Slashdot Mirror
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
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
that's more than i can say for my CS degree. All I learned was in spite of my education, not because of it.
I mean the "Sex Kills! Go To Tech and Live Forever!" bumper stickers weren't created just because they were catchy.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
It's been a few years since college, but what I loathed was having to almost learn Mandarin, or Hindi to understand my math teachers.
-ted
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.
New Topic:
Top 5 reasons it sucks to hire the new crop of engineering students:
5.) They expect the Statement of work you're asking for completion to be colorful, fun, and well written.
4.) They can relate how their professor who cave them a B- is soooo much better at solving problems than you.
3.) They are convinced working as a TA is real work.
2.) Untraining the bad habits. I block instant messaging for a reason.
1.) They want me to vote for Obama and incessantly drone on about how horrible life is in the US.
How's that hangover?
I suspect the point is: Are you happy with where you are, are you pleased with what you've accomplished and would you do it over again?
People spend far too much time comparing themselves to other people rather than looking after their own happiness. Keeping up with the Joneses isn't worth it.
It does NOT suck to be an engineering student. If - and here's the big part - if you like engineering. If you're in this because you parents told you to do it, or because you think there's big money in it - there's the door and don't let it hit you in the ass.
Complaining about how engineering is hard work is like someone studying to be a proctologist and coming home from the first day at work and complaining about all the assholes. How could you possibly be surprised by this? Anything that requires you to learn differential equations is going to be a little taxing.
As for myself, I loved being an engineering student. Having a building full of PhDs that would explain anything, absolutely anything to me ROCKED. I miss college.
In fact, you only needed about 8 credit hours of extra engineering classes to graduate out of the electives. I graduated with over 35. Took extra classes in antenna design, digital number theory, non-linear controls...you name it. I loved it all and dearly miss college.
On the flip side, you know what actually does suck? A mortgage. That's what.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Also, one writes "book reports" in fifth grade, not in any semi-respectable university. One gets the impression Aaron Rowe never actually took a humanities class beyond perhaps the most ludicrous one he could find to satisfy a requirement. Does he think English majors make dioramas, also?
There is a general impression on Slashdot among the more ignorant that humanities classes are a joke. I think a lot of it is based on the fact that, yes, introductory humanities classes, aimed at people just out of high school, tend to not be especially difficult. It's more likely that a science or engineering major will take these classes than the upper level ones. Taking an upper level philosophy or linguistics or history course (or even a low-level classics course) would probably disabuse them of the notion.
Also, a lot of the science/engineering types base their opinion of humanities classes not on any firsthand knowledge but rather on third-hand accounts of what humanities classes may be, filtered through jokes, anecdotes, and misinterpretations of what some humanities professor might have said. A lot of it is alien to the engineering major; a humanities class structure is not about being told what is true and retaining it, it's about being given a lot of (oftentimes conflicting) information and synthesizing it.
But I look forward to a day when engineering, science, and humanities majors can put aside their differences, come together in a spirit of unity, and make fun of business majors.
You really think Math, Science and Engineering students can make better films?
It depends on the definition of "better." Some of Hollywood's most influential directors, from Stanley Kubrick to Jim Cameron, were/are hardcore engineering geeks. But most movies made by geeks end up being made for geeks... more like Primer, in other words, than The Terminator.
It would suck if nerdhood was the only point of view represented in the film industry.
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.
If you're talking about the "looks like 5 minute art" being the modern variety, then I must call shenanigans on you. Modern art is bollocks.
Disclaimer: I'm not an artist. What I know about art you could fit in a thimble. But, I'm an engineer and scientist, and I have tested this. Albeit accidentally.
Over a dozen years ago I went to the Met in NYC with a girlfriend. At the time I had long hair, was only slightly balding, and wore military clothing with lots of pins all over it. I looked eccentric. I looked...like what you'd think of when you think "artist".
So we're at the Met. And to make my SO laugh, I start doing my best "LA Story" impression on the modern art display. I was a little louder than I should have been (I blame the extra-fun Manhattan bars for this). Other people could hear me - I didn't know this. I began spouting nonsense.
"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."
And so on.
