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Auburn University First To Offer Wireless Degree
EyesWideOpen writes "Auburn University in Alabama will become the first school in the country to offer a four-year bachelor's degree in the study of wireless technology this fall. Since its inception three months ago an estimated 30 to 50 students have signed up for Auburn's wireless engineering program. 'All engineering students are expected to complete liberal arts and general engineering classes the first two years of school. They then can focus on wireless during their last two years of study by taking courses such as Wireless Design Lab, RF Devices and Circuits, and 3G and 4G Wireless.'"
Wouldn't this kids be better off with a degree in EE, concentrating in wireless? That's like getting a degree in web services instead of Computer Science.
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3G and 4G Wireless
Oh, well, that's good. We all know that "3G" and "4G" are such important, well defined engineering terms.
Coming soon to the CS department "Software engineering principles of version 2 and version 3 software.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I'd hire a plain vanilla degree with good grades and from a competative university any day. In three years the current fads will have changed and only the basics will matter.
Why is this a distince degree? It would seem to be self limiting, yes?
"I'm sorry but the job opening is for advanced networking design, I'm afraid that only wireless won't cut it"
First of all, it shouldn't take four years to learn most of how any kind of networking works.
Yes, it does. And even more. I've worked for a telecom equipment maker for three years now, and the depth of this stuff can be mind numbing. It's a commonly uttered truism here that you need to be working for at least 1 1/2 years to be able to actually say you KNOW what you're doing, and it's not until you've been working with the same thing for around 5 years that you can be considered an expert. And that's living and breathing this stuff day in and day out, without English, arts, and all those other classes getting in your way.
While wireless is all "hip" and whatnot, you can't do everything wirelessly. Transmitting through thick rock and transmitting top secret data for example.
People shouldn't get into this because it's "hip". They should choose it for the same reason they choose ANY major: they should have a reasonable expectation that this is a line of work that they'll enjoy.
And we're not trying to do EVERYthing wirelessly. Just communicating.
However, if you're knowledgeable with both wired and wireless networks, you are of use to almost any company...
Heck, I could've been a janitor, and those are of use to any company. But again, that's not the point. People should major in this because it's something they think they'll enjoy doing.
Watch the Teaser Trailer for "The Lightning Thief" Her
"I know of EE's who think they dont need E-Mag because they are going to do VLSI."
this is off topic, but what you said is so true...when i was getting my EE undergrad degree, the technology that we were using was so coarse that secondary EM and micorwave effects were neglegible. then i graduated and was thrown right into the wonderful world of sum-micron design at Ghz speeds...guess what, now EM and microwave theory is very relevant...most students would understand this if they were exposed to the technology that industry uses, rather than lagging behind and having to catch up on 5 years of innovation after graduating.
specializing in a "wireless" degree is useless...if i was hiring...give me somebody with a strong background in EE and Physics over these cupcakes anyday.
dude.
This continuing trend to greater specialization is killing our ability to innovate. Different specialists can never communicate well enough to replace a multi-disciplined individual. Teamwork can only go so far. There is no substitute for knowing it all.
No - TeSLa patented a device to transmit ENERGY - he wanted to light light bulbs w/o wires using coupled resonant RF tank coils (Take that, Edison!). Marconi was the 1st to make and install useful wireless telegraphs and built a big business, altho he infringed on Tesla's patent in doing so. The patent office didn't catch the prior art and it was overturned by the Supreme court in the 1940's.
SEE the actual Tesla patent here and note that it says ENERGY, not INFORMATION.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
It depends on your school. CS, CmpE, and EE are all equally tough where I went to school. Management and IE (aka Imaginary Engineers) got our drop outs. Now THAT's the kind of thing that inspires cynicism in the workforce long before you enter it. All the washouts and losers are going to be your boss!
...You know, not being an over-priced community college and all.
Of course, we didn't actually have an MIS degree.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").