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Does It Suck To Be An Engineering Student?
Pickens writes "Aaron Rower has an interesting post on Wired with the "Top 5 Reasons it Sucks to be an Engineering Student" that includes awful textbooks, professors who are rarely encouraging, the dearth of quality counseling, and every assignment feels the same. Our favorite is that other disciplines have inflated grades. "Brilliant engineering students may earn surprisingly low grades while slackers in other departments score straight As for writing book reports and throwing together papers about their favorite zombie films," writes Rower. "Many of the brightest students may struggle while mediocre scholars can earn top scores." For many students, earning a degree in engineering is less than enjoyable and far from what they expected. If you want to complain about your education, this is your chance."
here is my summary and my thoughts
... I don't think this article is either NEWS FOR NERDS or STUFF THAT MATTERS. Clearly the author should not try to become an engineer and should switch to some other discipline where he gets inflated grades and the incorrect notion that he is bright.
According to the author of the article... inorder for engineering to not suck, we should have inflated grades and beautiful textbooks (whatever that it). He says that the textbooks are awful because they are thick and black and white and contain long equations (i don't know if i should laugh or what).. His other reasons are more related to the school in which he is studying and not with engineering
Seriously
that's more than i can say for my CS degree. All I learned was in spite of my education, not because of it.
People take a hard major to be challenged and then they are upset when it is challenging!
I wonder what the incomes of the soft majors that got all A's will look like compared to a good chemical/electrical/mechanical engineer.
"Brilliant engineering students may earn surprisingly low grades while slackers in other departments score straight As for writing book reports and throwing together papers about their favorite zombie films," writes Rower. "Many of the brightest students may struggle while mediocre scholars can earn top scores."
Who cares? You're not competing against film majors for fellowships, scholarships, graduate programs and jobs. You're competing against other engineering majors. And honestly, the vast majority of engineering majors seem to have greatly exaggerated notions of their own brilliance; engineering profs do give out As, if you're not making them maybe you're not quite as smart as you think you are.
I think the only majors with a higher general opinion of themselves are philosophy majors.
The trick to staying happy is to mingle with the women on the other side of campus
chillax137
In my experience, engineering school isn't geared specifically for content. It's designed to teach you some basics (electronics, math, logic, assembly language in my case), and everything done above and beyond that was designed to teach you how to solve problems. I may not know how to build an amplifier anymore, but I do know how to build a circuit, simulate it, how to adjust properties, and develop an answer.
I think the same thing goes with Calculus - Everything you did in math was done to give you the 'aha' moment that occurs when you learn derrivatives. You suffered endlessly computing deltas manually, but then you learned what a derivative is, and all of a sudden your world changed. There are other ways to solve problems. And when you realized that, then your approach to math suddenly changed - it's not about slogging through a procedure to get the answer, but to look at problems and see new ways of solving them.
The importance of college isn't what you learn there. It's whether you learn HOW to learn.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
That's freaken arrogant and spoken from somebody who has no clue about reality. Sorry, but I am an ME (fourth generation) and studied at one of the better universities. Though I also have an artistic background (mother is an artist, father is an engineer).
You really think Math, Science and Engineering students can make better films? BS! Try it, please I dare you to. I paint and let me tell you that to get inspiration for a painting is hard. And please don't get me started on "how I could do that in five minutes." If you think like that then you actually don't understand art.
I graduated 15 years ago, and if there is one thing I have learned is that I wish engineering/math/science students were not so dammed arrogant!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
"A much better solution would be to stop artificially inflating the grades of the weaker subjects."
No, that's not any kind of solution at all.
No one who has an opinion worth a damn will ever look at a Liberal Arts major with a 3.8 and think it's equivalent to a 3.8 in chemical engineering.
They're not the same, it's not high school, and you're not competing against the entire student body anymore.
Freshman & sophomore years: pain in the butt!
Junior & senior years: kicks ass!
Until you realize that, historically anyways, higher education is *not* vocational training. Higher education is meant to do exactly that - educate, in any subject that might tickle the learner's interests. Vocational training belongs in trade school - and I bet most engineers have too big of an ego to go to the same school as the mechanics and the plumbers.
Disclaimer: I am an engineer, but I'm routinely frustrated with how our kind tend to think we're better than everyone else, simply because we have a starting salary higher than most other degrees (note that I said starting, this relationship doesn't hold as time goes on).
I had a similar problem with several of my CS professors (I was a CS major.)
I complained to my adviser I couldn't understand them, but he said that I should basically be more sympathetic since they probably
had a tough time understanding me as well. I was shocked by this; I'm the student... if I don't
understand what the prof is saying, I fail. Plus, I'm PAYING FOR THIS CLASS. A LOT!!
One of the things that always pissed me off about academia is the sense of entitlement the professors have.
