What did your degree teach you? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: robotix3
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2016, 05:01:35 pm
content: We are interviewing people right now, not the first round of hiring but something is just really making me wonder.A lot of our applicants have EE bachelor degrees from some pretty legit schools and have over 4.0 GPAs. Unless they have done their own projects on the side, they have never designed a circuit board, don't know how to program a microcontroller (other than a 8051), and RF is just magic. The only experience they have is a few projects they did along with 20 other people, where they contributed a few hours of work.What do these people do if someone hires them as an EE? Does their employer spend a year training them? I don't get what universities are wasting their time teaching?I dropped out of college before I took any engineering classes. I'm wandering if you guys were taught hands-on stuff?

author: KJDS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2016, 05:06:23 pm
content: It's been a long time since I finished uni, but there I learnt that I was capable of tackling any mathematical problem related to electronics.I can teach a graduate to use a soldering iron in half an hour, and to be competent in half a day. How long will it take you to teach someone control theory?Having said that, I would expect everyone passing an electronics degree to have completed a final year project that they should have spent, on their own, about ten hours a week for twenty weeks on.

author: robotix3
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2016, 05:20:42 pm
content: QuoteI'm not saying that people shouldn't get a degree. I just happened to be in a good situation and didn't really need to get one. I have to explain control theory to interns and robotics teams all the time and I'm pretty good at it. It really only takes understanding of calculus understand a PID, and the car pedal analogy. Teaching soldering has nothing to do with a degree...

author: KJDS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2016, 05:28:20 pm
content: Quote from: robotix3 on January 07, 2016, 05:20:42 pmSo why did you ask about hands on stuff?

author: robotix3
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2016, 05:36:22 pm
content: QuoteOh I guess I misunderstood you. When I said hands on I meant actually building things, like did anyone have to actually design a circuit board and get it manufactured at uni.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2016, 06:17:57 pm
content: Yes, I did. My final year project involved PCB design and fabrication, a fair amount of theory, and the design, manufacture and analysis of a working product.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2016, 06:47:37 pm
content: Quote from: robotix3 on January 07, 2016, 05:01:35 pmAny decent hiring process will determine whether an individual's capabilities match the company's requirements. If not then it is time to leave that company. To make a point using a ludicrously extreme example, Alan Turing never built anything - he needed Tommy Flowers's genius for that. Doesn't mean Turing wasn't rather useful!QuoteSo don't hire timeservers. If that really does describe what happened at the university, then (a) it is a disgrace and (b) they are clearly good team workersQuoteThat's traditional, since each company has a unique ethos and skillsets, and only the company can instill those. A university should concentrate on generalities that will be useful for the next 40 years, including getting the student to learn how to learn theoretical and practical skills.Quote...and that's the reason you don't knowQuoteNo.But the final year project required that we produce practical working projects - so if you didn't already know, then you had to quickly learn on your own.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2016, 06:52:32 pm
content: Quote from: robotix3 on January 07, 2016, 05:01:35 pmWhat they teach is how to take on a project and math geared towards to EE. You are much better off with someone who knows how to deal with a new problem than someone who knows how to solve one particular problem but gets lost in details when the problem is slightly different. My experience with self-taught people is that 95% falls into the last category and usually make a complete mess of a more complex project.

author: Seekonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2016, 06:53:46 pm
content: I asked at an interview what he did in his last job. He replied, "I biased a transistor."What did I learn in college.....I learned to look up things on my own.

author: klr5205
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2016, 07:03:11 pm
content: We learned juuuuust enough to truly understand how little we knew!But seriously, my EE program didn't have a large focus on the practical application of the theory we were learning. (Not that I agree with that)We did build a functional device for our senior project, but I've learned far more about practical electronics design on the job and from doing my own personal projects.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2016, 07:10:17 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 07, 2016, 06:52:32 pmYes. But there can beveryhonourable exceptions in that 5%, of course!The other problem with self-taught people is that they tend not to know the limits of the possible and don't know what can be reused - and so waste a lot of time and money.That's particularly noticable with people that write software (e.g. with the "two general's problem", ad-hoc spaghetti FSMs, limits of two phase commit protocols) but also applies to EEs.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2016, 07:35:17 pm
content: What I learned in uni was a lot of theory which remained applicable through decades of job experience. General physics, semiconductor physics, EM wave propogation, laser theory, calculus (in it's many flavors through several semesters), differential equations, probability theory, Fourier and Laplace transforms, linear algebra, computer numerical methods etc. etc.My hands on experience was greater at home from my hobby than at the university, but it didn't really help on the job. I grew up on vacuum tubes and by the time I graduated no one cared about filaments and grids and plates anymore. The same with point to point wiring on terminal strips.The practical projects at university (late 60s, early 70s) would seem hopelessly dated. Designed and fabricated transistors. On my 2 cm wafer of 64 only 3 had greater than unity beta. But I learned about resists, masks, diffusion processes etc. Designed and fabricated a dual slope A/D converter. This was before you could buy one as a chip. And at a professors instigation our lab group tried to design and prototype a telephone answering machine. We didn't get far for two reasons. First, our tiny student budgets didn't support prototyping of something this complex. And more importantly, from our student viewpoint we just couldn't see the point. That was a couple of years before the answering machine market went ballistic.This latter example points out something far more important than uni or not. That is the ability to recognize a market and get into it. I am a complete failure at this. I cemented this early miss few years later when a group of friends and I were writing software for the brand new personal computer market. This was in the post Altair, pre IBM PC days. We were at a trade show and a couple of people came by asking if we could write software that would manipulate columns of data. We couldn't see why that would be a big deal and didn't put any thought into it. Missed our chance to be one of the early players in the spreadsheet market.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2016, 07:44:15 pm
content: messing around with and gates , when the FPGA and synthesizable languages were already mainstream. in other words : mostly obsolete stuff...

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2016, 10:44:59 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on January 07, 2016, 07:35:17 pmPrecisely. I hope modern degrees continue to concentrate on such invariants.In the UK when I was young there were universities that concentrated on such "abstract theoretical stuff", and polytechnics that concentrated on "todays' practical stuff" - i.e. engineers and technicians respectively. Excellent, because they were catering to different jobs and to different students. Vive la difference - not one case fits all.Then polytechnics were allowed to rebrand themselves as universities, mostly for reasons of an academic inferiority complex, which was stupid and ridiculous.The differences are largely still there, but many students don't realise it and have unpleasant surprises. Employers with a quarter-way competent HR department know the difference between the universities, and act accordingly.

author: suicidaleggroll
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2016, 10:56:15 pm
content: Quote from: robotix3 on January 07, 2016, 05:01:35 pmYes. The undergraduate program in many universities is there to teach the fundamentals that are required to understand and be competent in a wide range of fields. The individual will need to be trained for some time (months? year?) on the job to learn how those fundamentals apply to that specific application.The alternative is to teach each student one particular niche, and pray they're able to find a job doing exactly that or go hungry, because they don't have the fundamental knowledge to be able to do anything else.Remember, not every EE graduate goes into circuit design. Some go into antenna design, semiconductors, programming, ionospheric electrodynamics, etc.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2016, 11:02:43 pm
content: Colleges are valuable for two things they give the students,1, an opportunity to socialize and to network.2, an opportunity to learn how to approach unstructured problems.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2016, 11:12:16 pm
content: Quote from: suicidaleggroll on January 07, 2016, 10:56:15 pmAnd that is also undesirable since it precludes effective multidisciplinary activities. A classic example of that is to consider how biochemistry would have started as a discipline if people had to be biologists or chemists with no overlap.When at school and choosing a uni course, I was horrified to find a university that required you to specialise in telecoms engineering before entering uni. I have never seen any reason to change my view that that was far too early to specialise - and that's after working with people that did that!

