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Why Students Are Leaving Engineering
Ted writes "A former engineering major has written an interesting article explaining why he thinks many smart students are not studying engineering anymore." Many business leaders have commented on the lack of engineers and several companies have even started initiatives to help bolster our diminishing ranks. Will these measures be enough, or does the system require much more drastic measures?
Individual with neither passion nor aptitude for engineering attempts engineering degree, finds it tough, fails, and blames the system. Aside from the math being hard, he complains that the parties were dull.
We should make our engineering programs easier and more glamorous so that more people can hack it. This will help our colleges turn out better scientists and innovators.
Yeah, yeah. The complaint is familiar. In my undergraduate career, we routinely had to deal with taking 13 credit hours of science courses like chemistry, molecular biology and genetics, slaving away in labs until late into the evening while friends taking business courses were taking 18 credit hours for classes that started at 10:00am and were finished by 3:00pm.
Any of us in the sciences can relate horror stories like the molecular neurobiology exam that I took where upon receiving my midterm exam found myself stunned to be looking at a grade of 48%. My look of pain caused the professor to exclaim to me: "What are you worried about? You got the class high". Or how about the mid level Calculus course I took that was taught by a TA who could speak little english, but perfect Russian and often lapsed into it along with weird non-traditional symbols. She routinely exclaimed to us that we were stupid and she should not be teaching a "remedial" class, which honestly may have been, but for someone who came into the sciences from being a film major, I needed the refresher as the only previous Calculus I had was in high school.
But you know what? Science and engineering are hard. That's the honest truth. The classes are difficult, and sometimes you need to show initiative by going outside the class to other resources to master the material in the face of crappy teaching assistants. Part of the system is making it through all of the obstacles like late nights of study, long hours in the lab, poor teaching assistants, etc...etc...etc... It shows that you can 1) persevere, 2) learn, 3) troubleshoot and 4) Work Hard. I am not saying that things should not be improved. Rather, I think they should be improved, but I don't want our scientists, physicians and engineers to be sliding by either.
For those students who may be learning challenged, I am sensitive to those issues as well, but there may be some things that are simply not achievable for all students. That is a reality and those students should be counseled to pick a major that is doable for their skills. Or they should simply realize that it may take them longer to graduate. And before anyone starts shouting me down on this, you should know that I have dyslexia and tend to be a slow reader which makes things for someone with a doctorate a bit hard, but this is the career I wanted and to compensate, I spend more time reading than my colleagues. I knew I could hack it though and just work harder than others to stay current.
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1) Alot of work
2) Alot of theory with little practice
3) Less time to socialize (alot of work)
4) Pay is less than other professions that require less work.
5) No girls in class, and at work after you graduate.
Did I miss something?
From the Article: "Find a way to teach engineering to verbally oriented students who can't learn math by sense of smell."
I've gone back and forth and back again on this...and right now I'm of the mind that if you can't learn math by sense of smell, well, na-na-na, hey-hey-hey goodbye. Nobody held my hand through Asian, Russian, German and Indian math and computer science profs and incompetent grad student assistants and a myriad of other difficulties (in getting a BA mathematics). Yeah, it's not a perfect world, but if this kid was half as smart as he thinks he is, he'd have made it despite any obstacles. I mean, he kept going on about being a "verbal" learner...and if you're out there, dude, math is not a "verbal" topic...just FYI.
I Want To Believe
Simple answers: P*ss-poor pay, insane hours, unreasonable deadlines and no real power. I was a senior software engineer, and lived through all that, and hated that part of my chosen career. Watching morons making more money, making decisions based on ?horoscopes? ?coin tosses? ?eeny meeny miney moe? really sucked rocks.
Since then, I've steered bright kids into an engineering *hobby* and a far more lucrative, less stressful career in management.
Lemon curry?
I can see it now. Cue the chorus of people who say, "this guy must be dumb, no wonder he washed out."
You know what? Bullshit. He has a point.
During my four years of undergraduate, I did my share of engineering, CS, physics, and I threw in an extra liberal arts minor just because I was bored. My experience was exactly like his. The only difference is that I didn't want law or medicine, and was determined to suffer.
I learned mostly outside of class - primarily on the job (I paid for school by already working in the field I was studying). There are always exceptions, and exceptional teachers. Few and far between. For the most part the place was ridiculous, and I constantly pitied the kids who had to actually rely on the teachers to learn.
The sad fact is, the pedagogical technique is absolute shit at the university level. Absolute shit, even in some of the supposedly "great" American schools. The comparison to the secondary level, with its few remaining standards and shattered, vague but lingering sense of professionalism, is stark. These people often have no idea how to teach, and there is very little expectation that they should. There is no requirement for communication skills, metaphorical skills, or even language skills. The grading practices are ludicrous - almost dadaesque. There is no oversight. No standards. For fun, add critical first year classes with 250 students to a teacher. And of course, quite a few of them just plain suck altogether. As an educational environment, it is completely out to lunch.
The math curricula is particularly noxious, but the problem is by no means limited to mathematics. The best I can say of them is that the department may have seen itself as a filter rather than a teacher, selecting the few people who already know as much as they do and can prove it through arcane and torturous inquisition, and discarding the rest. But were they really such big believers in "natural talent" and "high standards?" This theory flies out the window when you see the entire class curved up 50 points. I once saw someone who failed a midterm and skipped a final curved up to a C-. It wasn't about standards. It was just completely non-functional. But this guy expresses it much better than I do.
Making excuses for these people is pointless. If you paid thousands of dollars to learn Differential Equations and got a gibbering 24 year old who barely understands them himself and can even more barely speak your language to explain it, you just got robbed.
I hate to say it, but it feels like the final stages of the great educational decline. We've been letting the public educational system burn at every level for decades, and now I think our higher educational institutions are finally starting to break...
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engineering is supposed to be hard and a great achievment. it's only in managment fantasy land that it's an easily replacable position.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
In my field, we've seen almost a 40% increase in undergrad enrollment over the past few years, so I doubt that it's every engineering field that's losing students. Sure since the tech bubble burst, students that would have studied a CS or related field might rethink their plans and pick a different major, but that's not every field. Nuclear, Mechanical, Chemical, Civil, etc etc have all seen steady increases in enrollment. It's most likely just students forecasting what field they think they can get a job in based on the current day demand.
My Starting Salary was $60000 a year with an EE degree from a lesser known Engineering School. Name a profession where you can make more with a bachelor's degree.
Well, interesting thoughts on his part, but the truth is that all curriculums have weed-out courses or they are not worth a damn. Discrete math is used for a weed out on CS because it IS the core of CS (it is a fun course, though). Likewise, it makes a good wee-out for any major that requires it. Many ppl just do not get it.
With that said, this guys real problem was not that the university was too tough. The real problem is that his high school did not prepare him. More likely, it coddle him into thinking that he was one of the top. However, with US grade inflation, he was most like average. Hitting top course right off the bat would be difficult.
Now, as to the prof who could not teach, well, there are a lot of them out there. No university and curriculum is immune from it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Companies are giving real incentive to be an engineer.
That's what I did, and now I'm in med school, training for a job that can't be outsourced.
Well, I can give you my perspective.
I'm a college freshman. I eventually want to be an engineer.
I also want to learn other things too. Enginnering schools are simply not conducive to doing that. Every course you take is likely to be tied to your major in some way or another. That doesn't sound very fun to me.
Right now, I'm taking Psychology and Economics in addition to the requisite Physics & Calc I'll need to go to grad school for enginnering. Although I don't see myself becoming an economist or psychologist, I'm thoroughly enjoying the courses, and can definitely tie what I'm learning back into real life and just about any career I choose to go into.
Next semester, I'll probably be taking some english, and possibly some history. I really don't think I could bear loading my schedule full of science courses (which tend to have a disproportinately large workload). Friends I have at engineering schools seem to be bored out of their minds and stressed beyond reasonable limits.
Simply put, if you become an engineering student, and find out that you hate it, you're pretty much screwed. If I end up not going into engineering, I'll still have a great liberal arts education to fall back on, and at the very least, I'll be able to write well.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Engineering is too important to be easy. The right way to get more engineers into circulation would be better pay -- it's basic supply and demand. When demand exceeds supply, prices must go up.
It's funny how corporations love economics right up until the point where it involves paying intelligent people higher wages.
Instruction in math, engineering, and sciences is abysmal. At least, according to the author.
I had some phenomenal instructors at my own Smartypants U, but there were some bad ones, too. And even the best of them sometimes failed to communicate the concepts well. Ideally there would be plenty of instructors who can really capture the students' imagination and communicate the joy and beauty of the ideas underlying mathematics, computer science, and engineering. Lord knows that these fields have no shortage of beautiful and powerful ideas.
However, it seems to be true that teaching is undervalued in the typical faculty job. There aren't many reliable metrics taken, and of those that are, there seems to be little accountability for poor performance. For research output, on the other hand, judgement is precise and swift. Under such a regime, how can one blame a professor for focusing on his research? Certainly there are many cases of faculty who are brilliant researchers and teachers, but in the more marginal cases, it's typically the teaching that gets the short end of the stick.
For the long-term health of mathematics and science, I think more focus must be on inspiring students within those fields, and that requires uniformly good teaching and advising. How we get there, I have no idea.