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Every resume you send out is you marketing yourself.
The way you dress, speak, and present yourself at the interview is you marketing yourself.
Of those applying for a job, the ones that do a good enough job marketing themselves are the ones who will be looked at for their technical skills.
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Well, unless they go into sales. A successful salesperson will blow away any engineers compensation.
While slackers may be able to skate by in certain courses, they will not get A's forever and despite what our country's leadership might suggest, slackers generally are not that successful in their careers. Bright students, on the other hand, generally end up extremely well after the dust settles. So hang in there, my bright bretheren!
stuff |
Sure, but how do you figure out which engineers are smart and which ones aren't? The answer is usually one of the following:
1. Their CV/resume and interviews - self-marketing
2. Hearing about their work from somewhere else - getting someone else to market you
The entire point of marketing is to show people that you have a product to sell - it's up to them to determine whether or not it's worth buying. No product, no sale. Crappy product, initial sale, but quickly thrown out of the company.
We need to learn that marketing is not a four-letter word.
if you're given a problem to solve, there's only one correct answer
There is room for art and different innovative ways to implement a solution to a problem. You just don't get that when learning the basics of engineering. Outside of college as well as some of the advanced classes in engineering give you the opportunity to flex your creative muscles. My goal as an engineer is to design that eloquent solution.
And one more thing. A Ti Silver Edition is not a real calculator. It is a toy given to kids who can't do math to keep them busy during math class. I know the 'plus' makes it seem like a real calculator, but it is not. It is most useful for passing notes. Get and HP.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Hmmm, maybe this guy simply isn't cut out to be an engineer.
I remember my engineering program in college. It was loaded with a bunch of student that often complained about the instructors, the program, and the lack of leniency. In every case I can recall, the whiners were the lousy students.
The short of it is that not everyone who gets into a great engineering program is really cut out to be an engineer. [Also note that many who once failed to get into a great engineering program are great engineers now]
The fact is that engineering requires a lot of hard work. Complaining about how other majors have it "so easy" is just ignoring the fact that you're a lousy student that gets a deservedly poor grade. If you aren't getting excellent grades in your courses, my wager is that you either (1) don't have what it takes, or (2) aren't studying enough, or (3) have too many other obligations to study enough.
Yes, some instructors are lousy; some are fabulous. Most institutions let you pick your courses. Choose wisely. If there aren't enough good options, you picked the wrong institution - find a new one. And unless you're currently a top notch student, stop whining about your own failings.
By the way, I don't hire whiners.
Good luck.
can i get an amen from those reading this comment who think that groundbreaking films like terminator, aliens, terminator ii, titantic, abyss, etc., would be totally different and totally worse if not made by a man with a solid physics/ engineering background?
is terminator ii possible without someone with an awareness of shape memory alloys?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Depends on which "Tech" you're referring to. Students at every "Tech" seem to forget that there are others.
That's something that most of my (intelligent and well educated) male friends would say in the company of other males to sound funny.
... if we're geeks we're not allowed to think that women are attractive and want to see more of them around us ? At worst it's sexist if said in the wrong context. Certainly does not automatically denote lack of intelligence.
I'm sure if we knew the guy personally it might be "no shock to anyone that he flunked out", but just reading that sentence didn't dumbfound me or cause me to assume that the guy is an idiot. I could picture just about any male saying that in the right context. I mean, what
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
I studied both Physics and E.E., and IMO, Physics was harder.
You know what they say, engineering is for people who weren't good enough at math to be physics majors. And physics is for people who weren't good enough at math to be mathematics majors.
For the record my girlfriend is an advertising major. Her classes require her to do the insanely difficult tasks of glueing gummy bears onto paper and cutting up magazines to make ransom notes. Her classes grade on curves and she's usually allowed to redo assignments for higher grades. She does everything the night before it's due.
On the other hand I'm a CS major, my professors usually start the semester off with the statement "I don't believe in grading on a curve." That's often followed by "late work is not accepted." I usually have a non trivial project do every week. I have to start early or I wont have time to finish the projects. I have to try to balance my time between math, science and computer science classes. My girlfriend has told me an innumerable number of times that I work too much and my major is difficult, she's right. But I don't care because I love the work and I love my major.
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I'm sure there's a kind of hipster peer-pressure thing going on. That's kind of my point.
As for the event in question, here's how it went down.
My girlfriend was by my side when I started my routine. We were alone at the time. Other people wandered in...maybe 5 or 6. They wanted to see what I was talking about. I did my bit on 3 or 4 paintings, thinking my girlfriend was beside me. What she did was take two steps back and watch.
I turned around. There was a lady who was maybe in her 50's with white hair leading the pack. I made eye contact with her and was surprised. I thought I was alone with my SO. The lady smiled and nodded in an encouraging manner that suggested, "Please, do go on!" I apologized, explaining I thought I was alone and didn't wish to disturb their viewing. Wandered back to my SO who was doing her very very best to not laugh. We exited the room. Later on she told me about my miniature fan club and how impressed they were with my insight.