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 12:09:44 am
content: This might ruffle a few feathers, for which I apologise, but it's been my opinion since the day I finished my finals.So, what did my degree teach me?Vocationally speaking, almost nothing, other than a superb course on structured programming. I'd been programming computers and designing electronics for many years before I went to university in the early 80s, but I just realised that despite the name, structured programming was what I'd been missing.Other than that, my degree course did teach me several different ways to solve and achieve the right answers to contrived calculus problems, electrostatics and what not, almost nothing that I've ever found remotely applicable in the real world of engineering. Engineering is not about producing pi/4.They even taught us EEs COBOL in the final year, FFS.You have given me an excellent idea for an interview question though, even though it is purely for entertainment value!

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 01:57:28 am
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on January 07, 2016, 07:35:17 pmMy engineering degree course in the 70s was similar. However, when I talk to people who have graduated in recent years the picture seems very different. We took mostly strategic courses, that never go out of fashion, and a few tactical courses, that do. Now people seem to take mostly tactical courses, in the hope of being highly relevant to a first employer, and to start paying off those massive debts from college. That kind of knowledge soon becomes obsolete and they are left with very little of value from their degree course.In the 60s and 70s the centre of any major capital city was littered with American youngsters, and a smattering of other nationalities, backpacking. You don't see that any more. The current massive cost of college in several major countries has people focussed on short term financial goals, as an employee. Things like health care issues are usually cited for America's very low rate of entrepreneurship compared to other developed countries, but I think college costs are probably a bigger issue. Its really damaging to a country's development. Smart youngsters with some freedom to do interesting things is vital.

author: mrpackethead
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 02:35:40 am
content: pinballCoffee

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 02:39:17 am
content: The main thing I learned as an EE undergrad was how to learn. I've said that often. The stuff in my courses, for the most part, was woefully outdated. Though things did change fast. For example, I graduated in 1988. In 1986 I had a microprocessor programming class that used, no shit, 8080's. For this class we had to acquire an 8" floppy disk. The lab to test our programs had about 8 S-100 computers, I don't remember the brand but similar to an Altair or IMSAI, but no front panel. Each one had a pair of 8" floppy drives and ran CP/M 2.2 and had a simple serial terminal connected. Since there were only those few machines, actual writing of code was done on the CDC Cyber 730 in the computer center, which has an 8080 assembler and compiler. You would write up and compile your program, then you would go to the lab where one of the 8 machines had a connection to the 730, and you would download your compiled program to your floppy, then go to one of the other machines and attempt to run it. If it ran, you needed to get a printout of your source and the lab TA would sign off on it and you could hand it in. If it wasn't right - off you go to another building to find a terminal to log back in to the 730 and fix it. I cheated, I had a TRS-80 Model 4P at the time which in addition to the various Radio Shack OSes could run CP/M, so I would debug my programs and once they were working I would then upload the source to the 730 and compile it and proceed with the rest of the dog and pony show, confident that it would actually work. Now, a couple of years later, when I was a senior, I helped out some younger players with this same class. By now, they had an 8080 simulator that would run on an MS-DOS computer. Since the process was now a bit simpler, they made the assignments harder - the FIRST assignment for the later generation was as complex as the FINAL assignment I had to do. But still - it's now 1988 and they are teaching 8080 assembly.There was plenty of theory that I'm not sure who uses - math classes and EE classes on FFT. Does anyone do FFT by hand? I know my new scope just has a button I can push and see various variations of FFTs for the signal I am monitoring. And there are bazillions of computer programs that will do a similar analysis for you.I did have one professor, whom I considered the best in the department, so I made it a point to take as many of his courses as I could. Despite being a mostly digital guy, I did take his op amps course and found it very useful. It's one of the few that I've kept my textbook and notebooks from - though as it turned out I only ever briefly did EE work after graduation and instead got into computer networking which is still my day job.It's my feeling that an undergrad degree is just too generalist to be able to just jump from college into designing complex products without some on the job training. Things that were not really taught at any point - using test equipment. Not everyone in my classes had been experimenting with electronics since they were wee lads and lasses (yes, we had a few women) like I had been, and when we had labs where you needed to measure things they really almost had no clue which end of the multimeter probes went to the device under test. And this was at a pretty highly rated school. My best friend went to a different, also top rated school, and his first job out of college, he initially was put on the easy stuff and then worked his way up. He's been an actual EE ever since graduation, working his way up from RF to microwave. There is (or was, anyway) an integrated navigation module combining GPS and older RDF in the Boeing 777 - he was one of the designers of that unit. That was many years and several companies into his career, starting out doing basic tests on other people's designs to actually designing products. Right out of school? No way did he or I have the skill sets to do things like that.I understand now that, at least at my school, the EE program is now 5 years instead of 4. I don't doubt though to gain real skill in current technologies you either need to stick around and go for a graduate degree, or work somewhere with a goof on the job training program. There's just too much to know and things change far too fast for the courses to stay completely up to date with the latest and greatest.

author: DimitriP
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 04:22:51 am
content: QuoteWe never find out because they don't get hired.I mean who in their right mind would hire a 4.0 EE that has never designed a PCB before. What do they know ? But the ad is looking for a PCB designer with an EE degree? Or is PCB design part of a looong laundry list of "additional assignments as required"?QuoteCan any expert truck driver start delivering UPS packages on their first day with "no training"?QuoteYet, I bet no employers have told those candidates "You need to go back to your University and ask for your money back"....and I'll go out on a limb, and say that those jobs somewhere in the wording include EE or equivalent degree required, and anyone with less than a 4.0 GPA is not getting a first interview.just a few random thoughts ...

author: Armxnian
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 04:54:13 am
content: GPA doesn't mean jack shit for getting hired for a real job, that statistic (outside of the university) is only useful to get an internship position.4.0 is also unrealistic. Most new students screw up their first year.Every future job that I would personally want to have requires at least a B.S. Most prefer M.S or Ph.D. That alone is enough for me to go to school. A degree from an accredited school is proof that you know something. It's a system that works. However, you shouldn't assume someone is smart or knows everything just because they have a degree.A university can't teach everything. You should do your classwork and also experiment at home. Have a degree and experience from whatever it may be and no one can touch you. There is no logical reason to choose one or the other given the opportunity.Quote from: blueskull on January 08, 2016, 03:01:41 amThis is accurate. 1/4th of my classmates play LoL during the lectures. Why even come to begin with?

author: djacobow
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 05:37:40 am
content: When I was an undergrad, my program consisted of the basics: lots of physics, lots of calculus, signals, E&M, digital design, CS, circuit design and analysis, solid state, electric machines, etc. I have always been a hobbyist, so had some practical experience, but the program itself had very little of such.Thinking back on it, I'm glad it was thus. Time given to practical experience would have come from some other part of the curriculum, all of which was designed to give the bare _minimum_ fundamentals to be conversant in most areas of EE. Let's remember that there is not infinite time at uni. 4 years of 4-5 classes per semester, that's it.It was part of the "social contract" when I first started working that the employer would provide some training to make you useful in their domain.I started in semiconductors. I had the theory, In school I had even made crappy transistors in a crappy fab, designed a small crappy chip (anyone remember MAGIC and free educational MOSIS runs?), and designed and run a crappy 8b processor in an FPGA.But the hands on experience wasn't all that useful. My first employer, Intel, had all its own tools and techniques, and I learned those. It was not a big deal. (And I never set foot in a fab again.)What, if anything, is disturbing to me now is that employers expect to have the _exact_ employees they want, with all the current and fashionable skills, to work on their problems right out of the gate. It's especially laughable considering the 1/2 life of many of those skills can be measured in months.Finally, I want to say something about PCB design. It seems PCB designers believe it is central to the EE profession. It's not. It's a practical skill, like any other, and my experience with working with a handful of PCB specialists has been unimpressive. I'm not saying that PCB designers are poor EEs. My sample size is way too small to make such a claim. But I have met several people who have gotten far in their careers as board people who were indeed substandard EEs, substituting rules of thumb and received wisdom for engineering.-- dave j

