EE educations, worldwide?

Ah, but what about the Roman bridges that collapsed 1,000 years ago, and we've just never heard about them?

Michael

With courses that I deemed not too relevant my motto was: B is the A of the little guy. Whatever it took to get the degree, good enough. Guess what, nobody ever asked to see any of this stuff except gov agencies and those didn't care about the grades.

Some were abandoned and, of course, decayed. Vegetation overtook them, usually. The most sad case was a historic bridge in Mostar, former Yugoslavia. Fully functional and in active use. We sat there speechless in front of the TV when we saw a video from a newscaster showing how some rebels blew it up and made rubble out of it :-(

Minneapolis is a poor citation... those people are known crooks, taking maintenance funds and shuffling it into "pockets". Ultimately some heads will roll... only because some media types have latched onto it like a snapping turtle ;-)

I'm just asking for some percentages.

Do you know what the cost of a "Roman style" stone bridge, capable of handling 6 lanes in each direction, with semi-truck traffic would be ?:-)

Of course, 'twere I to peruse French records... something fails there daily ;-)

...Jim Thompson

I had to endure Samuelson's leftist weenie economic crap at MIT. First time through, "F", second time through I slept less, "D" (but only because "N" read it and explained it to me ;-)

Being in the honors EE program at MIT I had to take various courses, including Dynamics, with those people majoring on that area. But I found Dynamics interesting and got an "A".

I could barely cope with Atomic Physics, because I couldn't grab those little SOB electrons and take a good look at them... "D" :-(

...Jim Thompson

These days big companies seem much more concerned about your credit history and your general health. Talk about priorities...

I'm working a design right now where the major concern is the "report", NOT the quality of the circuit design :-(

...Jim Thompson

college level electromagnetism/waveguide/antenna courses are not terribly difficult. Vector calculus treatment for E&M problems is brilliant and quite intuitive. The problem is my college taught/teaches vector calculus in a pure math context then E&M was taught later. I could mathematically evaluate divergence, curl, gradient, integrals of line, surface, potential etc of vector fields but didn't really know what curl and div mean in physics context. when I was taught E&M and saw curl and div again, it was a real mess. I spent quite a lot of time in building the connection between vector cal and E&M, finally everything made perfect sense to me and I quite enjoyed it.

EM solver -- which is the numerical treatment of the Maxwell's equations is very important to microwave design. In many cases, it's very difficult to design good microwave circuits, enclosures, structures without a good em solver. Even matching component leads to a printed microstrip PCB can be challenging. Currently, I'm facing a problem of designing coax probe that can critically couple the incident wave into a cavity. It'd make my life much much easier if I have a full wave 3d solver. Many commercial solvers require certain level of field knowledge's to use it correctly and efficiently. A good RF engineer would not treat the solver as a black magic, so EM knowledge is important.

Calvin

Ahm, that kind of flaw wasn't detected by media types but by the Federales and it looks like it ain't the only state where they suspect similar issues coming.

Also, there have been more collapses than just this one.

Well, what can I say if Google doesn't find any major recent bridge collapses in Europe? Zero percent?

They sometimes used cheap labor. There are also some really old bridges with steel as the main support system. I rode to school across one as a kid and that thing is IIRC over 200 years old. Was built for horse carriage traffic and now trucks were rumbling over it, no sweat.

Bridges?

Yep, and credit histories can be full of flaws. But OTOH who wants to work for a company that pegs your ability to do circuit design against a credit history? When I came to the US I didn't even have one. I guess that would have really been a red flag for some Dilbert-class HR manager.

I sat in courses for MEs because I thought it was important to learn about structural engineering, stress fatigue and all that. Took the exam. Passed with flying colors. BIG mistake. The credit assignment computer errored and spit out my student ID number and that of two others as "non-belongers". They read us the riot act.

Well, as I have said before, my BS was in Psychology, so when I went back to school for my Masters in EE, it was an 'interesting' time.