My brother is a mechanical engineer. Nobody is breaking down his door to hire him away from a dwindling company. He often has to fly to Asia to train others how to replace him and his coworkers for less money. He is looking to start up a non-engineering business of some kind to make good money the way most of his successful friends do: start their own (non-tech) business and master it over time. The "American Education Dream" is dwindling. The real money in the US is in salesmenship and ownership.
Table-ized A.I.
Could it simply be that an average engineer-to-be looks at countries like China and India where engineering is becoming *the* career choice (including software engineering) and given that engineering profession is highly outsourceable chooses some other more locale-dependent career like doctor or lawyer? It is kind of difficult to compete with someone who is willing to work for a fraction of your salary... At the same time, accepting lower salary is not an option because of the difference in the cost of living. Thus, bye-bye engineering career.
"You mortals are so obtuse." -Q
The author is spot on in quite a few respects - engineering is more a test of endurance than intelligence. Professors are assigned courses that have nothing to do with their areas of research, and it shows. Most TAs hate their jobs and constantly attempt to unionize because of poor working conditions.
Shortly before I started engineering, a crazed physics TA went on a shooting rampage through my campus, killing seven people before he turned the gun on himself. Yes, being a TA at a major university can be a very bad career move.
Get as much education as you can from a community college, where teaching is the main goal and not a sideline. It will do wonders for your GPA.
University Professors take a liking to students for the flimsiest of reasons - in my case, after compiling twm for hpux and replacing vue, my 68000 assembler professor hounded me to enter graduate school (an offer I sanely declined).
The whole system is a sham. Worthless waste of time, just to have a line item on your resume.
You know, the guy in the article could almost be describing my school (Georgia Tech), except that I haven't noticed as many incompetant teachers, and they seem to care more (but then again, it could very well be that the guy was ignoring the help available).
However, despite the school tradition of complaining, it's almost always self-deprecating humor rather than genuine unhappiness. Around here, we take pride in our 40%s, when the average is 20% -- numbers don't mean anything without context, after all. Also, most of us were warned before even applying to the school that we should expect our grades to average a letter grade below what we got in high school.
You're absolutely right: this guy has completely the wrong attitude, so it's no wonder he gave up. It's just as well, too: everyone I've met with his kind of attitude would have made a horrible engineer anyway! As my Statics professor says: "When engineers make mistakes, people die. You must be ever vigilant, and you must be perfect." And the only way you can do that is if you really enjoy what you're doing.
If this guy did become an engineer, he'd kill people!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Alternatively, kids are increasingly being told that they must make money fast. We have spoiled children and criminals who have done little if any work at all levels of government, while the ones who have genuinely studied and work hard to advance human knowledge, and in the process create the knowledge that allows engineers and businessmen to create all the products we rely on, are vilified.
I mean who wants to be a science teacher if parents are going to say you are a devil worshipper. Who wants to be a math teacher if all the people in power say they never were good at math and it never did them any harm. Who wants to be an english teacher if the highest authorities are saying they never read. And without someone to teach kids these skills, there really are no engineers. And increasing the hostile environment, at leas in the US, is causing fewer students to enter American universities from abroad, which ultimately has a significant impact on the ability of the US to peacefully spread it's message of democracy.
A less touchy issue is simply the time needed to get an engineering degree and funding. A student will often need 5 years to get an undergraduate, and, if he or she wants job security, will probably wish a masters which is two more years. There are fields in which one can make as much money after going to school for less time. There are many degrees in which you can still party your freshman year and pass your classes. There are many degrees that you can finish in four years, and not risk having your funding cut off because you are not making suitable progress.
In the end, we are not training engineers. When I was in school, the number of qualified students at the high school and college level were high. It was a challenge to get into programs. The focus on national testing is reducing the number of students who can independently and creatively solve problems, and as a result reducing the number of students that are currently qualified to enter the programs. Popular schools have to turn people away, but the rest go out begging for minimally qualified students.
If we, as a nation or world, believe we already know everything, that everything can be gotten from a single book, then no engineering is needed. IMHO, we need to be curious, know that the universe is more interesting than a story told in a few pages, and be humble enough to admit that we cannot completely understand the mind, intent, or complete working of what we each consider holy.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
There are those that have said that this must have occurred because this guy lacked aptitude or passion, but having seen a large number of people with both who simply got caught up in an often fickle system where if you entered during the wrong semester, you got Professor X, who was interested in the reputation of his school (and thus wanted to make the course "hard") but was totally uninterested in whether or not his students learned anything (because he had research to do or books to write or whatever else). This is more avoidable as an undergraduate than as a graduate student, and the fact of the matter is, there were courses where the folks that excelled were the people who'd taken the course before. Or (more often) the large groups of people who were cheating.
Science and math are hard, and anyone who tells you differently is selling something. The thinking isn't "better" than in the liberal arts, but the learning curve is steeper, and it's frankly a lot more work. I've done both, and it is a lot more work. But there are plenty of talented individuals who really want to work in engineering fields who simply get to the point where they say "screw this" because they realize that research universities are, in general, a lot more interested in funding and their reputations (often apparently judged by how many people they cut from the program in the first semester) than actually teaching anyone anything.
People, as they grow up, learn to cut their losses. We need to start worrying about the quality of education and not necessarily only admitting those to the discipline who will say "Yes, sir, can I have another" after every boot to the head.
... and those of us who stuck it out, who were able to look past our GPA's, who were able to realise "hey, getting a 55% on an exam is OK if the average was a 45%", we are enjoying better than average pay and benefits in our engineering jobs. You get back what you put in. Freshmen engineeering courses are BUILT to weed out the weak, the people who won't stick it out.
-everphilski-
The author takes his own personal experience and tries to extrapolate it to "thousands" of other students. What bullshit.
My first chemical engineering professor (Dr. Edmond Ko) set me on fire. He taught us how to solve problems. He even built up our confidence with his great proclamation: "I can solve any engineering problem. I simply apply the same principles, be it chemical engineering, mechanics, electrical engineering, whatever. Once I apply basic principles, I can look up any specific equations or methods I may need." He made us believe we could do the same.
Throughout my engineering studies, I had professors that blended humor, real world experience, and good 'ole basic problem solving to give me and my fellow students the tools to succeed. To this day, I still attribute my success to their efforts.
Did I have bad professors? Yes. I had the ones who had no heart for teaching, passed the buck to untrained TAs (who were just as frustrated as me), and couldn't teach a fish to swim. But they were few and far between.
Engineering is in trouble in the US not because of education but because of the business world. Why study engineering when some bonehead MBA can get a big bonus while still screwing things up? (And I have an MBA!) Why devote your skills and time to building a great product when your job is going to be shipped overseas anyway? I, like many other engineers, came out of college eager to apply my skills and help build new products and processes. It's been the business world, and its utter lack of respect for the abilities of engineers, that's crushed my love of engineering.
-- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
When I went through the weed-out courses in college, all I can say is "Thank God they were there."
I was working at the time. A co-worker of mine attending the same college would approach me around the end of every semester and ask for "a little help with an assignment." Usually it was several assignments, two of which were late and the last of which was the final "hard" project that was due in a couple of days, and the cow-orker was completely lost. It wasn't a "little help," it was "please do my work for me." I would give broad hints, but not any code. Three or four semesters of this, and the person was gone.
If I was working with that person today . . . *shudder*. I have worked with some folks who apparently skated through coursework and managed to get hired anyway, and it can be pretty miserable. [Hint: You want your 'A' people to hire more 'A' people. Not 'B' people. 'B' people hire 'C' people and then you are totally screwed and you might as well toss in the hand-grenade and start another company.]
Any sufficiently advanced technology is insufficiently documented.
... and that, children, is why there's so much shitty bloatware. Good night.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I don't mean to be mean, but sometimes certain people need to be weeded out of programs. I hate to criticize someone, but six times on a titration experiment? After the first time you fail you think you'd learn from your mistakes. As a former mechenical engineering major who switched to be a mathematics major I can empathize. I came from a good high school and took many challenging courses and did well on many AP test. College is quite a transation in many ways, it can be a difficult one. However, if you are failing out of Discrete Mathematics (the easiest math course, besides college algebra) and you can't handle the experiments in a chem lab, maybe you aren't cut out to be an engineer. The courses are challenging, at least you found out early on that you weren't up to it.
Calling himself a washout is the only thing he got right in this article. Plain and simple: engineering school did not fail him, he failed engineering school.
I do not think that Kern said things in the right way, but I generally agree with him. Look guys, engineering is not about pain and suffering. An engineering curriculum should help you learn about a limited set of facts and theoretical basics that will enable you to solve complex design tasks that real-world situations will throw at you. It is increasingly obvious that the ability to design creative solutions to real-world problems is at a premium (and this is not something that a typical curriculum teaches). Pain and suffering are not part of that equation. Kern is pointing out that there is an unnecessary amount of pointless heartache, wasted hours in lectures given by inept teachers, and horribly crafted textbooks. To those of you who get on people's cases when they complain about the inefficiency of the engineering-education situation: Aren't you just bragging? Or lying? Or just beating your chest because you were able to manage the pain?