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 07:26:29 am
content: Quote from: DimitriP on January 08, 2016, 04:22:51 amThis is the reason it's often a bad decision for an EE to go work for a non-EE.Too many middle-of-the movie entrances.Here's a device/system from some years ago without everything. We don't know what it does, but it doesn't work.

author: IconicPCB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 09:39:53 am
content: Galenbo,Spot on.I have always worked in a company where there was a clear distinction between engineering management typically a senior engineer and administrative management.. typically Accountants and marketing.I would not consider working in an environment where my immediate supervisor was not a professional engineer.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 10:53:42 am
content: I have an EE&CS degree. C programming. RTOS. Verilog, FPGA. I actually used Protel first time there, though that was for side project but with a professor nonetheless. I've also learned some management practices. Erlang B. I've taken a class in psychology and sociology, those are probably more useful (to just understand the "WHY") than the electronics 1, where we built transistor amplifiers on paper. Also, Krav Maga. It also made me be able to prioritize my time, and cut my losses and move on, if neccesasry.So it was useful. It also filtered out more than half the people, who shouldn't be there in the first place.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 12:21:43 pm
content: QuoteI would say that your experience precisely echos the PCB designers view on themselves: their profession is more of an art than science. Because of that, their skills are more difficult to acquire, thus valuable.

author: DenzilPenberthy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 12:31:52 pm
content: Quote from: suicidaleggroll on January 07, 2016, 10:56:15 pmI'd say a vanishingly small minority of EE graduates go into circuit design. I'd say from my class of about 80 people I am the only person I know of that actually does 'electronics design' for a living now. The overwhelming majority went straight into 'The City' e.g. finance, banking, etc etc as an EE degree is simply a badge that says 'numerate and good at problem solving'. The small fraction who did go into engineering mostly went into management or software development.

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 01:21:57 pm
content: Quote from: DenzilPenberthy on January 08, 2016, 12:31:52 pmIf they went straight into "The City" - finance banking etc, they are not engineers and they never were. Except for control theory, the degree means nothing. Someone who follows money in some other profession rather than electronics, is probably not passionate enough to make it as a decent electronics engineer in any case. Some EE's even leave their city or country to pursue their career in electronics.True Believers stay in the electronics industry until retirement. For them, electronics in not a job, but a way of life.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 02:06:52 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on January 08, 2016, 01:21:57 pmWas that said tongue in cheek or seriously? If you are in electronics in the UK the only two real options are leave the country or leave the industry.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 05:39:22 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on January 07, 2016, 10:44:59 pmUnfortunately I have seen little evidence that even quarter-way competence is widespread in the HR arena. If you measure competence by delivering employees who will deliver best value to an organization. If you measure by having least chance of creating an actionable legal issue against the organization they are actually fairly good.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 05:52:02 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on January 08, 2016, 05:39:22 pmYesFortunately I've seen both types and have a great deal of respect for the good ones. But I've seen more of the ass-covering HR-droids recently.There's a reason the "personnel department" was rebranded as "HR department", and it isn't pretty.

author: KJDS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 06:25:58 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 08, 2016, 02:06:52 pmI know plenty of good engineers making good money in the UK. I've also met plenty of poor ones that have done little more than bemoan their lot.

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 06:55:02 pm
content: I knew it was declining, I was shock at the state of decline when I first come nose to nose with it.Quote from: Rick Law on July 13, 2015, 05:40:02 amI have to bring up M.I.T. first. In September, I went to a "lean about MIT" seminar similar to the other one I posted back in July. M.I.T is still strongly focused on learning and education. Much to my dismay, most other universities are on the way down faster than gravity allows. The university I cited above would have been ivy. (I know, Ivy refers to a specific sport league, I am using it to mean what was Ivy-level quality.) I went to at least two more of these "consider us" seminar from other schools. Disappointments and more disappointments, I don't have the stomach to do more but I do want to show my daughter emotional support.I paid attention to the recentstudent protests at Yale and U of Missouri, I was shock at the quality of students (and teachers). Most students are not prepared for school, nor do they have the mindset to learn. Four or five years ago, college teachers were complaining how student can't write and can't do simple algebra, Now student can't do simple arithmetic. Now they can't even communicate other than yelling and screaming.A health dose of initiative, drive, and desire for success could have overcame the lack of preparedness, but I saw none in too many students. They are not there to come out more knowledgeable than they went in. They are not there to come out more prepared for gainful employment. They are there for four years of "feel good" and having a good time with someone else paying for it.A remedyfor the low student SAT score is at hand however.The new SAT will be available come March 2016. Students already had a go at thenew PSET, as P for prepare, it was available in 2015. Base on the chatters about newPSAT, the newSATwouldn't tell you if the student is prepared for college or if they even know how to do simple algebra, but most students sure will all have a similarly good score. It will not be testing "aptitude for learning" but it sure will be "fair to all students".I suppose we are tired of not making top 20 internationally. We always do poorly with the OECD's PISA test. So the folks that created this new SAT is now engaged with PISA. If and when we have this new PISA, our students will catch up with our international standings. Even while being less capable, they will score better because score will be fair. We will catch up the China, Singapore, Korea and the likes.Lastly, take a look at how students are learning math: A school district near me spend 15 years fighting off this "Every day math", and now it is back with a vengeance called Common Core.

author: bitseeker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 07:10:35 pm
content: Quote from: robotix3 on January 07, 2016, 05:01:35 pmNot surprising. Those are "textbook engineers". They know how to solve the homework problems and what's on the test, but heaven forbid they run into something that wasn't in the textbook. A 4.0 GPA is easy if you keep dropping classes when you don't ace the first test.When I was getting my degree, textbook engineers abounded. Many of them didn't even own their own computer. Come to think of it, I've worked with some programmers back in the '90s who didn't own their own computer either.Sure, PCs cost more back then, but these guys were already working. It's because it was just a job. Big difference.QuoteSmart or experienced hiring managers don't hire them. Others will hire them and then pull their hair out, reassign them, fire them, or make them want to leave on their own.QuoteIt depends on the employer and the job they're trying to fill. For example, even a high-caliber programmer isn't 100% useful until they learn all the libraries, tools, hardware, etc. that they need to be fluent in in order to debug and fix existing software systems, let alone build new ones. That can take months to a whole year of training time. They're not useless during this time, but they're also not completely contributing to the bottom line.QuoteUltimately, what you get out of any university is up to you and you can't expect them to teach you everything, regardless what name is on the campus sign. I'm not impressed by the branding that appears on resumes. I've interviewed too many MSEE and PhD's from ivy-league schools who aren't worth the paper their degree is printed on.If you want to be a top-notch engineer, even at the beginning of your career, you have to go above and beyond the basics at school. Most students don't see things that way. But therein lies one of the big lessons that universities "teach" you, if you're paying attention: Just as classes are there to filter you out, so is the real world. You have to have the initiative to go beyond the ordinary.QuoteHaving a university degree isn't a panacea, but it does give you some experiences that you might not otherwise experience. It also helps one understand some of the oddities with degree programs.QuoteYes, I learned hands-on stuff, but I doubt it was enough to satisfy a real job. I got more hands on experience on my own either through personal projects or jobs I had during university. I could then roll that experience back into my university projects, which made them significantly better than the cookie-cutter assemblies by the textbook engineers.Another major lesson I got during my degree is that I could learn more and up-to-date engineering outside the university, and get paid to do it rather than paying the school. So, the sooner I could graduate, the better.

author: djacobow
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 07:26:27 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 08, 2016, 12:21:43 pmFair enough. I know there are super-smart people out there who solve difficult PCB problems. There just also seem to be a bunch of hacks, too, and there is a lot of PCB design work that doesn't really require brilliance.