Yeah, it's a small sample and I'm sure it doesn't speak for the whole crowd. But it did teach me a small something about modern art.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
higher education is *not* vocational training
For $100k it better teach me a trade! If I am going to take out a mortgage without a house to show for it. I better be damn employable by the end of it.
I agree historically this was not the case. But in the 70s higher education because REQUIRED and you needed a college degree to get what a high school diploma got you in the 40s. Now you need a graduate degree to equal what a college degree used to be. And graduate degrees almost always come with grants/stipends/etc.
For the excessively high prices of undergrad' degrees, you better have a trade when you are done.
It says a lot by saying a little. It's artistic without being artsy.
It's amazing how much of a conversation you can have with just green, isn't it?
You can see the effort but not the grace. Yellow can be so unforgiving. I think you're missing the fundamental point of modern art. Modern art is technically more accessible because there are no boundaries. Right - a modern painting can take considerably less time than a photo-realistic or impressionistic piece of art, but that's part of the beauty of it.
Modern art doesn't mean the artist had to spend days or months on a painting, and that it could've been done with ease and joy, and not frustration. In essence, it's the freest form of expression and just exploring very basic aspects of vision (color, shapes, etc.).
I think one just needs to open their mind a little, and with modern art, you tend to appreciate beauty of things you take for granted.
Rule of Thumb: if you have to be convinced by group-think or educated into believing something is good art, it isn't.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Your mind reading abilities are impressive.
Did I ever tell you about the time that I went out to the Met and saw some guy doing his best Steve Martin impression in front of the modern art display? He was clearly babbling about nothing in particular but I was entertained by his display of street theatre. I smiled and nodded when he quoted a line from 'LA Story' and made no effort to move away when I saw that we were taking the same path through the museum. The funny thing is that I never did figure out whether he was trying to make some sort of wry criticism of artists who try to make a virtue out of inaccessibility or if he really was just a drunken lout who had no idea what he was looking at and wanted to be funny for his girlfriend.
But I was reminded of something important:
Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Lots of people have no idea how gravitation works but that doesn't keep them from sticking to the ground.
I agree. So what? No one hires a director, artist, or writer based on their GPA (I challenge you to find one director's undergrad GPA on IMDB or wikipedia). The quality of their portfolio of work determines their success or failure - not their GPA.
Have to agree with techpawn. You only learned something about those people, not modern art itself. There are a number of "schools" of MA; some are drek, some are quite deep and friggin' hard to accomplish.
You could have done exactly the same thing with Renaissance art.
I speak to a retired professor every week. He said that one of his biggest makes was trying to be a good teacher. He put a lot of time and effort into teaching and as a result he didn't manage to publish many papers. After almost losing his job because of this (cutbacks target those with the least number of papers first), he learnt that students come last.
No it's not. The real artists aren't hanging around bars. These guys we're probably just like you: Pretending. The real artists are AT HOME doing something useful. But you did make a good point. There are a lot of people who like pretending. I see them all the time and GOOD GOD I would have hated your guts - no offense - if I had seen you at that bar.
That is also the reason I don't use the word "artist" and that I use the word "art" sparingly. It just conjures up an image of those phoney people with army jackets and pins on them. I actually think the modern self-taught computer-geek has more to do with art than those people. There is probably less difference that you think in being a geek sitting in front of his computer hout after hour chasing after a buffer overflow, trying to get a tetris-piece to move or god-knows what and thet geek in the 16th century who spent hour after hour trying to get that smile to look just right. And there certainly is less difference between both the computer geek and the real artist than those phoney hanging-out-in-bars supposedly breathing in "culture" types.
An arist is a person who creates art. Show me the results, not the clothes. I agree with you on about a thousand levels, but I don't agree that you should accuse "art" of BEING this phoney - even modern art.
About 2 years ago, I was in London and everybody told me that I simply *must* visit the Tate Modern (http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/) to see the Kandinsky exhibit (http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/kandinsky/). Being an American in London, the dollar wasn't worth anything, and so when I went to see this exhibit it was 10 pounds. A fair chunk of money for what was about 4 rooms of paintings. But hey, it was London, and of course everybody said you had to go to see the Kandinsky exhibit.
Well, from a historic standpoint, Kandinsky is interesting. He "invented" abstract art. But he was nuts. Crazy. Bonkers. No two ways around it. He has what I'd charitably describe as a handful of interesting and challenging pieces. The rest is just a painting by a crazy person. And after you look at a wall of it, you're tired of it. You're tired of the guy. And you're mostly sorry that you paid all that money to look at the splatterings of a madman.
