commercial possibilities are missed.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
easily. As a kid I had people that picked holes in what I said when it wasn 't on the ball. I was also given philosophy 101 stuff to read. I also got t o participate in debates - what I said was picked on. It's not hard, but ye s, someone somewhere needs to have the clues. And not be so into 'you must love me' that they never teach anything.
the blame & sue culture here has wiped out nearly all opportunities for han ds on mechanics at school, college, and clubs. The oh my precious princess culture has wiped out nearly all opportunities at home. The I'm so deluded I think I'm a celebrity culture has wiped out most kids' interest in anythi ng mechanical & practical.
no shit. Some manage it though. I think in the UK today it's largely self t aught, when people wait until 18 to start on electronics they're like rabbi ts caught in the headlights.
NT
I seldom discuss commercial possibilities here, the reasons are obvious enough.
NT
I think plenty of people "have clues." Sometimes people can be plenty smart and still not necessarily believe the same things you do. That they don't definitely is no intrinsic indication that they're clueless, indeed IMO it's a pretty big failing of "clear thinking" to imagine that's the case.
As for the "the kids these days are so dumb and don't learn anything they just get taught 'you must love me'" that's just the usual curmudgeonly stuff old curmudgeons have been saying about "the kids these days" for literally thousands of years. I'm closer to 20 than I am to 60; I don't think it's true now and it probably wasn't true in ancient Greece, either.
Nah, they're just smart enough to realize that in the U.S. in 2k17 it's a fuckload of work for very little guarantee of job security or even full-time employment. I know plenty of guys in their 20s who went to trade school for auto repair; seems like everyone and their sister has some skill working on cars around here. Think it's some intrinsic ticket to a middle-class life? Nah, you bust your ass for peanuts, same as many other blue-collar jobs. You'd only do it because you love it.
Ok sure.
We're doing a brake job on an old Hyundai this afternoon, matter-of-fact. I leaned to do that in feminism class at my liberal arts college
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wasn't on the ball. I was also given philosophy 101 stuff to read. I also g ot to participate in debates - what I said > was picked on. It's not hard, but yes, someone somewhere needs to have the clues. And not be so into 'you must love me' that they never teach anything.
For some reason you've clearly failed to understand either of my points.
hands on mechanics at school, college, and clubs. The oh my precious princ ess culture has wiped out nearly all >opportunities at home. The I'm so del uded I think I'm a celebrity culture has wiped out most kids' interest in a nything mechanical & practical.
US is not UK.
Yeah it's best to say you're an inter-sectional feminist and then play dumb like "Hey what's going here in this circuit I'm not smart enough to figure it out?!"
"Heh heh you dumb libtard I'll show you how it's done!"
Then kick back and have a beer, ego will do the rest of the work for you
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