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 08:58:44 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on January 08, 2016, 05:52:02 pmAn HR dept I am aware of rebranded itself one day to "People", and I don't think they're alone. You can imagine that drew plenty of muttered ridicule among the troops, mostly describing the insurmountable difficulties encountered when turd polishing.The rot set in when HR started getting itself a spot on the board. HR is a non-core service, like Facilities: it is not part of your core business offering unless you are a body shop, and so therefore should remain outside of the boardroom and not be making key decisions of business direction. Next thing you know we'll have the office plant and foliage guy determining whether or not to invest in developing a new high speed data acquisition and telemetry product for space applications.

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 09:18:14 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on January 08, 2016, 01:21:57 pmI started out as an electronics engineer with CS (my course was called Electronic Computer Systems and was an EE course). I ended up writing software for end user programmable and learning ATE machines (aka bed of nails) after I left college, then went into building WAN optimisation software with no EE content at all, and ended up being a freelance financial trading systems designer and troubleshooter for 25 years (yes, in the City I am afraid). I cannot deny that the money was a key decision maker for me.But, at the same time, I also developed many embedded hardware and software telemetry systems for space applications which I did (and still do) for the love of it, but it didn't pay anywhere near as much as the City job. Well it didn't, until a couple of products I developed unexpectedly became in demand, so I now mostly derive income from the EE side.So am I an engineer or not?

author: Poe
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 09:33:03 pm
content: So the assumption is that a four year EE degree is intended for, and capable of, covering all aspects of electrical/electronic engineering including fluent design and program?Sounds like an issue of not knowing what you don't know.First, design and programming tasks are a small fraction of what EEs do.Second, design/programming takes experience. Cutting yourself with a knife doesn't make you surgeon. Apple wouldn't hire you just because you built a robot.Today it's easier to do a shitty job and have it kind of work. Because of this, many Sparkfun graduates feel they're adequately equipped to design a commercial product. Look at all the ill conceived Kickstarters. They bolt together off the shelf components, copy open-source materials and don't flinch when they write "design engineer" under their picture.No doubt that today's universities are a MASSIVE waste of time and money to any engineering undergrad (including those who 'work hard').But it's naive to think that it is even possible to competently design/program with nothing but a four year degree. That kind of thinking is a testament to a lack of design/programming experience more than anything.

author: Armxnian
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 10:20:57 pm
content: Poe, you mentioned 2 types of EE's. Those who go to school to learn, and those who learn at home building projects, and claimed both are useless.But you forgot the third type. The EE's like you who haven't had a real job or been inside a university in the past decade and talk out of their asses on eevblog.com/forum.

author: jancumps
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 10:36:56 pm
content: I've done electronics in high school and informatica in graduation.Electronica was mid-80's. Learned Linear and semiconductors. Network analysis (Kirchoff, Thevenin and Norton). Magnetics, modulation, semiconductors theory and practice (traditional and FET), opamps, logic blocks. Briefly touched valves, extensively touched TV electronics of those days, including CRT. Much effort went into measuring skills, multimeters, scopes and generators. Loads of time dedicated to LAB exercises.Learned to etch PCBs, wind transformers, work with 2 and 3 phase power and with motors.Free access to the Elektuur magazine. Free access to the lab after school hours -including teachers mentoring us volunteerly !!!I did a specialisation year where we learned about the then new PC. Practice on TRS-80 and a a ZILOG Z80 evaluation kit with hex LED display. I also learned feedback techniques, pneumatics and hydraulics that year.In my graduation I did Management Information Systems, an IT focused education.The mix of the two is an ideal combination in my opinion. I'm skilled in electronics and programming.I've spent much effort to stay current in bothe areas. I recently finished the Coursera trail on linear electronics (run by Georgia Tech University) , to refresh my skills.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 10:41:57 pm
content: QuoteThat's definitely very extreme. I would modify it to say that 'No doubt that ***MOST OF*** today's universities are a MASSIVE waste of time and money to ***MANY*** engineering undergrad (including those who 'work hard'). 'On the flip side, today's ***TOP*** schools are far better at allowing students to be as good as they want to be, vs. the old schools that make students good. The distinction here is that the student plays a far more important role in shaping his/her education and what s/he can get out of a school is a lot more dependent on the student than the school.So you have a much wider divergence today on the quality of students a given school or a given department / major turns out.What that means for the graduates collectively is that while the average has declined, the number of excellent students and their excellence have gone up significantly over the last decades: today, top students are a lot more creative, analytical, inter-disciplinary and driven than top students from the past.

author: bitseeker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 10:44:50 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 08, 2016, 10:41:57 pm+1

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 10:47:25 pm
content: QuoteI think the "education model" has evolved significantly over the last few decades, from "educating the mass" to "pleasing the mass and educating the very best": your "feel good" point is evidence of that approach.Its long-term impact on the society is detrimental, in my view, and fuels the "elitist approach" that some in the political class has toward the average Joe.

author: suicidaleggroll
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 11:20:09 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 08, 2016, 10:47:25 pmWhat gets me is theentitledattitude so many undergraduate students have these days. They think that because they're paying the school (or to be more precise, their parents are paying the school), they deserve a good grade, regardless of their performance. It's as if they think they're simply buying a diploma and don't need to put in any effort.While my wife was getting her Master's a few years ago, she was a TA for a few classes, and the amount of shit she had to put up with from the students just boggles the mind. They would turn in essays on a performance they were supposed to attend (this was in the theater department) that had horrible grammar, a misspelling every 10th word, no critical thought, and most importantly,had the wrong endingbecause the director decided to deviate from the published work. So clearly they didn't bother attending the performance, they just read some cliff notes of the play and barfed out some piece of garbage. She would read it, give them a "C" or something else ridiculously generous, and then the student would scream at her for not giving an "A", then go to the professor, scream at him, he'd respond with something like "I would have given you an even worse grade, count your blessings", and then they'd go to the department chair and ask to get both the professor and TA fired.I call the kids in school these days the "purple pen" generation. For those of you who don't know, there actually was a movement several years ago in K-12 schools in the US. Teachers either couldn't use red pens or were encouraged not to, because they were afraid a big red X would damage the kids' self-esteem. Never being told you're wrong can do a lot of damage to a person too...all we got out of it are a bunch of strong-willed morons.