I think the most important part of his article came at the end:
I'm not sure if Kern meant this in the way that I take it, but to me he hit it right on the head. It's about design. The ability to solve certain known sets of problems computationally is essentially solved--it can be delegated out to machinery or people in other countries, even if they don't speak your language. The most interesting problems facing people these days are those that are not well-defined, or "wicked" problems as some would call them, and the only way to solve them--to engineer a solution--is by a human being, well-versed in the subject area, to creatively apply their knowledge to the area.
Good design can't be automated, but this automation is exactly what the American engineering environment is producing, because of this machoistic culture that has taken root. Engineering students are rewarded when they are able to play to a system that assesses everything that is quantifiable. Those things that are not quantifiable (such as the ability to effectively solve problems with teams or design new solutions to problems) are not graded and therefore students can't afford to spend time honing those skills. I think Kern is right; we have an engineering education system that is inefficient, and I think that system is producing exactly the wrong kind of engineers for the American engineering environment to be sustainable in the future.
Who wants to compete with engineers in India who are happy to work for $50 a month?
Yes, there are some jobs that must be done locally, but the supply/demand ratio looks grim. Seems like a lot of hard work and expense to compete for such dismal prospects.
Still, engineering makes a lot more sense than computer science, which in turn makes a lot more sense than math.
Law school is the only way to go. An easy $150K after a few years. In the future, all USA citizens will make their living suing each other.
1) Engineering programs are generally-speaking harder.
2) It's hard to party the night away when you have 20 FSA's to compile into REGEXes. See 1)
3) Some see it as ``grunt'' work with no future, and in particular, no economic future due to dubious hiring practices abroad.
Hence, while previously a lot of people went into say, CS, because it was a money tree, now the only people hanging in there are those that actually are interested in CS.
I was on the fence whether to mod or post on this thread, but you just tipped me to post.
You're right that engineering schools in general aren't conducive to learning much liberal arts/history/whatever (though some may do a decent job of it). Science curricula, however do allow for more of the liberal artsy stuff, and will let you go into engineering later if you want, or something liberal artsy (with maybe a technical twist) later. I did physics (and eventually went on to a PhD in it) and managed to study abroad, take history and lit classes, be involved in extracurricular stuff that I'm still glad I did 20 years later. My current job is on the line between science and engineering (tips back and forth), but also occasionally benefits a lot from my liberal education.
A friend did a similar thing, doing chemistry and art history, and uses knowledge of both as a preservationist.
Another friend did biochemistry, also managed to spend a year abroad as an undergrad, is extremely well rounded in science and literature , and went on to a PhD in physics and is now a professor of engineering.
So my advice, if you like science and engineering and technical things, but also like the "soft" stuff, is to go science. Some schools even (in my opinion correctly) put science in the same college as literature and arts, rather than with engineering. Science (the real deal, with calculus and all) is as much a part of a good liberal arts education as art and literature are. If you go with a non-science major, getting into an engineering job or grad school could be hard, and if you go into engineering it could be tough to get into a non-engineering field. If you do a science major with a strong emphasis in a non-science thing, you can probably go either way.
If you want my opinion as to what science will be hot for a long time, it would be neuroscience, but you'll be better at it if you do it in a physics or chemistry (or electrical engineering) department rather than a dedicated neuroscience dept.
I originally started out as a Computer Science major at Georgia Tech. I, however, left that school after my first year, and am studying Psychology at a state university. (I didn't leave because of grades either -- I left with a 4.0 GPA)
I'm way too social of a person for my own good sometimes, and I had a terrible time finding friends who were interested in anything that I liked. Nobody to go to concerts with at the various great venues in Atlanta. Plus, the school was fairly "greek or die" with respect to socialisation, and I despise the Greek system by and large (and I did, in fact, pledge a fraternity despite that) so my options were a bit limited. My impression of most of the other engineers/science majors there was that they were very antisocial, introverted people, whereas I was not.
Having switched to a school with few engineers, and changed my major to an outwardly-focused one, I'm so much happier.
I would bet there are other engineers/computing majors like myself who are smart enough to "hack it" in the program, but for one reason or another, simply cannot deal with the lifestyle that goes along with it.
A lot of the time the professors just don't understand how LITTLE you know. It is like you are in 1st grade and they are reaching down to 7th grade to try to introduce 12th grade concepts.
I had a very smart college professor (Dr. Verma) who was notorius for being a very hard class (even weedout levels- 50% drop/fail rates). Here is the tip that gave us close to an 85% pass rate that semester.
I figured out to ask him for a "trivial" example. When he gave a "trivial" example, at least half the class would understand what he had been trying to explain for 15 minutes. And often, the understanding was like "Oh my god- that's so easy, why was he saying it so complicated?"
Sometimes, all you need is just to comprehend a little edge or corner of the problem and suddenly the entire problem just peels open for you. The professors are speaking in jargon that you barely comprehend- if you can get them to drop the jargon and give an easy example in english, it may help.
Good luck!
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I agree with many of the points in this article and the Parent here. but bear in mind, I am not a subject of the American education system, I was born, educated, live and work in Australia.
I studied Electrical Engineering for 2 years before dropping out and switching to Computing/IT. The reason for my choice, Well, at the University I went to the Electrical Engineers were few and we were lumped into the classes and courses of other streams, Mechanical, Civil and Mining engineering studies. Whilst there are many common themes and subjects that these streams share, what they don't is vastly different. We once brought our concerns to the assistant head of the school who told us that once we finished the subjects we would see the relevance, he once told us "Electricty in a circuit is just like water in a pipe"
That coupled with the fact that many of the good teachers were leaving the school to be replaced with Engineering lectures that had, at best, an arts degree and a year or 2 in management, I decided that the time had come.
But once in Computing and as a whole the greater IT world I discovered why this is so. Universities need to pump out students to get reputations, the reputation leads to more students, Students = Money. Subjects are not taught at University, they are presented. the learning is more or less up to the students. however this creates problems of understanding. I know a 4th year honours student in computing who was afraid to install a sound card.
That aside the University enviroment helped me because I formed a good group of friends and since we were all in the same boat we managed to pull each other through. It's that communal enviroment that still makes University worthwhile
I now work at a company that offers IT Training and Certifications. we have many students, and while I would love to train each one to fully understand the Microsoft Windows system so that the MCSA exam material becomes second knowledge to them, that is not what they pay for, they pay money to get a certification. Students = Money, and if you have 'Money' you can equal 'Student' anywhere.
The reason I highlight this fact is that these are the expecations that our students have, that they can buy an education, and unfortunatly there is very little evidence to suggest that this is not true.
And this does not even begin to question the examination practices that simply prepare students to memorise slabs of text and develp no real problem solving abilities. Which is also a major problem in my eyes, in IT and Engineering. Why is this the case? Because standard mutiple choice/solve problem X for Y is much easier to mark, and we can get a computer to o it. who wants to read through an exam and see if the student has developed an understanding fo the material. Not us in IT certification it seems.
But how do you fix the system, change the expectations and really teach the material? University does prepare the students for the real world. it's a pity that this is what the real world wants.
Leg Godt
"You just wait," I thought, gazing upon them like the ant regarding the grasshopper in the summer. "You party and blow off homework now, but in ten years, you'll be making merely wonderful money as investment bankers and consultants, while I'll be getting laid off from a great job at General Electric."
Business increasingly treats math & science talent as fungible and freely exchangable across borders, in an effort to cut costs, and salaries fall. And we all know how much social status and respect we afford to those skilled in math & science, right?
Add that to hit-and-miss quality of instruction, and in some cases, an intentionally withering gauntlet to run, and I agree with the author. The truly smart are looking elsewhere.
Me, I studied Mathematics.
Tweet, tweet.
hear my story, and learn why the United States lacks engineers.
There is no complex cause for the engineering shortage. It's all right here, in his story. Only in his story. Hear it and learn.
Remember: Kern = real good at math and science.
Just because he got a 43 on a physics final, don't think he's dumb. Oh no! It was the system. The bad TAs. The ignorant teaching he got. He's quite smart, you see. Why? Well, because he says so right there.
"Discreet Mathematics" is "how Kern dropped that class along with the rest of his engineering course load and signed into liberal arts classes, all on the last day he was eligible to do so, because he couldn't stand the stress, abuse, and lack of comprehension anymore."
Apparently, getting a 2.7 GPA is considered abuse. Maybe he should be calling his lawyer. We don't want his inner child stressed any more.
I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong. She was as American as I am. Spoke perfect colloquial English.
It seems that if someone can't communicate with him, we are to immediately assume that she's not a native English speaker, because, well, it couldn't be HIM that's the problem, right? After all, Kern is smart.
If you want more engineers in the United States, you must find a way for America's engineering programs to retain students like, well, me
No explanation for the self-centerdness needed here.
Personal note: I say these things as a man who went through something similar. I graduated High School with honors, got scholarships to college to study engineering, then found it exceedingly harder than I had ever imagined school could be. I matched Mr Kern's 2.7 GPA my first semester. I endured for a few years before Engineering school kicked my ass, and I flunked out. Not just the engineering program, but college entirely.
And I moped.
Then, six months later, I decided I was going to finish what I started, and I worked for three years just to earn enough money to pay my way back to finish college. Three years after I re-enrolled, I graduated with a Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering.
I graduated. I didn't bitch that the System wasn't to *MY* liking. I didn't whine that education had to change to keep more students like *ME*. I didn't complain when I had bad TAs as instructors. I didn't automatically assume that when an instructor and I couldn't communicate, it was due to their lack of mastery over the English language. I persevered.
