Its been over three years, and I'd guess 90% of my class have never held a soldering iron.
They do, but the impression I get (in my experience anyway) is that universities don't really teach design very well at all. They focus more on analysis and theoretical mathematics.
My university threw some circuits at me and said "given this, calculate X,Y and Z". Very few lecturers seem interested in saying WHY certain components are chosen, and what compromises are made. So when students are faced with designing something, they often blindly fiddle with it hoping to make it work.
Then again, I'm probably just bitter. I think its stupid that even after
2 telecomms subjects, no one has explained how to actually get a signal from an antenna. We've done a fair amount of mathematical theory on modulation etc but there has been no 'applied' teaching. Even a qualitive explanation would be nice.
Well, you have pointed up a related, but separate issue; people who somehow think that a engineering degree is the goal, separate and apart from the study and knowledge it takes to achieve it.
In my retirement, I work part time as an instructor, teaching primarily PLC techniques and programming. Every now and again we get into a discussion that involves some sort of engineering calculation, for example, we might be discussing the issue of leakage current through an output module. I am absolutely flabbergasted at the number of recent graduates who do not remember the formula for capacitive reactance, because they "learned it four years ago," or even better,, those who aren't comfortable with numbering systems and codes. I would guess that 10% of the students I get are comfortable with the fact that FFFFh equals 1111 1111 1111 1111 binary and -1 decimal, without using a calculator to do the conversions.
Another interesting attitude I frequently encounter, which may be peculiar to the PLC situation, is the desire to fit square pegs into round holes because "I really understand square pegs." Most American PLCs use, among others, a form of programming called ladder logic, which is dead simple and is in reality "Visual Boolean." Ladder is great for what used to be called "Mickey Mouse Logic," manipulating messy truth tables one bit at a time. Many PLCs also support other languages; structured text, which is frequently similar to Pascal (!!), Function Blocks, Grafcet, Sequential Function Chart, etc. etc. Each has a sweet spot. What is absolutely amazing is the number of recent graduates who want to do everything in Structured Text, because they are good at C++. The fact that there is a simpler, more efficient way is rejected, because it involves learning something new.
Now, this is not to condemn all recent graduates. Many are indeed excellent. Now that I think of it, I guess what I am complaining about is the number of recent graduates who apparently studied "to pass the test," rather than to learn the material, and who got away with it for four years.
I met a guy with an Electronics degree (c. 1997ish) who said he has never touched a soldering iron.
He thought it was crazy too.
He said he got flustered when he went to interviews.
He never got a job in electronics, and is sorting mail for minimum wage.
I said "Well gee, I wouldn't give you a job either. You obviously don't have any drive to use the knowledge you have spent 3 years learning, you're so dumb you haven't figured out this is a major issue, you haven't even got a plan to address that issue, and you're so bone idle you haven't even built so much as a crystal set. I don't think any employer would be impressed to employ an EE that hasn't built anything significant, anymore than a surgeon who hasn't even practised on a cadaver."
I think he saw the point, but then promptly went back to doing nothing about it.
He still tinkers around with little .net projects, hoping somehow this will get him a job. I point out that taking many months to set up an internet equivalent of a lemonade stand won't cut it. Employers want to see you can do stuff under fire, or at least get a 2.1 degree in a full range of knowledge.
Oh well, I can only kick his butt in the right direction. If he won't use his feet, he doesn't deserve the job.
I read in sci.electronics.design that John Larkin wrote (in ) about 'Question for Win Hill/ Athlon64', on Sat, 1 Jan 2005:
"Chinese proverb" time:
I hear, and forget. I see, and remember. I do, and understand.
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk
I'd say not so much impossible or impractical, but so time and labor intensive that after learning how to do it 'the long way', with the math, it then became much more practical to do it seat-of-the-pants using one's own sound judgment. That was the art of it.
Don Lancaster said, "an hour in the library is worth a week in the lab", and learning from others' mistakes was prudent and timesaving. (or did he say a day in the lab? - whatever.)
I went to lunch at a Chinese restaurant recently, and my fortune cookie fortune was something like "you will receive something of great value soon." So I played the super lotto - and won absolutely nothing. :-/
I wish the fortune cookies would contain more "Chinese proverbs" and less fortunes.
Well, so far I'm barely understanding a lot of it. His main intent is to develop MOSFET models that factor-in their thermal characteristics during simulation of audio power amplifiers. The need to model the sub-threshold region is mentioned, but only in the context of distortion. Since he is using lateral power MOSFETs he does not need to bother to address and/or model the temperature effects on the bias.
Not sure I can agree with that. Curriculum's have always been lots of theory, but the theory is often irrelevant. Lets consider Maxwell's Equations in their full glory. What actually % of EE's design wave guides or antennas? 0.1%?
Kevin Aylward snipped-for-privacy@anasoft.co.uk
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SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture, Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.
It is highly unprofessional to simplistically reduce the size of the heatsink based on the statistics of audio waveforms. Serious audio designers know that one must simultaneously reduce the size of the power transformer and the filter caps to maintain the coveted peak-music-power rating.
I read in sci.electronics.design that BFoelsch wrote (in ) about 'Question for Win Hill/ Athlon64', on Sun, 2 Jan 2005:
Introduce the others to 1111 0000 1111 1111!
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk
That is absolutely normative for business degrees (MBA, etc.)...
The key intuition there, which a lot of people miss, is that a formula is just like a schematic - it reveals how something works. For many people, a formula is just a recipe for doing a calculation; they don't remember it because they don't think of it as working knowledge.
pernews.com>) about 'Question for Win Hill/ Athlon64', on Sun, 2 Jan
cookie
:-/
Yeah, heh-heh. Another Chinese restaurant we went to (there were three of us), we got done and the waitress give us our bill with the three fortune cookies. Only one out of the three had a fortune! I learned not to trust the cookie even having a fortune! :-P
You sleazy little weasel, you! I'll have to try that sometime!
We go to a place
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that's "upscale" at $20 a person and that's at lunch, it's even more at dinner. Luckily, I've lately been able to fenagle lunches there with one of our vendors, who foots the bill. Well, he ought to! We pay his company over a hundred thou a month! ;-)
I read in sci.electronics.design that mc wrote (in ) about 'Question for Win Hill/ Athlon64', on Sat, 1 Jan 2005:
But the gm doesn't. Current gain is a measure of a defect; base current should be zero.
[Ducks!]
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk
Companies are not totally ignorant... many that I know of now apply ranking to universities... for instance MIT's BSEE ranks well above the MSEE of most universities.
For that matter, the universities are getting smarter as well... high schools are ranked to qualify applicants... one school's "A" is another school's "C".
(I interview high school applicants in the Phoenix area as part of the admissions process to MIT.)
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
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