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2016, 11:50:04 pm
content: Quote from: Howardlong on January 08, 2016, 09:18:14 pmYou can spell, so no you are not an engineer(Just joking... sort of.)The bed-of-nails ATE stuff is interesting work. I did some of that in years gone by and enjoyed it. Whilst you were working the financial sector for 25 years you would not have been an electronics engineer. But at the end of the day, you cannot lose your qualification; it just dilutes over the years with the less experience you get in the discipline.I know a woman who called herself a scientist after doing a masters degree in science. She is now in her late 50's, and had only ever been employed for 6 months after graduation in as a lab technician in the early 80's. Never worked in over 30 years and has more interest in Days of Our Lives on the telly than anything to do with science. She has preferred to live off welfare for decades when she was perfectly capable for getting some sort of work. Oddly enough, she still calls herself a scientist.

author: Tinkerer
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2016, 12:17:37 am
content: No real board design stuff when I was at school. Actually, it helped teach me how to learn. I can learn anything required to do my job and not at a terribly slow pace.I have had some limited design experience since then, mostly stuff I have done on my own. Of course for my particular job, designing PCBs hasnt been something required. I deal with practical hands on applications, not so much the design aspect. Hence my title being more manufacturing. The senior guy there once described it as "making the shit they design, actually work."('they' meaning the engineering department responsible for designing things; sometimes you have to wonder what people are thinking when they fail to take into account the rf loss from filters and the system overall)

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2016, 12:44:04 am
content: Quote from: Tinkerer on January 09, 2016, 12:17:37 amMy personal believe is that learning is one of the very few things universities teach and (at least used to) teach well.I am trained in Physics but never practiced a day in Physics since graduate school. The problem solving skills I learn in Physics however is something I use everyday. The other attribute I learned were tenacity in seeking solution, pragmatism in selecting solutions, and carefulness in applying them. Most important of all, the right answer today could be the wrong answer tomorrow, so one needs to continue learning.So, if you learned how useful learning is and learned to learn well, you have your money's worth in my view.I believe my own college education worked out well for me. Seeing how fast the universities degenerates into "we have a better gym"; I am just not sure where one gets a good education these days like I was lucky enough to have back then.

author: Galaxyrise
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2016, 01:11:32 am
content: QuoteFrom my degree, I participated in a research project with equipment I would never have had access to on my own. I was in a competition which was extremely useful (and a lot of fun.) And I got an internship which turned into a full-time job. Without those, I would have missed probably 80% of the professional growth I had in those years. (And I graduated debt-free.)I lucked into them; nothing had prepared me to go looking for those opportunities or given me the idea they would be so important.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2016, 02:43:08 am
content: QuoteNothing odd at all. Being trained in the sciences alone doesn't make one scientist; Having a nice degree in the sciences alone doesn't make one a scientist; Working in the sciences alone doesn't make one scientist; Having a "scientist" title alone doesn't make one scientist.... On the contrary, there are lot of "scientists" who have no idea what science is all about.It is what one does and how one does it that makes one a scientist, or not.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2016, 02:49:48 am
content: QuoteDuring a college tour, I had some sushi for lunch in the student cafeteria and it cost me $30+,.With typical tuition for most private schools over $60K/yr, it is getting harder and harder to justify a college education this days.QuoteSurprisingly, Harvard came out as one of the more affordable schools and one of the best values there is. The difficulty there is if you can get in. I think most of the Ivys and some of the engineering schools are worth it. The state schools, outside of the top 5 / 10 depending on majors, are harder to justify, even on in-state tuition. Again, a lot of that is student-dependent.The DOE published a lot of data on that recently.

author: Galaxyrise
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2016, 04:05:15 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 09, 2016, 02:49:48 amI went to a state school, and I think that school is still absolutely worth if for a student that takes advantage of the same kind out-of-class opportunities I did. There's even more now than when I was there. But I think most of the students there do not.I've heard good things about RIT.

author: Poe
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2016, 04:38:09 am
content: Armxnian -Thank you for helping me pick PC parts recently. I stopped keeping up on that stuff when it felt like a rat race.Now in regard to your counting error:Quote from: Poe on January 08, 2016, 09:33:03 pmMaybe that's easier to read?Best of luck getting your computer degree though.

author: Armxnian
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2016, 06:40:49 am
content: It's true that the EE course, at least at my university, is very limited in terms of programming. That is why I chose CPE. You get the EE courses, the CS courses and the CPE courses.Quote from: Poe on January 09, 2016, 04:38:09 amIf you want to do research or work at somewhere reputable, then it's not a decision, it's a requirement. Financially, a school like MIT is a poor choice, as it costs $50,000 a year. Cheaper schools are often free with finnancial aid, and if you did good in high school, then you often get paid to go to school due to scholarships.

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2016, 07:00:24 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 09, 2016, 02:49:48 amI think your info is outdated unless you are referring tohard sciencesalone. For the other fields of studies, Ivy long since lost its luster. The example USA today quote below is not the only one I read about the Ivy grads being avoided. I have read about ivy-avoidance on other occasions. The student demonstration a month or so ago at Yale captured on video so clearly shown even Ivy is afflicted with non-performance sickness. Merit is not what it used to be there. (The protest was about Halloween costumes if I recalled.)Again, the notable exception is MIT. They appear to be in a league by themselves.This excerpt from USA today: This NYC law firm refuses to hire Ivy League grads. July 27, 2015In a July 15, 2015 article published on the Huffington Post, the firm’s founding partner Adam Leitman Bailey explained that the real estate law firm does not hire graduates from Ivy League law schools or other traditional top-tier universities because they find high-achieving graduates from the country’s second, third or fourth-tier law schools “to be more ambitious and more hungry to excel in the legal profession.”Bailey — who graduated from Syracuse University College of Law – then expanded on his firm’s reasons for not hiring graduates of Ivy League law schools.He said that many of the Ivy League law schools either do not rank or grade their students; accordingly, these students have little to no motivation to earn top grades or make the most of their law school experience.http://college.usatoday.com/2015/07/27/nyc-law-firm-wont-hire-ivy-league-grads/

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2016, 07:25:55 am
content: http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/bachelors

author: Armxnian
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2016, 09:53:00 am
content: Expensive schools are pretty overrated for an undergraduate degree. If your tuition is fully or mostly covered then more power to you, but other than that I don't see much merrit. Unless your school is complete trash, the material is all the same for a field like engineering.Teacher quality is probably better, but there is only so much you can be taught in an hour long lecture, you can't avoid teaching yourself. Campus life is also most likely better, but I don't really care for that stuff. Paying $40k-$60k a year out of pocket for those amenities is borderline crazy imo.Going to a nice school for a graduate degree is much more justifiable, as tuition could be paid for if your research is good. Plus you can potentially have access to professors and labs which are world class in their area of focus.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2016, 12:09:01 pm
content: QuoteThe world is full of odd ball people doing odd ball stuff. Thus it should be cautioned to take a sample of one and extropolate from it - I have never heard of this law firm so I cannot speek for the dude's credibility. I would say that until and unless the Davis Polks, the Skadden Arps and the Winston & Strawns ... of the world stop recruit from Harvard Law or Yale Law, it is worth considering going there if you have the slightest inkling to be in the legal profession.As to your point on no grading, I think Brown may be the only Ivy that I know of that does that. And it is on the lower half of the Ivys, still a very good school.I think you should try to separate two things:1) what others can get out of the Ivys? That's a measurement of "average" where the law of large numbers will prevail; I am in total agreement with you that on average, the quality of education has declined universally;2) what YOU can get out of the Ivys? That's a measurement of 1 and the answer is entirely dependent on you. I would venture to say that the Ivys, as well as most top schools, will serve anyone well in that department, as long as they strive for more.

author: Tim F
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2016, 12:52:24 pm
content: Quote from: robotix3 on January 07, 2016, 05:01:35 pmMostly how to do maths, learn new stuff quickly and how to use those skills to problem solve. You can't expect everyone to remembereverythingfrom their EE degree.Some EEs just have no motivation to make circuits and layout PCBs in their own time. Infact, MOST EEs don't have any motivation to do that stuff. Their only motivation to learn (whatever small amount) about those topics at uni is to pass the examinations. They will probably totally forget everything they learnt due to not continuing to practice and refine those skills in their own time.Those people shouldn't be searching for circuit design and PCB jobs. Perhaps there is another area of engineering that they have a passion for. Some people are the practical type who build stuff at home, others are experts at maths and theoretical work. Some are experts at wrangling EE nerds and go on to become managers, never getting their hands dirty in design work. Then there are just some who shouldn't be in engineering and come away from interviews with the interview panel wondering wtf degrees are good for. I did an IT degree before my EE degree and I was one of those useless people who went to interviews. I had no motivation to do IT stuff at home after finishing my degree so what followed was 12months of interviews where they would ask "so what IT work have you been doing outside of uni" and the answer was "ummmmmmm". I ended up picking up an arduino as motivation to do some programming and the rest is history.

