[OT-ish] It's Spring, when a young man's thoughts turn to

Getting the heck out of engineering school while he's still young!

For some reason, this year I'm getting mail directly from the "help me I have a month to get my senior project done" crowd. I always start by pointing them to their prof/teaching assistant/tutor/whatever, but it's hard to decide just how much help to give these guys (none is too little IMHO, but I certainly don't want to spend _much_). (It's a bit too late to point out that it's a bit too late to be starting -- but then, senior projects are about learning things like when to start, I suppose).

There needs to be a generic "So you need to finish your senior project" FAQ out there.

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www.wescottdesign.com
Reply to
Tim Wescott
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You should start selling parts kits with your inverted pendulum demo and point them to it to make a few quick bucks. :-)

Reply to
Joel Koltner

That really depends on how the question is asked. If its an "I'm an embedded systems master and have an emergency, I need to implement USB. Now I see USB but have doubt. How I implement USB?" Then 'none' is definitely not too little. If its an "I'm trying to use USB for the first time. I started off reading XYZ book, and most of it made sense. However, now I come to implement it it stops working after 5 minutes. I've tried A, B and C to debug the problem, but am having no luck. Can you suggest the next steps I should take" - then I will take the time to try and give an answer.

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Regards,
Richard.
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Reply to
FreeRTOS.org

Tim, You're wa-a-a-ay behind. I'm getting tons of "o-mi-gawd, I can't find a job" inquiries. It's terrible this year... anyone surprised ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

It seems that too often the FAQ answer should be: start it when you are a junior.

Ed

Reply to
ehsjr

Then they would not have any bearing on the real world.

You know, the world in which you are only told about the project

*after* the promised delivery date...
Reply to
cs_posting

I sometimes get those sorts of e-mails (almost always from one of a small handful of Asian countries). The "student" apparently has absolutely no technical knowlege/skills, and always demands "please send me source codes" or requests step-by-step instructions on how to design something. There's obviously no hope for a poor kid who's managed to make it through 3+ years of engineering school without learning much of anything. They appear unable to even use Google, which raises the question of how do they find the e-mail addresses of people to whom they send questions? Sadly, I've learned to ignore those e-mails.

Yup, "real" questions (even rather confused ones) on specific topics are always welcome -- though more so on newsgroups and mailing lists than via private e-mail. I usually try to point them towards an appropriate forum and then answer the question there (if I can).

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Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! I'm in direct contact
                                  at               with many advanced fun
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Reply to
Grant Edwards

...

I like it when the questions come early enough for the answers to be of possible use. We got to know Julius Kusuma when he was a senior at Purdue. It was clear then that he could think (and nobody here ever said "I told you so!"

Jerry

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Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
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Reply to
Jerry Avins

Guilty as charged! (The asking questions part. The thinking part I leave to you).

The Julius Kusuma ;-)

Reply to
julius

All from H1B holders.

Reply to
krw

Nope. Lots of "American names" :-(

...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

I was referring to my inbox.

Reply to
krw

Not me. I get them too.

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You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Considering why those are put off, I would consider it a personal problem most of the time.

Bob

Reply to
<castlebravo242

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

I am having a hard time finding job postings that I can apply for to fill out my unemployment insurance application on the internet. No I do not want a job and I do not want to put much effort into pretendinging that I do.

Bob

Bob

Reply to
<castlebravo242

I'd be happy to make one up for you, for a nominal fee. Almost no effort required on your part. Your rejection is guaranteed.

Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

That's the same deal you gave dimbulb?

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You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Well, I can certainly relate to that sentiment. How are senior projects typically assigned, anyway? Does the student get to pick a project and work on it, or is it "stock"?

Reply to
zwsdotcom

At my school, we were presented with a list of available projects at the beginning of the year and were asked to pick the three that we were most interested in and rank them. Our professors then did their best to accommodate everyone's top choices in forming groups. This was feasible at the institution I attended, where there were 80-100 students in the EE department.

Jason

Reply to
cincydsp

I'm envious! When I was a senior, they had just changed the curriculum to add the senior design class. And everybody had to do the same project. Hence I was lost since it required experience from many classes that I just never took. And thus I found comp.dsp. That was at Purdue.

Nowadays at MIT there are projects in almost each course, so the students get really good at project-oriented work from an early age. Of course, this makes ABET nervous because I think they currently require a capstone senior design class for EE.

Julius

Reply to
julius

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