That's what *I* did.
I didn't write an article blaming my quitting engineering on the system that didn't adapt itself to keep students like *me* around.
That's for a certain liberal arts major to do.
Watch the Teaser Trailer for "The Lightning Thief" Her
I'm in my 4th year...and still have at least 2 to go. Did the teachers suck in the beginning? yes. Did I take classes from teachers that had seemingly intimate relationships with the chalkboard they talked to throughout class? yes. Did I quit, hell no. I stuck it out, and am still sticking it out. Turns out, once I got past the weed-out classes, and GE(still have some GE to take, *shivers*, ugh), the classes were awesome. Also turns out, some of that crappy teachers I had for weed-out classes....they are good teachers. Many of them have no patients for freshman-sophomore students because they know most of them can't hack it anyways. Once I got to upper-division, they assumed I was there for the long run and start to teach/treat me like a real person.
I've often wondered if I should have chosen a different major. But that would be taking the easy way out. So what if its hard, I'm an engineer, that's what we do.
anyways...gotta get back to writing that lab report, and not partying, not studying, and not usually getting A's.
Basically he went to some grade-inflated little nursery school his whole life and then discovered that he had no skills to survive in a real school. Big shock there. The real problem is that his high-school was not tough enough. He should have properly found out that he wasn't the genius he thought he was in junior high and high school and been steered away. I guaranty those courses aren't as tough as he thought they were, it is not as if foreign engineers have it easier. They have it tougher from the beginning so they self-select.
I met this guy who was a web developer, worked hard, overtime , for crap wages, etc. He got laid off sent out 200 resumes and not getting a single interview. Now he owns a convienience store and rakes in the bucks. He went and sold $900 worth of champagne he bought at Costco for $4000 on New Years Eve! I met a guy who was an ex-molecular biologist doing mortgage brokerage which is glorified undergraduate business school homework and was making $26,000 a month out of his freakin apartment (NO this was not an MLMer trying to sell me shit, an actual good friend of a family member).
As an engineer I wouldn't recommend going into it unless you really like it and you're really good at it. Even if you're good you run into a big wall called marginal income taxes and the alternative minimum tax, if you work for a salary, once you start making six figures.
Going into engineering for the money is far more attractive for people who live in countries where the wage scale is wildly skewed to the point where you can live very well on a regular salary if you're an engineer making $20 an hour because the guy who works at the supermarket or cuts your hair or makes your clothes or cooks for you makes $2 a day (80 times less than what you make) not the $12/hour or even higher union wage they're making here.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"Every one of use who's stumbled through this kind of course and walked out with a 45% average and a B+ knows that something is rotten in the state of Denmark" Sorry about that. Every one of us might not know that something is rotten in the state of Denmark -- that's a Hamlet reference, for you humanities-deprived folks.
Tweet, tweet.
I graduated from Lafayette College with a Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Lafayette is mostly considered a small liberal arts college, but it has a very strong engineering program. Total size of the school is about 2000 students. It is considered part of the Little Ivy League, though formally that doesnt really exist.
In my opinion, you get what you pay for. Lafayette was small enough that I knew every professor and every student in my department. They knew me as well, and my grades in every class, even outside of the department. I don't think you can get that kind of personalized attention at a larger school. All of the classes were taught by professors. Never was there a T.A.
I mainly learned from lectures. The expensive $100 dollar a pop books were usually references guides for me. The professors knew their craft. And the course load was reasonable.
One issue that we had that first, my class was the first class of ECE majors. The college had decided to scrap their EE degree in favor of a mixed ECE degree. My class was the only class that was allowed to chose. Everyone before us was an EE, while any new freshmen were all ECE majors. The fact that we were the guinea pig class may have lightened the work load a little, but the move from EE to ECE was just shuffling around some classes and adding some Comp Sci classes.
On the flip side though, the whole college was also changing from the 5-3 system to the 4-4 system. The 5-3 system is you take 5 course for 3 credit hours a semester while the 4-4 is 4 classes for 4 credit hours. As an engineer I always had to take 5 classes regardless. But any class taken outside of the engineering department was now beefed up with usually more writing (Damn those humanities requirements).
Again, you get what you paid for.
Small school, low student professor ratio, less chance to do some meaningful research, less known name on the diploma, and also usually in the middle of nowhere(Easton, PA isnt exactly a happening place)
Larger school, large city (usually), large classes, less interaction with faculty, more known name, bigger research being done.
I enjoyed going to Lafayette. I had enough free time, each semester usually only had 1 maybe 2 really difficult classes, while the rest were easy.
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The article to me has some glaring misconceptions. The main one being that the writer believes that has a highschool science star he should have been able to master an engineering degree. AP courses help, but american highschool are woofully inadequate in preparing students for college.
I went to an international school and took the International Baccalaureate http://www.ibo.org/. It is an internation highschool degree program that tests and scores you on an internation level which is recognized by universities around the world while a regular american highschool diploma is not.
Grade inflation is not just occuring in colleges but start at elementary school. Getting an A in the US is just too simple. Too many straight A students are not really all they are cracked up to be.
Thus, I dont see a problem with the teaching being to difficult, to me it seemed like he had an over inflated ego by being the valedictorian of his class and never actually learned the way to learn in highschool. The fact that he switched completely out of the science field just shows me that he shouldnt have been an engineer.
I also think that the fact that the comp sci field has become increasingly more popular over the years, it is taking away a lot of the students that would have gone into engineering in the past.
The article reads too much like a blog entry then a news report. No input from the college stand point nor is there a student point of view of those who have managed to go through the program where he was successfully.
Flawed article.
Iceman
This is HYSTERICAL. A school with "engineers" and millions for so called amature sports, and no one can cob job their own desks back together? glue, screws, a clamp? the tech leaders of tomorrow who will take us to mars and give us mr. fusion reactors? HAHAHAHA! A simple door off a hinge repair, and NO ONE does it in a year?
sounds like some people are studying being "elite" more than learning to become practical engineers.
No, I don't want to hear "it's not your job" either or you pay blah blah blah. Sometimes you just chip in and get something done, don't wait for an invite in the real world.
Down the street from me is sort of a weird intersection, the weeds grow real high quickly, blocking the view so you can't tell if a car is coming around the corner or not making it hazardous. Ya, the county mows it once a month, sometimes that isn't enough. solution! Take weed whacker in trunk of car, stop, get out, and HORRORS OF DE HORRORS do something practical that benefits the neighbors and me just for the hell of it! And not get paid! And it's not my job! And it costs time, and uber leet mad weed whacking skillz! The horrors!
MUAHAHAHAHAHA!
not trying to flame, but really............organize a dang fix up party with your buds and some brewskis some weekend, fix the desks and the doors and the leaks. Maybe after the school newspaper covers the action (don't leave out the contrast with the stadium, nice set of before and after pics, etc), it will embarass the school and alumni enough so they will fund the maintenance department better.
As to bad professors, no idea other than I hold that all bossess need to work the loading docks and the assembly line once in awhile, just to keep them straight, so all professors need to go out and get non academic jobs once in awhile. Pass a law or something.
I am the opposite person. I have my PhD. I love teaching. I think I am good at it. I have always received exceptional reviews and comments from my students. I wish I had a dollar for everytime I heard "You are the best TA I have ever had!" variants I have heard.
Yet I will not teach. Why?
Because I do not love research enough to enslave myself to the professor's life, which frankly put, is 80% grubbing for money so one's graduate student/post-doc army can spew out more papers. Teaching is completely an afterthought. Of course, I could teach at a community college or even a high school, but I would be paid only half what I would make working in the corporate world. As much as I love teaching, the difference between $40k and $80k is too much too pass up.
Hence, though I want to teach, and it would be to the obvious benefit of my students that I teach, the system forces in another direction.
Teaching and research are different skills. We should quit pretending otherwise.
It took less than a year and a half of college for me to get sick of it. I dropped out of chemistry midway through my sophomore year, because the lab work was unending and tedious and I dreaded every day. I managed to coast through those three semesters based on what I had taught myself, before I switched my major to math.
The math work was a world apart from chemistry tedium. With the exceptions of linear algebra and differential equations, there were no routine problems; every problem involved proving a new, interesting theorem. They all required patience, work, and creativity. I solved one problem while doing crunches in weight lifting class, another while walking to the mall, a third one in a dream (really). Most of the tests were open book and/or take home.
As a result, I can run elliptic curves around most engineers in virtually any math topic. (Which isn't meant as a slight, of course; engineers take lots of courses that I didn't.) I can reason very abstractly (infinite dimensional vector space? No problem!).
No regrets, but it's not all roses. Job prospects are definitely a concern; most math graduates went to grad school, became actuaries (ugh!), or were "undecided" (read: unemployed). I was one of the lucky ones - I graduated with a signed job offer as a programmer, which I also love. Knock on wood.
And, like any major, we had our share of bad, bad professors. No need to get into that.
You can say that Kern wasn't cut out to be an engineer, and maybe he wasn't, and maybe I wasn't cut out to be a chemist. But my own experience has convinced me he's on to something. College turned my six year passion for science sour in a year and a half.