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2016, 01:53:51 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on January 08, 2016, 11:50:04 pmI think you're misunderstanding. I am freelance, and do both the City consulting and EE development, mostly in RF space comms, at the same time. The City work is usually on a consultancy basis whereas the EE stuff is physical hardware product that I have designed and sold myself over those same years. Over the past five years or so the EE income has significantly exceeded that of the City gigs, but it wasn't always like that. FWIW, I doubt I could ever have funded the R&D necessary for that EE stuff without the City jobs. Life's not always black and white, it's possible to work multiple jobs if you choose toI'm lucky that nowadays I'm in a position where I can turn down almost all work that comes my way, I'd much rather be my own man designing my own products to my specifications than filling the trough of others.

author: Poe
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2016, 08:12:49 pm
content: Quote from: Armxnian on January 08, 2016, 10:20:57 pmQuote from: Armxnian on January 09, 2016, 06:40:49 amQuote from: Armxnian on January 09, 2016, 09:53:00 amYou are painting a picture.

author: Armxnian
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2016, 08:47:45 pm
content: When you quote someone, you leave the quote untouched. You don't change every single word to what YOU interpret it as and say you quoted someone. If you went to school, you would have learned that.

author: quantumvolt
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2016, 09:36:23 pm
content: Quote from: Armxnian on January 09, 2016, 08:47:45 pm

author: jancumps
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 09, 2016, 10:30:43 pm
content: Yes, poor practice to pretend you're quoting someone but not putting the actual text in the quotes. Should stop.

author: Gribo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2016, 11:36:57 am
content: The two most important things I remember from college are control theory and math. The rest is no longer relevant today, and I graduated in 1996.I learned programming, RF and PCB design by myself, while working on different projects.When I interview engineers, I ask them about projects they did and problems they encountered, not their grades in Uni and not trick questions that can be googled easily.

author: KJDS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2016, 11:38:26 am
content: The key things I want from an interview is to find out if the candidate has common sense and a sense of humour.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2016, 12:21:06 pm
content: Quote from: Gribo on January 10, 2016, 11:36:57 amWow. Is that all? I graduated in 78, and much of what I learned is still relevant.QuoteThe last time someone asked me a trick question (how would you measure time if you were an ancient egyption constructing the pyramids?) I spent 15 minutes avoiding giving them the answer they expected. Great funThe best questions for the type of job I have been doing are based on first principles and simplified versions of the kind of problems they will have to solve in the company. There's usually no "right" answer; what matters is their thought processes. Especially seeing what questions they ask to elicit further important constraints, and seeing what (premature) conclusons they jump to.Examples would be to lead them to the maths behind IQ modulators for an RF job, and to ask them "how would you build a traffic lights controller for a company that sells toy cars?" for a contract design house.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2016, 01:25:16 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on January 10, 2016, 12:21:06 pmThis sounds fairly typical of the difference between a 1970s engineering degree, built on strategic knowledge, and a 1990s degree, built on tactical knowledge.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2016, 02:06:49 pm
content: "Common sense and a sense of humor"Unfortunately, teaching common sense into people lacking eq to appreciate it is quite difficult.To make the matter worse, many of today's college students don't understand what a college education is all about (learning to analyze problems). Instead, many of them think colleges as vocational schools where they would learn specific knowledge pieces so they can solve well defined problems.For them, an expensive college education is a total waste of money and time

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2016, 02:26:29 pm
content: "I think your info is outdated unless you are referring to hard sciences alone"Having gone through an engineering program, I have a lot more appreciation for liberal arts majors now than in my younger years. If I were to go back to schools now, I would pick a liberal art school to go. Vassar or keyon types for example.As humans, we live in a society, and interact with other humans. Understanding human interactions and being able to approach complex unstructured problems is far more important to ones success than being able to build a circuit. Comparing to dealing with humans, dealing with circuits or elements is so elementary.And economic rewards are set up that way as well. Engineers are some of the lowest paid people in a firm, and marketing, creative and management are some of the highest paid people, especially in technology oriented firms. Rightfully so.As to Harvard, what sets it apart from other elite schools is 1 name recognition (through alumini network), and 2 its support for its students. The first part is well known, and the latter is absolutely amazing if you get to see the resources they throw at the students.Now, that doesn't mean Harvard does not produce lemons - I have my fair share of that.I would go back to the points I made earlier, today's schools in general don't prepare their students as well. Counter intuitively, today's schools provide far better support for their best students.

author: Gribo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2016, 03:09:07 pm
content: QuoteThis. Most jobs can be automated, yes, even engineering jobs. Creativity not so much.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2016, 06:34:57 pm
content: Yeah.It is much harder for a society to produce a Jobs than a Wozniak.

author: KJDS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2016, 06:35:54 pm
content: Quote from: Gribo on January 10, 2016, 03:09:07 pmThen make sure you're designing the automation systems.

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2016, 07:36:27 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 09, 2016, 12:09:01 pmre:"...The world is full of odd ball people doing odd ball stuff. Thus it should be cautioned to take a sample of one and extropolate from it..."This "odd ball" is not alone. Google helps confirming that. In fact, I was actually searching for another interview on which I heard (not see, screen not facing me) a "something brother" corp (Don't recall the name) will not look at any ivy grads, and this guy pops up. When you see the "Halloween protest" video from Yale, an employer would likely ask himself/herself "do I want someone like that in my organization? Any reasonable person will use all means to validate a candidate if the candidate is going to hold a significant position.re: "...As to your point on no grading, I think Brown may be the only Ivy..."The "no grading" is not from me, it is from the article I quoted. One can go to typical univ/college's own website to validate. Personally, I am more concern about graded group-quiz. It is important to know how to work as a team, however, when an individual is never judged on his/her own, that is a dis-service.re: "...Davis Polks, the Skadden Arps and the Winston & Strawns ... of the world stop recruit from Harvard Law or Yale Law..."The point is, they will if the rot continues. Like the small lump on the face hardly matters, it appears nothing. Once it spreads, it is hard to stop and may end up destroying the person with the merely tiny lump on the face.Harvard student body openly said (not exact quote) "if they will one day criticize the school, we don't want them here.". No less a liberal as Larry Summers was pushed out of Harvard for non-PC comments.Johns Hopkins, a university, a place of open thought, un-invited their graduation speaker when they learn of his pro-life stands. Ben Carlson was to be the speaker (before he became a Presidential candidate), the one time Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins, the first to invent a method and successfully separate cranial co-joint twins.When ivy exhibit these kinds of behavior, sooner or later, employers will notice.re: "I think you should try to separate two things..."While I agree with what you said there, I think actually more important than the school is the self. any one thinking about school should have this clearly and cleanly resolved: "Why are you there?" and "How much do you want it?"The drive of the person is possibly the most significant factor in success.Lastly with all the talk focusing merely on knowledge... almost all the universities you can think of, they train you academically. There is no training in character in most universities.If I grab a West Point grad, I know that guy is a trained as leader, I know that guy is trained to deal with uncertainly and take control of the situation, is trained to function under pressure, and honesty is part of their code of conduct everyday... I grab a Harvard or even an MIT kid, I am not sure of his/her character as I would someone from Annapolis. Of course while these two are accredited colleges plus more, those are not typical schools. Point is, to succeed, one needs ones character to be a foundation of ones own being. It is easy to say, appear simple, but is often overlooked in its contribution to one's success. Besides, success is not judge by what one achieve but what one is, inside as well as outside.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2016, 02:22:39 am
content: QuoteI suppose there is a big distinction between what one is taught and what one exhibits.QuoteIt wouldn't surprise me a bit if the same things are taught to the Harvard or MIT kids.Obviously, there are crooks out of West Point as there are great leaders out of Harvard / MIT. So it seems naive to think a West Point grad you grab will be a leader, can deal with uncertainty and take control of any situation, can function under pressure and is honest in his/her every day conduct.QuoteWell suited for over-schooled under-achievers. Is this one of those "potentials" standards that we use to comfort losers?

