So, you want to an electrical engineer? (video)

I like the girl. The guy is a downer.

But engineering isn't for everybody. Only a minority of the population has the mentality to be a decent engineer, and a lot more people go to engineering school.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com

Precision electronic instrumentation Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators Custom laser drivers and controllers Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links VME thermocouple, LVDT, synchro acquisition and simulation

hehe...where do you think all those managers come from? :-)

On a sunny day (Tue, 08 Jan 2013 10:15:56 -0800) it happened Jeff Liebermann wrote in :

LOL That new bond movie could not make me laugh, but this one did :-)

Someone turned Sloman into a cartoon?

The retention rate for the full eight semesters is averaging around 50%. The US can just hang it up, their imagined preeminence in engineering is a pipe dream.

can just hang it up, their imagined preeminence in engineering is a pipe dream.

So, too many people sign up for engineering school, and half drop out for something easier. How is that inherently bad?

US can just hang it up, their imagined preeminence in engineering is a pipe dream.

He would rather see all of them graduate, and really screw up the country when they can't design anthing more than a flashlight. I've met more than one 'engineer' who should have been kicked out.

The US can just hang it up, their imagined preeminence in engineering is a pipe dream.

What makes you think they signed up for something easier? Have you seen som e of these lectures on YouTube, even the MIT stuff, they come across like r eally slow retards. Academic engineering coursework is insultingly simple m inded. Another interesting statistic is that a full 93% of the students who complete the program started from the beginning, this is in contrast to ma ny applied science fields where that number is more like 60%. This means al most no one transfers into engineering from another major.

The guy would be believable if he could actually pronounce all the fancy engineering words he keeps telling that girl... LOL

That's the application programmer's job.

US can just hang it up, their imagined preeminence in engineering is a pipe dream.

The attrition rate is far too low.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

US can just hang it up, their imagined preeminence in engineering is a pipe dream.

Umm. Good point.

US can just hang it up, their imagined preeminence in engineering is a pipe dream.

LOL

US can just hang it up, their imagined preeminence in engineering is a pipe dream.

Yep. At MIT, 2/3rd drop out at the end of the first year... in fact, most by Thanksgiving. ...Jim Thompson

Boy, the MIT admissions office really sucks!! You'd think that after admitting 10's (100's?) of thousands and seeing which ones make it that they would know how to pick better. Or do you think that they intend for 2/3 to drop out?

If they are going to let in so many that they know will drop out, it'd be more profitable to let them through the 1st semester and get the 2nd semester's tuition, room, etc. Lots of empty beds 2nd semester.

Bob

Fancy colleges can burn through a lot of the parents money crashing those parental dreams.

on

to

%. The US can just hang it up, their imagined preeminence in engineering is a pipe dream.

ide quoted text -

What would you guess the statistics are for MIT dropouts who came from non-mathematical (electronics) families compared to those who were educated by their parents in math, physics, and electronics from age

-Bill

The girl is showing her overly optimistic confidence in the possibilities of becoming an engineer. The guy is a burnout. Kinda reminds me of myself after a long project. In the past, I used to go to the local high skool, and give short talks to graduating seniors on what it's like to be an engineer. When they discovered that I would answer their questions honestly, they came fast and furious. Things like working on military projects, where the engineer often has little idea what weapon or system his design was destined, got their attention. It was difficult supplying reality without also being a "downer", but I managed. The ones that were into engineering were sufficiently inspired to continue. Others were apparently rethinking their illusions of engineering.

I went through this myself in high skool. In the early 1960's, aerospace was the big thing. Sputnik went up in 1957 and every kid suddenly wanted to be a scientist or engineer. The skools encouraged them by separating out the smart kids, and giving them advanced classes, tours, field trips, dangerous experiments, etc. The idea was to produce more scientists and engineers than the Russians, which would somehow win the cold war.

My illusion of engineering was to wear a white shirt, narrow tie, and tweed suit. I suspect that I saw a real engineer once, and decided that all engineers must look like that. On my belt, I would carry a slide rule, which could produce answers to all math problems. I would sit at a drafting board, with my T-square and triangles. My boss would deliver a problem for me to solve, or a design to complete at appropriate intervals. I would product an india ink drawing of my design, which would be perfect the first time, and submit blueprints for approval. I would then build the prototype with the help of a small army of technicians, which would also be perfect and work the first time. After successfully completing the design, I would wait patiently for the next task. So much for my illusions of engineering. Unfortunately, reality has a way of tarnishing my illusions. My first real engineering job was a disaster. Not only did my design not work very well, but my inexperience with corporate politics nearly got me fired. I don't think there was a single mistake that I missed. I still have nightmares from that project. Oddly, I never considered giving up engineering, even though it was doubtful if I ever was going to design anything that actually worked.

I never mentioned this destruction of my illusions to the high skool students. I don't think any would have gone into engineering if I had mentioned it. However, I knew that all would go through a similar process at some time in their career. The guy in the YouTube video shows on extreme result of the process. He freaked out. The girl hasn't had her illusions shattered yet, and is still relatively sane.

True. However, a much larger number possess the somewhat lesser mental abilities necessary to be a mediocre engineer or manager. Nobody wants to consider themselves in that class, but there's a need for them, and both are honorable professions. For every great and brilliant engineer, there are a large mass of supporting engineers that do much of the grunt work that engineers tend to hate, and managers, that make the stupid decisions that engineers tend to hate. You don't have to try very hard to see where I fit.

pipe dream.

When I went to college in the 1960's it was somewhat worse. We had a large population of engineering students that were in college solely to dodge the draft. You can include me in that group. The result was about a 50% attrition rate. The standard introductory speech was "Look to your left and look to your right. One of them won't be there next year". Most of my friends dropped out thanks to freshman chemistry and later calculus.

Today, we don't have the incentives of the draft, cold war, or space race to inspire students to take up a career in engineering. If you really want more engineering students, just reinstate the draft.

Quantity is a poor substitute for quality, but managers do have to come from somewhere.

I wonder about the engineering students from India that post questions here and on LinkedIn.

I wonder what the dropout rate is there ?

hamilton