What I didn't realize was that other art people were looking over my shoulder and nodding at every single thing I was saying. I had the weird hair and the odd jacket. And nothing I was saying was making sense. Since it was all zooming over their heads, they erred on the side of caution and assumed I was a genius. And I had improved their day with my "insight", which was nothing more than half-drunken babbling. When I turned around and saw a half a dozen people following me around, I knew I had learned something important:
Art, modern art anyways - is a load of rubbish.
It's the emperor's new clothes.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
They will, however, get better grades with less native ability
Why does that matter? They're getting better grades in film classes. Being mad that students in film classes have an easier time getting high marks than students in engineering classes makes about as much sense as being mad that students in 2nd grade have an easier time getting high marks than students in engineering classes.
This disparity is corrected for in the real world - try getting a job with a 4.0 film degree vs. a 3.0 engineering degree. You'll get any job the film degree candidate can get, with the possible exception of jobs where the film degree's GPA doesn't matter (actual film jobs, where they are evaluated primarily on their portfolio of work, an area where anyone who actually has any talent in film is going to kick your (or my) sorry engineering ass.)
More generally, if you really feel that someone else is getting a better deal than you, stop bitching about it and go do what they're doing! Enroll in the film program, get your easy A's, finish college with a 4.0 in your major, and enjoy your years of paying off your student loans while working as a car salesman/insurance agent/whatever else Liberal Arts majors do to actually feed themselves when you could have gotten that same job not going to school at all!
You have to understand what a Liberal Arts major is. For a very select few people, it's a stepping stone to being a professor, or research, or something else at the top of the field. For the vast majority however, a liberal arts degree is an opportunity to do some partying, find a mate, and prove that you're able to show up on time. So yeah, you can get a 4.0 liberal arts degree much easier than you can get an engineering degree, but you won't be able to be an engineer with one!
paintball
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.
The clerks handling academic scholarships do.
There are states that offer scholarships that require one maintains their GPA above a certain level. While the types of students who would earn an academic scholarship aren't the types that would switch to a relatively easy Liberal Arts major to maintain the scholarship, it is commonplace to see students taking LA classes to pad their grades and maintain scholarships. This incentive to take irrelevant (but easy!) classes should not exist.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
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.
Given the ease with which you made up and propagated that bullshit, there's a good chance you have or are on your way to having a BA.
But lets try getting you to provide some real information.
List for us World Leaders and CEOs who only have a Bachelor of Arts degree. I'm sure there are a couple. Now figure out (if you ever learned how to do this) the percentage of CEOs and World Leaders (or even members of congress) who just have Bachelor of Arts degrees. To keep the problem manageable, you might consider only looking at Fortune-50, -100, or -500 companies.
Here, let me help you:
Fortune Top 10:
- Wal Mart: Lee Scott, Business degree
- Exxon: Rex Tillerson, B.S. in Civil Engineering
- General Motors: B.A. in Economics, MBA Harvard
- Chevron: David O'Reilly, B.S. Chemical Engineering
- Conoco Phillips: JAmes Mulva, BA in Business and MBA
- General Electric: BA Applied Mathematics, MBA
- Ford: Alan Mulally, BS and MS Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering
- Citigroup: Vikram Pandit, BS and MS in Engineering, PhD in finance
- Bank of America: Ba Finance
- American Intl. Group: MArtin J Sullivan, degree unknown (he's british)
So out of the top 10, you have four engineers, four business/finance, and one applied math guy.
*ZERO* Liberal Arts majors. Maybe we can give you one out of 10 with credit for the math guy, even though it was APPLIED math.
So for CEOs, looks like engineers kick liberal arts major ass. For Heads of State, I think you'll find that the vast majority of Heads of State have MBAs or JDs (or BLs) in developed nations, or are the children of political families in lesser-developed nations, or are former warlords in even less developed nations.
But, with a statement as stupid as "ALL of the heads of state in the world today are, or can be considered Liberal Arts majors", (ALL? Really? Don't make it hard to be proven wrong or anything...) I doubt you're going to have much to say here, even if you did use your Liberal Arts training to insert your 'cover my don't know anything ass' statement of "or can be considered". Can be considered? Either they have liberal arts degrees or they don't!
It must really gall you how you just got trounced by an engineer though.
paintball