Engineering is hard. It just is. No amount of sugar coating will make it easier. Studying hard, going to office hours, going to class and actually doing the homework, instead of copying, makes one better. I partied my fair share, managed to play an intercollegiate sport, got exceptional grades, co-opped 6 terms, and am involved in many extra-curricular activities. I'm not an exceptionally smart person, I just work hard, and I budget my time.
Well said. There's no way to take the work out of the work. All the rigors this guy described are familiar to those of us who stuck it out and got engineering degrees.
Hell yes it's hard. But in the past, there were usually high paying job opportunities awaiting engineering graduates. That is no longer the case. Many of the businesses which hired these US engineers in the past no longer do because they can hire an engineer in China at a fraction of the pay. That's where the work went. For example, twenty years ago, there used to be a couple dozen good places in the RTP NC area where a skillful analog circuit design engineer could find a good paying job. Today theres one or two. There's still plenty of circuit design work in the world. It's just not being done here.
Today, engineering is still just as hard as it ever was. There are still good and bad educators at each engineering school. But what is different is the reward is vastly less than in decades past. When companies cease to manufacture and design products in the US, fewer engineers are needed here. There's too much stick and not enough carrot.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
In the Institution from which I graduated with a BME and a minor in electrical engineering, we had classes 6 days a week (in my freshman year, anyhow), it took nearly two hundred credits to graduate -- as opposed to the approx 125 credits at most engineering schools (yes, my credits transfer credit for credit to anywhere in the world). Our students were restricted to those that had high SAT scores (high being 600 and up in math (clustered between 700 and 800), >200 in verbal -- my verbal score was higher than my math score, wasted skills) and were from the top 10% of their high school classes. There were also other filters, in addition to a 6-hr admissions test. When you're competing against a room full of people like that, the distribution is fairly narrow and grading on the curve is merciless.
On the first day of my first semester of calculus, the instructor asked how many in the class had 3-4 semesters of calculus in high school. A smallish number of hands went up. He then processed to ask how many had at least 2 semesters, then 1. At the end, there were only 2 of us without our hands raised, one of which was me. I remember feeling the mildest of twinges of concern (hey, I was 17, who knew?) and thinking "Wonder what THIS means?" Some of the guys had 4 semesters of calculus using the SAME textbook we would be using.
I had a rough time, but managed to hang on and learn. In my first course in differential equations, I was frantically struggling to take notes as fast as the instructor was filling the blackboards, until somebody next to me stopped me and pointed out that he was merely copying the text to the blackboard, word-for-word, from memory. As soon as the class was over, I went straight to the bookstore and purchased a copy of Schaum's Differential Equations, as I knew that if I was ever going to pass this class, I would be doing it all on my own.
And you know? That was one of the most valuable lessons I learned in my time there. Repeat after me:
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TEACHING. THERE IS ONLY LEARNING.
All that any instructor can do is present the material in a manner (hopefully more than one) that will stick when flung at a student's mind. Anybody wanting to be spoon-fed knowledge has watched the Matrix a few times too often, and thinks they can have knowledge downloaded into them.
The way I think of the learning process is that I'm building a neural net in meatware. It takes motivation, concentration, and reinforcement in the form of repetition to get good at anything. This process is called learning. It's a very active process, nothing passive about it.
In my day, motivation came from the fact that we were allowed only 2 failed courses before being ejected out of the program and losing our draft deferments, a sure trip to the far east. IF we successfully completed the program, we were virtually guaranteed well-paying jobs and lifetime employment. If we completed with a high enough GPA, we got a free ride to the grad school of our choosing (I didn't make the cut, had to pay for my own graduate degree). The stick and the carrot, time-honored tools in motivation.
But you know? We had people entering our program that had exited other programs which were suspected by the rest of us of being "more difficult". Those people invariably breezed through our program without breaking a sweat. I consider those schools Tier One (MIT, CalTech, any of the military academies). Guys that washed out of our program went on to breeze through state schools with good names -- names like Purdue, Northwestern, U of Michigan, etc. I consider those to be Tier 3 schools. And there are a large number of lesser (Tier Four) schools that turn out perfectly serviceable engineers. There's a definite hierarchy of engineering schools out there.
I have no sympathy for someone who isn't willing to do the work. Just because you were hot stuff in high school means very little as you move into larger ponds. You'll find that this situation exists in Med scho
I have friends that are in education and I know a few with PhD's in it as well. I know the theories and how they are told to teach. What happened to this guy is unfortunate, but is solely the fault of his high-school teachers and himself.
What is happening now is that these kids are told that they are awesome in everything (plus total hand holding, etc), and given good grades to reflect that even if they only show a glimmer of hope in that subject. So, what we end up with is a bunch of kids graduating from high-school that are borderline retarded in most subjects, but think that they are the best thing since sliced bread.
Then they hit University (Play times over, it's time for some real work.), and they can't cope.
When I came back to University I forgot everything: and I mean everything. I didn't know how to cross multiply. That's how much I had forgotten. I also had "instructors" that only put the book on the board. Hey buddy, I can read, tell me/explain something that isn't in/beyond the book!
But, what I did, is sit at said University for two months, ~8am to 10-11pm everyday (aside from fri, sat, sun evenings), and worked my ass off. I did every problem and asked when I couldn't figure something out. After that, I had caught up and all was well and good with the world. Though from what my friends tell me, my sanity took a fair good hit during that time ;) Right now, I'm in my final undergrad year with plans to go to grad school.
If I can do that, then anyone can get a decent grade in first year classes.
This guy says he's good in math and then gets a D in Discrete?!?! Sorry guy, but you've been lied to. You're retarded when it comes to math. Books more than just problem sets?!?! It's called being able to properly interpret those crazy symbols on the page like a person that actually understands how to read a text book ie not like a novel you mental midget. I could go on.
In fact, I'll will. But, just one last thing. This is my favourite quote, "...like, well, me: people smart enough to do the math...". What grade did you get in Discrete again? One of the easiest classes in all of Math. How about those other Math courses?
IMO, if the US and any other country for that matter, wants more engineers/scientists/etc, don't pull any punches in high-school. Make the kids think on there own and actually push them. Let them fail if they should fail. Then and only then will most high-school grads be able to handle University.
What's going on right now, is doing no-one any favours. It's creating people like this guy. A guy who may have the potential to be good. A guy whose smart enough to realize flaws in the system. But, not smart enough, nor has enough integrity to admit his own failings and limitations.
We are all good at stuff and bad at stuff. It's up to ourselves and only ourselves to find out what we are good at and stick to those things. And stay away from the things we are bad at, no matter how interested we are in them, because we are bad at them. This way, we all contribute in meaningful ways, and are most happy.
Hell, I'll never write a novel: god help you all if I ever get the chance. But man, can I derive the shit out of a function. So, I'll stay in my little abstract world, knowing that I fit here. And leave the other things to those that are good at them.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents.
While getting my Master's in CS we had a course on software development. We spent a whole class talking about whether programmers today are engineers. My conclusion is most definately no.
Why not? I spent a short time working as a junior engineer doing power and lighting for buildings before the market drove me back to school. While there I was exposed to the whole "Professional Engineer" process. Really, to become a leading Engineer (capitalization intended) at the organization you would need to get your Professional Engineer (PE) certificate. That alone would allow you to approve a design for use. When the design documents were finalized, one of the PE certified engineers would open up their safe and get out their stamp. They would stamp the design and sign it. From there on out any flaws found, including possible deaths or damages, would be on his head. Before participating in this process I had no idea how important it was for an Engineer to truly and wholly know and understand the final design. Their approval is worth its weight in gold.
Compare that with a software product. Yes, it is approved at the end by a small group of highly experienced individuals before it ships, but if somthing goes wrong it's "We found a bug". Sometimes it has a large impact, but it doesn't have the career impact that an Engineer faces once their design is found to be flawed. There is just a difference in how the two groups operate and the requirements that are placed on them. Don't get me wrong, programmers and software architects are often highly intelligent and creating things of wonder, but the software industry just does not have the rigorus and formal tools and processes that the older engineering fields do.
The thing to remember is that software engineering is still almost entirely R&D for every project. Because they are operating with tools that have no substance and really only mathematical limitations they can do *anything* at creation time. This makes the sky the limit every time a programmer sits down at their keyboard. As further processes and design styles are developed the industry will mature. You also need to remember that computer science is really only about 40 years old. This is very young for an engineering field, and especially for one that is based purely on mathematics and not physical limitations. Back in the early 1900's there were no electrical engineers, only scientists - the schools taught applied electrical sciences. Eventually the processes and methods were given more form and eventually the schools developed the concept of an electrical engineer, not just an applied scientist. Someday applied computer scientists will get to that level, and the signs point to sooner than people think, but not yet.
It is an area of deep discussion because it goes to the roots of what makes an Engineer more than just an applied scientist, but there is a difference. Seeing it is tough if you have never been exposed to the process of what makes an Engineer what they are, and the responsibilities that come with it.
Just so you know. My bachelor's was electrical engineering, but a lack of jobs around 2001 lead me to sysadmin jobs and now I've wrapped up a MSCS and I'm looking at Phd programs. Being an Engineer is very hard, especially after you graduate. It's more than just hard work, it's responsibility to the world around you.
To be an engineer you must know how to find out information you need, how to solve your problems on your own. For an engineering project, the engineer should know where to look for information, how to deal with problems he never met before.