Well, I finally looked around and said very loudly "This stuff is crap. And everybody pretending to like this stuff is only doing it because you're *supposed* to say everything this guy did was genius. It's just the ravings of a madman". Everyone turned around and gave me an evil eye.
Except the guards. They all started clapping.
I quickly high-tailed it out of there before I got pelted with wine and brie, but it's true.
And yes, I'm a computer guy, but I'm also an artist (musical). But you don't have to be an artist to call B.S. on this sort of nonsense. And most art... modern or not, really *is* crap.
And what if the "other art people" were guests who knew nothing about the subject, like yourself? They may have felt they were learning something. Or, maybe you have learned that art involves a great deal of, dare I say, uncertainty. This is exactly why artists choose the mediums and conversations that they do.
Art is not engineering, and its ideas are not fixed, which many engineers are uncomfortable with, but its embodies many wonderful and complex ideas that other tools are insufficient to express. It is certainly not rubbish.
Is literature also rubbish? At one point Joyce was "modern". Please, call his work rubbish.
I'm sorry but you're rather ignorant on the subject and should make a better effort to understand it before painting it with such a broad brush. Most people here resent technologically ignorant people commenting on IT. Please do not be the same with other subjects.
Nor are the majority of Engineering students destined to make Great Engineers.
Nor are the majority of Computer Science students destined to make Great Computer Scientist.
The Greats are very few.
I'm not one of them, neither are you.
A significant portion of education is taxpayer funded. Why should we spend money to support liberal arts programs with low standards? All degree programs should require approximately the same amount of effort. I'd rather have education be more affordable and more difficult.
ALL of the heads of state in the world today are, or can be considered Liberal Arts majors. MOST of the governments of the world are filled to the brim with liberal arts students (mostly specializing in language. Many CEO's have liberal arts degrees and NOT business degrees. So your statement that the Liberal Arts Major is a four-year stamp for dead-end jobs is not even remotely accurate. People who major in Liberal Arts run the world you live in, because most people who major in Engineering or other hard sciences would do an absolutely horrible job doing so. That's not where your skillsets or strengths lie. In order to run the world, you have to be able to account for other people's opinions, personalities, agendas, and desires. Most engineers/programmers/scientists I've met are very intolerant of opinions and beliefs other than their own (as often evidenced on Slashdot). They cannot deal with the political complexities required, nor would they be successful in a job that required them to do so. Furthermore, I'd be more inclined to believe that if put into power, engineers and other hard scientists would probably institute forms of fascism into the government, because they would be more interested in fixing the problem than in actually running the system. And there's a vast difference between the two goals when you're considering political systems.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
Do you block Slashdot too?
As an engineering manager, I've hired a lot (and fired a few) engineers and tech writers.
I don't give a rat's behind what your grades are. I care if you can think. Yes, I've rejected 4.0 "homework machines" and hired lesser GPA candidates who showed me that they could problem-solve, not just answer homework. And major doesn't matter much either, if you can show you can do the work. One of the best programmers I know has degrees in linguistics, not engineering.
So, here's some advice to all you still in school: 1) Don't confuse getting good grades with getting a good education. 2) Hiring managers are looking for people that solve problems, not cause problems.
According to your definition, the world is run by the "Peoples Skills" set, which, in fact, it is. This is evidenced (expecially in politics) by the tepid, vacillating, "bend with the breeze" politicians. Maybe we need leaders who have a set of balls and believe in their convictions rather than "Playing to the poll numbers". I think engineers would make great politicians. So they're a tad stubborn in their convictions, but that is what's lacking with crowd pleaser sycophants in office today.
Engineers are the ones who make the machines you use at work. But I guess you're so good you could roll out something on VHDL and implement it on a FPGA and it will crunch your numbers faster than a 8-core Xeon. No wait -- you still use big clusters of computers made by engineers! And comparing Perl to biochemical engineering, I can see you have no idea.
Oh well. I'll just repeat it: "If you think engineering textbooks are boring (black and white and contain long equations) then you should take heart, because the Engineering Job is going to be just as boring."
;-) Oh well; that's life. The reason I stay on the job is because they pay me $55 an hour, else I'd go do something more fun. I theorize that the more boring the job, the more they pay, because that's the only way for them to fill the seat.
That was a genuine comment from a genuine engineer... not offensive enough to deserve deleting? If anything, my time at Penn State was MORE exciting than my actual 10-year career as an electrical engineer. Every day I come to the same tiny cubicle and stare at the same flickering CRT moving around the same circuits I've seen a thousand times. At least at Penn State I got to flirt with biology coeds (points to wife), but that's not the case on the job. I'm not even sure we have any women here.
Anyway, back on topic:
If you think college is boring, maybe you ought to go on an Internship and discover the boredom of an actual engineering job.
You may find yourself changing careers.
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