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2016, 04:51:27 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 11, 2016, 02:22:39 amI suspect you may not know that West Point and Annapolis are military academies. They are fullyaccreditedcollege but they train our Army (West Point) and Navy (Annapolis) officers. It is only "kind of open" to the public. It is for those in the military (or surviving children of a serviceman who died in action or MIA). Those not in the military must get a nomination from a congressman, senator, or the President of the USA.Students are officer candidates so they are subjected tocharacter examinationsthat neither MIT nor Harvard would dream of having.Character building is part of their college training. Merely lying about what you did in the weekend, even if it is unrelated to the school in anyway, the lying alone will get you in deep trouble and potentially kicked out. Heck, they even have rules on how many times you should chew your food (5, I think).Harvard grad may be able to deal with stress, but may not. With a West Point-er, you know he/she has been trained to made decision under fire - real fire. So, you know they are not going to freak out on you just because things are getting stressful.Now that you are aware of what West Point and Annapolis is, I am sure you agree that Harvard and MIT probably don't train student like the Army or Navy would train their officers. Even the worst of our enemy need not worry about a Harvard trained MBA leading a group of Harvard lawyers storming a fox hole. To the Harvard grad, cut throat competition doesn't involve blood.Yup, they may have a crook every now and again. But if I am at a pinch and must choose one whom I must entrust my life to, and only with knowledge of where he/she attended college, I entrust my life to a guy/girl from West Point or Annapolis over a guy/girl from Harvard or MIT any day.After their service, many of them went on to become executives in the business world.Quote from: dannyf on January 11, 2016, 02:22:39 amThe bigger the responsibility one takes, the bigger the abuse one can commit. So, if one is not clear in ones mind what is the right thing to do, one is courting trouble. For the responsibility I have had over the years, I must have that clarity of mind.

author: Gribo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2016, 08:20:25 am
content: QuoteThis is what I doGood engineering requires math (and physics), creativity and passion. Anyone can plug an Arduino and use a sketch. Not everyone can design a product that customers want to use. The degree is just a stamp on my behind to pass the HR drones.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2016, 12:02:34 pm
content: I will skip the finer point of being trained to have certain skills vs. Having certain skills or characters - it looks like a bagtle forever lost at this point,"But if I am at a pinch and must choose one whom I must entrust my life to, and only with knowledge of where he/she attended college, I entrust my life to a guy/girl from West Point or Annapolis over a guy/girl from Harvard or MIT any day."Sure, I would as well. But if your life depends on doing a leveraged buyout successfully or performing a Laplace transformation successfully, would you still pick the fine cadet from west point?The fact that a hammer is a great tool at nailing doesn't mean it is a great tool at soldering, or leveling, .... Just common sense right?That's not to say that your seat point education has no value. It is just that it has a different value than hour havard or mit education.Conversely, having a havard or mit education doesn't make you a lesser or a bad person. It makes you a different person. A society where everyone has a west point education, of havard education or mit education is a terrible society vs one where some have west point education, some have Harvard education, some mit education and others having none.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2016, 12:04:39 pm
content: "Yup, they may have a crook every now and again. "Yeah, I should know, as I'm dealing with one of them, the biggest crook I have ever known, and I know a lot of them,

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2016, 06:38:08 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 11, 2016, 12:04:39 pmDannyF,Which USMA academy did this guy came out of? Army/Air Force...?It is unusual for someone to have been examined closely for 4 years while in college, then another 5 years of actual military service, yet they all missed the sign - or this guy just flipped later which is entirely possible.I am not shooting down guys from Harvard or MIT. I have very high regards for MIT grads. I wish my daughter can get into MIT. Harvard grads (since last 15 years-ish) however, I am not writing them off, I merely put them in the unknown column.Bottom line difference is: MIT grads, I know their top-notch technology capability. Annapolis, West Point, or the Air Force Academy grads, I know their top-notch technology capability, and I know the quality of the person. Exceptions not withstanding.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2016, 07:29:49 pm
content: Quote from: Rick Law on January 11, 2016, 06:38:08 pmPeople can and do change over their lives. That change is heavily influenced by the environment they are in. If you associate with crooks you are more likely to become crooked than if you don't. A good family and university background can assist one in resisting bad influences, but nothing is perfect.I would suggest that the legal and financial industries have more people of lower moral standards than many others (at least among the professional trades), and that even if the percentages are different the impact of their crimes is larger. So it is not surprising that schools which feed these industries have more people who have lost their moral compass. The service schools tend to feed a cleaner environment, but I can tell you from personal experience that that environment is not perfect, and that academy grads do lose their way.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2016, 11:21:12 pm
content: West point."Bottom line difference is: MIT grads, I know their top-notch technology capability. Annapolis, West Point, or the Air Force Academy grads, I know their top-notch technology capability, and I know the quality of the person. Exceptions not withstanding."I don't know what you are referring to by "technology capabilities" but I will assume that you meant technical or analytical capabilities.A few things for you to consider.A generalization like that works only statistically. Aka if you are dealing with large number of graduates from those institutions. In reality, we deal with far fewer individuals for such statistics to be relevant to our circumstances.Two, it really makes no sense to compare schools. It makes much more sense to compare programs. Case in point, two of the better programs at mit are its econ and biology departments. Both are decidedly less technical than other programs. Then you can pick programs at other schools that will run circles around similar programs at mit, structural analytics and fluid dynamics at Caltech, computational biology at CMU (average math sat is 800), bme at Hopkins, ...As to west point graduates running with kids at elite schools on analytical capabilities, I would posit that unless you lower the bar to high school level, the average Harvard math graduates, or mit ee grads, or even pennstate civil engineering kids will run circles around an average west point grad. Exceptions not withstanding.Again, my point is that training helps shape ones characters or skills but just because one went through one program (military, ivy, university, ...) Doesn't by itself make one a better person - I hold numerous of my red neck friends in the highest regards, vs my ivy or otherwise we'll educated friends.People are complicated.