Although most of the material taught in engineering classes is rarely used directly by engineers, someone who cannot pass an engineering course will probably not make a good engineer.
Im in the middle of Indiana.
one must interact with many differant langauge backgrounds
What more can the government due to encourage higher education?
Let me guess... you were the TA that was trying to communicate with Kern. No wonder he had a hard time.
I got my PhD at SmartyU, so I have taken a lot of classes and also TA'd one. At least to me, the subject matter was interesting (graduate/advanced undergrad artificial intelligence) and the professor was stellar. I had regular office hours, and was entirely open to meeting students at any other time convenient to them. The majority of my office hours (and the other TA's) were empty. Some people only came to argue test/homework grades. Office hours were only crowded immediately prior to the mid-term and final. My experience was not that students were hungry for knowledge and using every opportunity to learn from their TA's/professors. While it's easy to say how poor educators are doing, the student population at SmartyU didn't show overwhelming enthusiasm for learning (they did show a fair bit of enthusiasm for grades). My father was a professor, and he does like teaching - and his experience was much the same. Enthusiasm for grades, less enthusiasm for the actual learning. This isn't meant to sound high and mighty. I rarely went to office hours of classes I was taking either! I'm just trying to lend perspective that most educators do want to teach (whether they are good at it or not); but most of the time they become jaded when the first question is not "can you explain x" but "can you change this to an A?"
A simple door off a hinge repair, and NO ONE does it in a year?
Never heard of a UNION, have you? You're NOT ALLOWED to do things like this in most universities. Physical plant services are unionized in every university I have ever been in.
Nevermind most fundraising goes into a collective pool.
..don't panic
I'm currently a PhD student in a top college in the US. I can attest that the article is basically correct regardling underdgraduate eduation.
Most top colleges are research schools. Research schools (as the name would imply) have one primary motivation: research. The professors they hire tend to reflect this. Most of these professors are very, very good at research and are often not so good at teaching. But this doesn't really matter. In the day to day business of these schools, teaching undergrads is a burden, not a serious responsibility. Many of them do what they can to try to get rid of non-optimal undergrads. Not because the undergrads show no promise, but because it simply takes too much time and effort to help them. To be fair, there are a good number of a very dedicated teaching professors and lecturers, but these people are not well supported by the administration (and are in the minority).
There is a LOT more that could be done to further teaching of engineering in the US. Sadly, if you want an engineering degree, the best places to get them are often the second tier universities. Live in California? Want an engineering degree? Many people think the best place in CA to get a degree is the UC system (and this IS true of grad school), but the truth is, the CSU system (Cal State University) is often a better place for undergraduate learning than the UC system. Placing undergraduates above research would be a HUGE step up for much of the US college system, but undergraduates have not (until recently) paid as well as research. In the CSU system, you are often more likely to find professors who are dedicated to teaching, rather than research. In the UC system, research is the #1 goal, and anything else (including teaching undergrads often) is a bit of a distraction.
To blame TAs completely would be unfair, and to blame professors completely would be unfair. In my experience, most of the blame lies squarely with the top administration, and their funding priorities. They tend to want to hire professors who ONLY want to do research, and view teaching as an ugly chore. Many of my undergrad classes had 200+ students (some as many as 800+). Physics was all about weeding out the weak (first semester core physics contained 350+ people, 5th semester contained 25 people). The whole atmostphere was one of destroying all but the ubermensch. Those unprepared (or not perfectly motivated) were left to fail.
Luckily for me I do well in such circumstances, but if the US wants to do well over the long haul, it would be best not to get rid of everyone who isn't just like me. Most of my colleagues in grad school are either Chinese, Indian or German. I wish all of them the very best (they are all incredibly bright and motivated), but I wish that more of my own countrymen were here as well. I know that many of them are quite smart, but I also know that many of them are defeated by poor professors, and poor support. Not to mention (of course) very good pay outside of the engineering/science world.
Impossible = A fun challenge
I just started my upper-division work at a uni similiar to Smartypants U. My earlier experiences, however, include:
1. Top AP scores (5) on Calculus AB and Physics, and a really good (4) score on English Lit/Comp.
2. Four semesters of partial failure at my first Smartypants U, much of which didn't transfer.
3. Computer-type vocational training at a Community College (that didn't transfer at all), and finally:
4. 30 or so hours at another CC to finish up an Engineering Associate's and make damn sure my time at the uni was minimized (i.e. no GE, nothing at the uni that I could take at the CC).
What I've learned from all this is that the CC is the best value for the time and the money from both a hours-treadmill perspective and from a "what you actually learn" perspective. Period. Too many full-on universities (or at least uni profs) ignore the educational needs of their students, and Engineering, CS and other Math and Science-related degrees are too damned hard to entrust smart students to people who don't care.
Community college instructors, on the other hand, generally have no writing/research requirement, and often have interesting day jobs that directly relate to their material. They are generally better at teaching (as opposed to researching), and there are never any TAs that the class is pawned off onto. Lecture-hall classes of hundreds of students are unheard of (common in lower-division at big unis), and class sizes are generally smaller overall. At best, CC instructors match up nicely with the better uni profs, and at worst, they're at least waaaay less expensive and distracted.
Furthermore, if you live in a state where the CC and uni systems are tight (like in California), there are things like direct course articulation (e.g. http://artic.sjsu.edu/ and general ed certification, so you can plan for and avoid transfer pitfalls. And CCs are at least an order of magnitude cheaper. As long as you stick to stuff that will transfer, you (and whoever's financing you) WILL be happier at a CC than slogging your way through lower-division at a big uni.
I enthusiastically recommend CCs to all incoming freshmen and to anyone returning to school with lower-division left to complete, doubly so if their planned major is tough. CCs might not get much respect in the academic world, but they are far and away the best bridge from the generally conscientious (and professional) educators in high school to the part-time, often lackluster educators in big unis. While not necessarily all CC instructors are top-drawer, they're far better as a class than those at Smartypants U, and far cheaper.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." --Groucho Marx
Implicit in the whole article and most of the comments is the resentment that people with managment degrees are earning as much or more than people with engineering degrees. People say you should just get a business degree instead and not do all the work. However the successful people you see with MBAs, aren't really successful because of the MBA. If you think computer programming is something you don't need college to learn, take a look at finance or accounting, you can literally pick it up over a weekend. The rest of the business curriculum, managment, marketing, [whatever subject the school calls "learning Excel"] are UTTER bullshit.
If those business kids who are drinking 5 nights a week are making more money than the hard working engineering kids, its not because of how awesome their education is. It's because they have that alpha male, street smart, charismatic personality that allows them to get ahead. If you have an engineer's personality, I would not recommend business, as you're going to end up as some asshole's personal assistant. Even if you have a alpha male personality I'd still say do, engineering, because a business curriculum will teach you absolutely NOTHING. I guess you'll be able to enjoy college a bit more, but your left brain will definitely atrophy.
Take engineering if you can, if it ends up you have the potential to be a great businessman you still can be one. If you take business, and it ends up your potential is as a great engineer, will NASA's not letting you design the next rocket with your BA in marketing.
uber leet engineers of de phtasmagorikal futah can't sneak past a snoozing "union" janitor and fix a door on a hinge.
HAHAHAHAHA! Can sneak over to someone elses college and steal a mascot, figure out how to beat vegas, dissasemble and reassemble the profs car inside his bedroom, stuff like that, but a DOOR floors them!
teehheee hee, take yer razzin! No engineers street cred until you can brainstorm your way to fixed desks and doors! In the real world you have to deal with marketing weasels and deadlines based on when their car payments are due, clueles bosses who order you to do three different things simultaneouylsy that conflict with each other, government regulations that only make sense to people who are required to eat with spoons only, and all sorts of other impossible crap, yet the work still needs to be done, and it gets done. Figure it out, it ain't rocket surgery!
p.s. I was in a union long time ago, wouldn't have bothered me *one bit* if my work mysteriously got done when I wan't looking, because the CHECK would still show up!
hehehehehehe, engineers, whooo hawww1one
I'm a freshman at a very respected college of Engineering in a university in Ohio. (It shall remain nameless!) As a freshman in Computer Eng, I am finding myself wondering if I even want to finish this major or just hop onto music or computer science. My reasons for debating on leaving computer engineering is that, at least here, I hardly get a scratch at my specific major until my junior year. Thats right - for the first two years, I will hardly touch a computer program for more than one semester. My current semester was cookie cutter for freshman in the engineering school. I have a science, a math, a religion, a history, an english, a mandatory engineering studyhall, a EGR lecture where we can discuss being engineers and learn about the school and how it works, and a EGR 101 class. EGR 101 is when we learn the fundamentals of being an engineer, without a good chance of touching our specific major. The class is random placement modules. Although there is a computer engineering module, I didn't get to get into it. Instead, I'm building composite bridges and writing technical reports on them. Although that may be helpful, it didn't spike my interest in civil engineering enough for me to want to switch over.
In two weeks, I'll switch modules into a mechanical engineering module. No, I won't be working on cars, I'll be taking apart a toaster, writing a report on it, then I write another report on how we can make the toaster better. Thats it. We don't actually put that plan into action, we don't even rebuild the toaster - they do that for us.