Of course, I had been a hobbyiest and technician for years, so had a good 'intuitive' grasp of electronics. My first year, at UNM doing preliminary work in calculus, physics and diffeq, I had a 4.0. When I went to UCSB, though, it was harder, but for a different reason.

First, I decided to take some of the basics, circuit analysis, signal analysis, fields and waves, as I had never really had the 'math' side of that stuff. Big mistake. First, I started in January, and found out I had already missed the first part of circuit analysis, so I would be starting in the middle. Second, these were the 'weed' courses. There was reams of homework, rigorously graded, but fairly difficult exams, and I was up against a bunch of bright, over-acheiving sophmores, while I was an old (mid-30s), lazy, engineer type. Those kids ate my lunch as far as grades, and I found myself with a less than 3.0 GPA (a big No-No if you are a graduate student!)

The second quarter, I found out the secret - graduate courses! I could take take either circuits 3, or Microwave Circuits! It was my saving grace. In the standard class, there was an emphasis on basic theory, reams of repetitive homework, and anal grading of everything. In the graduate course, they focused on what was really important in the theory, gave interesting and difficult homework, but the grading was realisting and more constructive criticism than punishment. And finally, it was graded as a graduate course, so the typical grade was a B not a C!

Now, I still ended up in academic probation, partially due to problems in working with the Fields and Waves professor, but I did graduate!

Charlie

The last sentence sums it up. That's all that matters. And sometimes even that doesn't. Many of the great movers and shakers in electronics never graduated.

The Brat is at Cornell. She needs a 2.0 GPA to stay on the softball team, and she consistantly racks up 2.1's and 2.2's. I am immensely proud of having a kid with this level of finely calibrated skill.

John

My father used to say to me "You are always trying to hop onto the caboose when the train is already leaving. Some day you'll trip and fall off and then the train is gone."

I've never quite understood this obsession with sports at American universities. In Europe we had none of that. When you were at a technical school you learned engineering stuff and that's it. If you wanted to play league-level soccer, fine, but then you had to join a local club outside academia for that.

So, will she become president and CEO of Highlandtechnology after you retired to the islands?

It is sort of strange. At least Cornell doesn't have athletic scholarships, and athletics are strictly on top of a full academic load. US college football and basketball are a disgrace.

I'd love it if she was interested. Eventually I'll have to turn this mess over to somebody, or liquidate it. Liquidation would be a waste, because we have customers and "goodwill." and the thing could continue to grow. Too many small businesses die because there's no provision for succession, or because the kids get greedy and start squabbling. I'll probably hire her when she graduates next spring, and see what happens.

Of course, I'll need a lead technical guy too. She could maybe do the biz/money/management stuff, but has no instincts for electronics.

Interesting, I've never met a female circuit designer. Lots of programmers, lots of scientists, lots of managers, but no electronic designers.

John

I've met some of the results of that. They strike it big in sports, make money, become famous and then at 35 the joints are all worn out. So the first career is over. "Ah, but I've got an education!" Then you deal with people who have landed high level positions because of their celebrity status or whatever but don't have the foggiest how to run the new show.

Or they die because of death taxes. IIRC that's what wiped out Sam's Town. You might remember it from drives up to Tahoe, on the right side, Cameron Park exit. It was "the" place to stop for lunch for families with kids and tour buses.

Can you groom one of your own engineers into that direction?

Actually, I recently did at a client. She does a lot of the designs many other engineers wouldn't touch with a 10ft pole, including switch mode supplies.

The inheritance taxes are insane, and it takes a lot of bizarre, expensive planning to dodge them, life insurance and charitable trusts and all sorts of crazy schemes. The inheritance tax is the perfect mechanism for killing US businesses.

Dang, I'm already married!

John

Of course the Democrats want to roll-back to previous rates (as in INCREASE) the "death tax".

The real trick is to transfer as much wealth as possible to your children BEFORE you die.

Is there ANY Democrat here (setting aside any of your pansy war issues) that believes that Democrats are better for the economy than Republicans?

...Jim Thompson