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2016, 12:29:35 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 11, 2016, 11:21:12 pmWest Point, Annapolis, MIT, are very selective on who they accept. They only accept the cream of the crop, and they all provide top notch training. USMA students do carry afull college load plus militarytraining, so, it is probable that MIT grads spend more time on their sciences. No doubt, both MIT and West Point students are very committed very smart individuals. Perhaps to attest to their commitment to excellence, at times, MIT students even defeated West Point students in pistol contest. (2015 was a West Point won)But, it is undeniable that MIT students simply have less other things to do (compared West Point) so they are likely more practiced in their sciences.If the job is to push the frontier of Science, I choose an MIT grad, if the job is to use technology to achieve something, West Point-grad has the advantage. That said, it is hard to compare directly. MIT grads can get a job the day after graduation. West Point grads has to pack up, go where they are assigned and start being a Second Lieutenant. So West Point grads, when available, is older and already have at least 5 years of leadership experience.As you know, technical knowledge is not the only requirement to get a job down. Tenacity, resourcefulness, team work, motivating others, humble, self-confident... are all factors in getting things done. All those other factors more than make up for just whatever "shortcoming" you may think USMA students have competing against an MIT grad.I have high regards for MIT as a student but I know nothing about the person. West Point/Annapolis grads, I have high regards for them as a student and as a person. Exceptions not withstanding.

author: AF6LJ
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 12, 2016, 12:37:23 am
content: Being a hobbyist for half my childhood my degree filled in the gaps in my education.And if I was to be honest it taught me a little about working in a so called man's world.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2016, 12:48:40 am
content: QuoteAbsolutely. The MIT students are better in sciences because they practice more in the sciences; just as the west point students are better in working under stress because that's what they are trained on, ...The fact that a west point grad is better working under stress, or the mit student is better in the sciences, does NOT by itself mean one is better student, or a better person, than the other. They are just different.I am glad we can agree on that.

author: robotix3
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2016, 12:50:47 am
content: Well that was an interesting read lolDefinitely answered my question...Interesting seeing the different sides that everyone takes on the issue

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2016, 07:32:55 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 12, 2016, 12:48:40 amWe agree only on the point that MIT grads are probably more practiced in Science. We still hold different opinion on "better person" issue. It is beyond just better "stress management" that we agreed; but instead my view that USMA's emphasis on character which (statistically) produce a better person - on this point, I believe we disagree.But this is not a point debate can solve. It really does take a while to understand how different USMA is. I happen to have spends weeks researching them, not just because I have a near-college-age kid, but also because I have a relative graduated from MIT, and a relative graduated from UMSA, and a relative who didn't make it at an USMA.I am approaching this with perhaps an oversize interest that most others wont share. So, enough discussion on this. Consider me either more bias or better informed, and we will leave it as a disagreement.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2016, 11:35:47 am
content: QuoteI think at the very beginning of this discussion, I said that one receives different educations from different institutions - that's just the way it is. Sorry to see that that hasn't sunk in yet.QuoteUntil you provide objective data to support your notion that institutions like the West Point produce better grads, any objective person will have no choice but to consider you biased.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2016, 12:36:25 pm
content: Quote from: Rick Law on January 13, 2016, 07:32:55 amSuch bald statements, which I appreciate are part of a continuing conversation, miss an important point: better forwhat. Hence I tend to ignore them.I have no problems with opinions which state:on average X1 has advantages X1+ and disadvantages X1-, which makes X1 better suited for Z1 than X2on average X2 has advantages X2+ and disadvantages X2-, which makes X2 better suited for Z2 than X1It is even better if they also state "it is dysfuntional to have a team where everybody is the 'same' - it is better to have a team where one person's advantages cover other peoples' disadvantages".

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2016, 05:58:30 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on January 13, 2016, 12:36:25 pmTggzzz, you asked a question, so I will answer. I will take it you had a typo: you meanboldinstead ofbald. (Bald was what make me want to reply. I am old, but not yet bald.)You missed the earlier discussions. Bettercharacterandbetter at getting things done. Team work in the military is a matter of life and death. No one want to be on the field contemplating: "Joe could have saved me, but I held back when I trained Joe for fear of competition..."My conversations with USMA admissions are verbal and thus cannot be "documented". I have spoken in person to West Point, Annapolis, US Coast Guard and Merchant Marines. I skipped the Air Force academy since I have just spoken to someone from there.Go to their websites and see their admission criteria. Follow West Point's advice and watch theNational Geographic's documentary(2 DVDs!) "Surviving West Point". You will get an idea of what the students there went through, theiracademicand thecharacter criteriathe students must meet every single day. Granted, the documentary was done around 9/11/2001, and the military has been hollowed out in the last few years. West Point and Annapolis, being institutions almost as old as the Nation itself is probably holding out without loosing too much - an assumption on my part given my recent conversations with those folks and see in person the kinds of people they are - face to face.Statistically, if an institutionadmits only the best, demand the most, and set Character as a criteria, they will no doubt make moreof those kind of graduates.I submit that budget permitting, that is exactly what every employer want: Someone withtop notch training, good character, and work hardto get things done.Hence the "better person".Barring any post intended to denigrate, I have spoken all I have to say about this.

author: KJDS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2016, 06:19:21 pm
content: Rich, Whilst you make an assertive case, it's quite possible that what one employer wants is completely different to the requirements of another. Personally I've always preferred someone capable of working out the smart way of doing the job rather than working hard at known way. Without that, you won't get innovation, and without innovation then from where will success come?That's not to say that hard work isn't important, but it's not the ultimate goal.

author: suicidaleggroll
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2016, 06:25:00 pm
content: Quote from: Rick Law on January 13, 2016, 05:58:30 pmI believe employers want an employee who can do the job. Character says nothing about competence. ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, sure the employer would prefer an applicant with great character, but all else is NOT equal. If the applicantcan't do the jobdue to inadequate technical schooling, then it's a non-starter, it doesn't matter how well they work with others.Personally, I've only known one graduate of USMA (don't recall which one). He was useless, both in his technical capabilities and as an overall person. He was manipulative, stole credit for work he didn't do, and was technically incompetent. He spent all day every day writing documentation and designing graphics/logos to put on the front of the binders that contained said documentation. WHAT he was documenting, I have no idea, because he never actually DID anything of substance. He was fired very quickly.I'm not implying every USMA graduate is incompetent, I'm simply saying that just because somebody comes from a USMA doesn't mean they'll be any better as a person or an employee than somebody who comes from another school.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2016, 06:52:21 pm
content: QuoteNot necessarily, as pointed out earlier. Two points:1) "top notch training" on what? If I am hiring the best marksman money can buy, your having the best training in classic dance probably has no value for me. Everything else being equal, I suspect that most people would take an individual whose adequately trained in his job vs. something whose has received "top notch training" in an unrelated field, statistically speaking.2) there is a huge difference between getting trained on something vs. having skills in something. There is no shortage of cases where we ran into someone who's a superbly trained moron.What people care about is if you can do the job or not. If you are simply well trained, with all the certificates, and great GPAs, but don't know a thing about the job at hand, why should anyone pay you for your "top notch training"?Quotewhat's "better" and what is not depends on the criteria you judge that person against. As such, a better soldier does not, by itself, translate into a better sales person, a better mechanics, a better leader, or a better engineer.vice versa.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2016, 07:55:38 pm
content: Quote from: Rick Law on January 13, 2016, 05:58:30 pmNo, I meant "bald". Seehttp://www.thefreedictionary.com/bald"6. Undisguised; blunt: a bald statement of policy."The remainder of your answer provides indicates what you might mean by "better". The force with which you state it indicates that, surprisingly, you think it is theonlyreasonable/acceptable definition of "better". That is a blinkered view of the world.To use some team roles theory, "ideas man" != "critic" != "worker" != "finisher" != "contacts man" != "chairman". Someone who is ideally suited to one of those roles will, at best, do a passable job on the other roles. It sounds like you are heavily biassed towards "workers" and "finishers". That's fine, but you will only get the same old thing done to perfection - you won't get anything novel, since that needs "ideas men" and "critics".As for training, sometimes that is simply impossible. As one very simple example, since graduating it has been impossible for me (and my colleagues) to get "top notch training" - because we have been inventing new technologies. Training could only occur after our job was over!You may not realise it, but the skills and personality needed for my kind of work are very different to those needed tosimply"get things done" - for the simple reason that at the beginning nobody knows what can/might/should be done!