I'm a very hands on person, and in my first few months of being here, I won't actually have a computer class. Next semester, I'll take an intro to computer programming class. Just one. Then rinse and repeat the gen eds, and in place of the classes that I'll have finished for my four years by that point (chemistry, history, religion), insert Engineering Ethics classes. My friend who is a sophomore Engineer says these are mainly reading and writing technical papers and basic ethics for being an engeineer (do good for humanity! be cost effective!).
Anyway, back to my point - it isn't interesting. Sure, I didn't pay 30k$ to goto college to have it be interesting - I paid to get an education... but where am I really gonna use the History of Engineering in real life? Do I really need almost 12 credit hours worth of ethics classes before I can start doing what I want to do with my life? I really just get the feeling that I came to college and I'm just getting a generalized education out of it. At least where I am going, there isn't a thrill of creating a robot yet, or even learning c# code. Would it really kill colleges to toss us a bone of what we came to do our freshman year? Visual Art majors are painting, music majors are playing, sports medicine majors are already getting hands on experience on the field... and the computer engineerings are in toaster classes.
I really dislike the whining about foreign teaching assistants and professors. Yes, it can be a bit challenging sometimes but this is relevant job-training experience. You will be working with these people in the future.
Just imagine it from the other side - not only does your TA have to be engineers/scientist, but much of the relevant research is written only in English, and they must be able to speak English to do their jobs. Despite the complaints, it is a lot easier to struggle to communicate in your own language than in the other guy's language. We Americans have the good end of the bargain in this matter.
I would love to see one of these "my-TA-sucks" whiners learn a language like Chinese. It is hard. Really really "#$"#" hard. I live in Japan and know from experience how challenging it is to learn a language whose fundamental grammar and logic is different from your own. I have never heard anyone who has struggled to learn a non-European language complain about not being able to understand their TA. I wonder why......
Several times on this thread, I have seen someone basically say "I asked my TA (insert absurdly complicated, 40-word-sentence question here), and he had no clue".
This is as much a failure on the student's part as the TA. When speaking to a non-native speaker, one should know that it is best to use simple sentence structures and simple words (in-field technical words are OK). It is part of the learning process to learn how to choose one's words to fit the audience.
The article shows perfectly why there is a lack of enigineers in the US.
But not for the reason the authors thinks to be.
Let's look at the story.
The author has a good GPA, a nice school carreer and starts at a high level US university.
Then he notices that the courses seem to be too difficult and drops out.
And this shows to problem of the US. We have here a guy form whom school was always easy because he was smart. But university is different. The stuff is not easy for anyone. If it's easy for TA/professor then it's because they learned this stuff for years, did do this stuff for years and have years of training. It didn't come easy to them. They in fact invested a lot of work. It's only easy for people at the genius level of Gauss. This means that it will never be easy for you, because you are not genius besides your own good marks, awards and super-duper GPA.
And this shows the problem of the US. Your people are not willing to spend this huge amount of work to learn this stuff. Your people are not willing and not able to accept failure and problems.
And this will kill you economically.
In college I knew several Computer Engineers that didn't really know what the hell their major was until it was almost too late. It certainly depends on your school but most believe it to be about an engineering position that uses computers. Not an engineer of computers. So the focus would be on general design principles. And while they use computers in advanced projects and learn plenty about it; Computer Science majors study computers from day 1 and don't stop.
Once again, this is a generalization but luckily my friends didn't lose any hours switching to MIS and now make more money than I do with my silly CS degree.
You might have done this but I suggest everyone get out their degree plan and read some of the descriptions of the courses.
"If you were smart, you would be the one doing the science and calling the shots."
It has been my experience that very, very few engineers actually understand business. I'm not going to defend The Suits, I'm just saying that as a person with a Business degree who works as a technical designer (PCB's to be precise) I have often been amused by engineers who offer naive opinions of what is going on in the business or what the managers should do in a way that makes it clear that they don't grasp all the fundamental concepts. And whats more, I'd have to teach them the terms first before I could even begin to explain why they were wrong.
See, just being smart or having common sense or mastering something that is really hard, doesn't mean you can just pick up something else you don't understand and figure it out. Not without the fundamentals.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
After your kid graduates highschool, don't let them go to college, but instead kick them out. Make them get an apartment, and a job, and bust their ass trying to pay rent and have enough food to eat. Make them tired at the end of the day... that long, hard tired where you're just glad not to be lifting anything. Let them do this for one year, and then tell them they can go to school. Tell them that year was what being poor is, and then tell them engineers, and doctors, and lawyers aren't poor. If engineering's the right thing for them, they'll pick it, and every time they start to think about quitting or taking the easy road, they'll think about that year, and how much it sucked, and realize that thinking all day isn't shit compared to lifting boxes.
The problems with education are real, but the problems with motivation in this country are much bigger. We've had it so easy for the last two generations that we've forgotton what it was like to *really* have to work hard
RandomAndInteresting.comdefending the world from stupidity since 1979
Oh -- and for the record, I'm currently in graduate school at a public university, and I got my undergrad from a private university (or more accurately, a real estate company who was obligated to teach classes), where I also worked for 7 years, and saw an amazing amount of graft. (and before someone claims this is libel, the fed agreed)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Welcome to education at the baccelaureate level. A Bachelor's degree is supposed to give you a *well rounded* education, not simply teach you CE or whatever your major is. Your complaint about how soon you start taking courses that are relevant to your major is valid, but in the end you take just as many major courses as an English major, if not more.
"The problem with internet quotations is that many are not genuine" -Abraham Lincoln
I'd say 90% of the responses to his article so far say something like "Sorry you couldn't cut it, but engineering is hard, so you Mr. Kern must be a lazy moron". Well to that I say, he's a successful writer and lawyer who is getting his material published for Slashdot to read. While, you are posting on a silly message board on your lunch break before you go back to your 80/hr week coding job that you hate. I'd say things turned out okay for him. The smartest thing he ever did was leave the engineering field. That makes him smarter than most Slashdot readers.
They thought that a Computer Engineer was an engineer that uses computers? Wow... just... wow. Did they think that other engineers didn't use computers?
Exactly what kind of engineering did they think they would be doing? Civil? Electrical? Industrial? Cause they have their own majors.
I'm sorry, that's just dumb. How long were they taking classes before they decided to look at the course requirements for their major?
Hmmm witty sig or funny sig? Maybe elitest techy sig!
Well, a second hand story from an elder...
I spent 3 years doing development and validation of computational fluid dynamics software at a major jet engine manufacturer. While I was there one of the guys who had beein in aerospace for 40+ years befriended me.
The real reason is that there aren't more people becoming engineers is that we just aren't treated like he was when he was my age. His salary when he was 30 was comparable to a medical doctors. It used to be that people who had the brains and passion to suceed in any field would often choose engineering, now, if they want money, they avoid engineering. Engineering is left to folks like me who really love solving problems, and would probably do engineering even if it paid less.
Companies that scream bloody murder everytime a government regulation interfiers with the free market in any way that hurts their bottom line (complaining that capatalism is te american way) want permission to hire engineers differently from all other professions because engineers are scarce. Well you're the ones demanding a free market.
Pay us more, there will be more of us!
My older friend I mentioned before forbid his children from studying engineering... I will advise my kids that a career in engineering is a bad finacial decision, but if they think it will make them happy...
This is the problem.
How many of you would tell your kids to become engineers?
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
That doesn't sound much like my Freshman year at a well-respected Engineering school in Ohio. Granted, my experience started a quarter century ago...
Two semesters of Calculus, two semesters of Physics, tho semesters of Chemistry, Chem Lab, a Social Science intro (I chose Economics), a Humanities intro (I chose music theory), a Foreign Language (I continued the German I had taken in High School), Computer Science, and an elective, Energy and Society. But then again, we weren't expected to choose a major until the end of the Freshman year. I started with an advisor in the Mechanical Engineering department (I thought I wanted to design and build robots), and he steered me to Systems Engineering.
Now, I write software.
College is for generalized education. And a bit of specialized training.
Having made it through a couple of schools, one for undergraduate and masters, the other for a phd, in mathematics, I realize that most of the people that complain about how hard courses are are lazy, fat, tv watching americans. The year I received my PhD from the University of New Mexico, I was the ONLY american to do so. None of the foreign students had any problems getting their degrees, but somehow I was the only american student which didnt wash out of the group i came in with. There is MUCH to be said for higher profile universities having shitty TAs teach all their courses while the Prof's travel the world chumming it with colleagues and working their tails off doing research. What should be said is SHAME ON YOU. People pay good money for a real professor to come teach their class, and I would feel like I got the shaft if I didnt get that. This happens most often at high profile universities. Dont want this? Then dont go to MIT or Berkeley etc... A great education can still be found at the smaller colleges and universities. I know, I am now a professor at one and work hard at making sure my students get a good education. I guarantee you though, I still have alot of fat, lazy american students whining when they take Discrete Math from me. I guarantee you though, they watched all the latest reality TV shows last night though, and Leno or Letterman too. Last but not least, sorry about any spelling and grammar mistakes, I cant stand proofreading these sorts of things. -karl http://karlfrinkle.net/
-karl says 'disregard the spelling and grammar mistakes!'
He writes well, uses good grammar, and knows how to spell. How could he possibly imagine himself in an engineering career?
Fully agreed.
The biggest problem with post-secondary, I've found, is that we're sending teenagers into it, entirely unprepared. I can only speak for my own experiences, but up in the Great White North, high school is EASY. Dead easy. It's more of a social experience than anything, and it's just kind of something you do, because your parents make you, but also because everyone you know also does it.
