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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.
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Bush believes in his convictions. To the point that he admitted God told him to do what he did. I kind of like the willing to change their mind when presented with evidence to the contrary scientific type. Forget the bullheaded charging I am going to get this done my way type.
What might be truly refreshing though is to have a politician who simply looks at the American People and the future of the American People and does what is right by those terms. I would love to learn how it feels to have a President like that.
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.