University/College? Costs a hell of a lot of money. Even worse, it might be paid for you, in which case you really don't care if you blow it off. Trying to envision your life 4-5 years down the road when you're 18? Good luck. I've met maybe 3 people in my entire life who could seriously think more than a year ahead at that age.
My story: I did the usual, University straight out of high school. Did a microbiology degree, because it looked "interesting". Didn't think CS had a promising future, and it seemed "hard", even though I was a natural ever since our Vic20, and loved doing it. Needless to say, at 18 you have no clue what you want to do, nor the motivation to stick with anything. I hurried to finish the degree so that I could start making some money finally. As a Micro degree basically qualifies you for minimum wage tech work (at least in the city I lived in at the time), I ended up spending the next 5 years doing something entirely unrelated, and ended up managing a small business.
Long story short, I ended up again doing tech stuff as a part of the job, but for less than half what a CS grad would have made doing the same type of work. Quit the job, went back to school, graduated at 30. Positively ancient. Best thing I've ever done, even though I'm 8 years behind my peers in terms of retirement savings and mortgage payments.
I've watched 18-21 year olds in school, when I was that age. I've now watched them from a vastly different perspective. Know what I realized? University is really friggin easy, IF YOU'RE MOTIVATED. I spent half the time on homework and studying as the rest of the class, and I was 8 years out of high school calculus, etc, so I had a lot more catching up to do. But I was able to focus, and realize that 4 years of my life was nothing. School was a breeze, and I'm not any smarter than I was 10 years ago. Probably less so, because I really forgot most higher maths.
I realize most parents can't handle the thought of being a bit cruel to their children, but I wholeheartedly agree: make your kids WORK for a year or three. They'll work 10x harder when they finally do get their education. They'll also do a lot better, simply because they can finally see the bigger picture.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
In college I knew several Computer Engineers that didn't really know what the hell their major was until it was almost too late
... They wouldn't let me make the switch.
This is my experience to a T. It took 2 years of "can you hack it" classes to get into basic circuit theory at my SmartyPants U, another semester after that into the basics of comp. engineering. It was at this point where I discovered a terrible truth: I Didn't Enjoy Comp. Engineering.
Of course, at that point there's nothing a college student can do. I had 89 hours by the end of that semester, and I desperately wanted out. Of course, SmaryPants U wanted me to stay put, seeing as I'd already invested so much time & energy in one major.
Once again, this is a generalization but luckily my friends didn't lose any hours switching to MIS and now make more money than I do with my silly CS degree.
Lucky bastards
checking for libvirus... no
ERROR, libvirus.so not found, terminating
I think if you are particularly bright, going to a school that is undergraduate focused may be short sighted.
If you can read the book, go to lectures, and figure things out for yourself, then you want to be in a research focused school. If you need lots of help with office hours and such, go to an undergraduate focused school.
The reason I say this is that I went to a reasearch focused school and was really inspired by dealing with professors who were on the cutting edge of reasearch.
Some of them were also good at explaining things and really excited about the subject.
But you couldn't count on it. Some of the big researchers had big egos and were not
helpful.
I managed to figure a lot of things out myself and was never bored.
At my alma mater (UC San Diego), we used to call it a "self-taught" University.
I was able to take classes from Scripps Institute faculty as well.
But if you need the help of professors who are good at explaining things, you might be frustrated at such a school.
I should mention that my degree is in Physics, not Computer Science. The Computer Science program in the early 80s was impacted (over full) and had lots of "weed out" courses.
YMMV.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
Two stories from when I was a TA:
1) I taught the lab of a second year digital logic class whose prof. might have been good at research but sucked as a teacher. I didn't believe the comments the students made about the class so I sat in (second row, left side of class room that had seats for 50 people) and I couldn't understand a word the man said. He basically faced the board and muttered while making scratchings that sort of looked like K-maps. So, I got my hands on the class syllabus and started taking the first 45 minutes of my 2 hour long lab to teach digital logic. At the end of the semester, I had a lot of people thank me for doing that.
2) Communication is key. If students turned in homework, a lab report or a test that was incomprehensible, I gave it a zero. Engineering is all about communication and I quickly taught my students that being engineering students was not an excuse. If they didn't write legibly and clearly, I didn't care how brilliant their work was because neither I or anyone else could understand it. Oddly enough, the foreign students usually demonstrated better written language skills. (I did have to occasionally to convince them that a thesaurus is a dangerous tool.)
I've been working now for 10 years and communication is still key. I'm in the process of learning Mandarin.
Maybe. But when I look around and see my friends, many of whom dropped engineering for economics and business/finance degrees, making 2-3X more money than me at this stage, I wonder why *I* work so hard. They go home at 5pm. I work until 10pm regularly. They have social lives. I don't.
And don't even get me started about college lifestyle. My engineering-dropout friends were out partying with their fraternity brothers Thursday night through Sunday night every weekend, while I worked away diligently in the computer clusters and electronics labs. One of my old friends kept asking me, "Dude, why do you do this to yourself?"
I justified the work in several ways. First, I value designing and creating more highly than managing or analyzing. The engineer's status in society, in my view, is noble. Second, I assumed that all my hard work would pay off in the form of a good career, while all the partying hooligans drinking away their most productive years would have a rude awakening when they hit the workforce.
But when *I* hit the workforce, it took 11 months to land a very entry-level job. By contrast, one of my friends who started something called the "12-hours club" (the minimum number of credit hours to remain a full-time student) got a job immediately as an "investment analyst" at a major Wall Street firm. 5 years later, he makes roughly 3 times what I make, and the gap is growing. We're both smart people, but there is no question (he'll readily admit it) that I worked much harder in college.
I was wrong. They were right. I'm just willing to admit the truth. I still feel morally superior, in that all of my hard work produces things which add value to human life, but when I compare the relative benefits to my life (social life, financial life, stress, etc), I still feel shortchanged. But it's no one's fault but mine: I chose this profession. And I chose poorly.
1) How many Slashdotters are not either CS/Comp engineers, or EEs?
From my understanding, that's the majority of jobs that are being offshored. Y'all sound pretty (understandably) bitter. But worth keeping in mind that this guy isn't necessarily "better off" not being in engineering.
2) Engineering shouldn't have to be painful.
Why *should* I have to have TAs who barely speak English? The Chinese graduating from Chinese engineering schools, I imagine, have all Chinese-speaking TAs. They seem to be getting on just fine without "toughing it out" through the "typical" engineering curriculum. Also, I go to a school (Olin College; was Slashdotted at one point when we first opened) whose entire mission is to make engineering useful, applicable, and not just a washout program. I got my butt kicked by freshman math and physics, sure, but combining it with *actual* engineering, immediate application, and teachers who gave a damn sure made it worthwhile. I don't think I'm learning that much less. I'm just learning it without needing to go on Prozac in the process.
3) The nature of engineering
Last year's president of the ASEE (American Society for Engineering Education) is also one of my school's VPs, and I've heard her talk a lot about her beliefs in engineering. One of her key points it that we need to get out of the mindset of cut-and-dry, plug-in-crank-out engineering that is so prevalent and fits much into the stereotypical state school engineering mold. We have to get into innovation, design, and the business side of things, because those are the things that are the next step in engineering. Education machines in India and China are churning out millions of engineers who can do the things computers will be doing in 20 years. We have to stop whining about not being able to keep up with the numbers and look forward to the next big thing in technology and science. Pity parties and "In my day" reminiscing don't do us any good.
That may be the best way to influence an 18 year old who just appeared out of thin air. But more realistically, the best way is to influence your children *from birth* to understand the value of education and hard work. In my case, it was being given the opportunity to work in the yard from a very young age to earn spending money (and very little of it). It was bagging groceries, doing random paperwork at a real estate office, even being a receptionist at a hair salon... those things taught me that the people around who had the money either owned the businesses or had education levels that let them do highly skilled work.
I didn't have to be sold on engineering or college at all by the time I was 15. I knew how the other half lived and I knew that being poor would really, really suck.
His entire problem can be summed up in his complaint that the TA wouldn't "Articulate the steps". He's trying to learn mathematics as a cookbook. You learn a procedure to solve problem type A, type B, type C, etc. This works fine in high school and is all most people need to know.
But in engineering, not every problem you come across will fit some easily defined type, and there won't always be someone around to give you new procedure for the particular circumstances you're facing. You need to understand the theory well enough to come up with your own procedure.
I agree with the grandparent. The teacher should just be there to give direction and be another aid in learning. Tests and homework should be there to serve as a test of knowledge so that you know where you're supposed to be and what you still need to learn and a way of learning more (actually by practicing instead of just listening to lecture, etc).
Having said that, however, both teachers and students get it wrong when they're more concerned with the grade letter (and society has helped perpetuate this image) than the actual knowledge the grade letter is supposed to represent.
What (IMO) the grandparent is trying to say is not that the teachers are not supposed to be teaching at all and you're supposed to learn everything on your own, but that teachers are supposed to be an additional resource to help you learn the material. They're there to guide you to where you can find the answers, answer questions you may not be able to find (or don't exist within the context of the textbook) and to show you what you should be learning in that class. Lecture should be just another method of learning what's already in the textbook.