EE curriculum of the future - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: caffeinatedbard
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2012, 01:10:59 pm
content: On the forum there has been a lot of discussion on the lack of practical knowledge for entry level engineers entering the workforce-part due to lazyness or maybe lack of exposure or whatever other reason.I would be interested to hear from you all on what the future might look like for engineering education perhaps 5 to 10 years out. Will 4 years be enough to cover all the physics and math topics that lay a solid foundation for an engineering career on top of all the electronics topics? What might be a balanced list of classes that touch on a digital, analog, and cognates sequence?I am really looking forward to being part of this discussion. Forward looking statements are welcome--BardP.S. @Dave and Chris--maybe this might be a good topic to tackle regarding STEM education but specifically to the engineering discipline on the amphour...

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2012, 01:58:31 pm
content: Here are some of the things I would like to see in the future for EE ciriculum:1) Teach LESS:Whether it be because they think getting students used to working under stress is more important than educating them, or because they think knowing even the most abstract things are essential for an undergraduate degree, too much information is pushed onto students too quickly. Focus on the important things, go slowly at first, and slowly build up the pace as the students grasp a better understanding of the basics.2) Avoid Irrevelent Courses:Most first year university engineering courses are generic; it's not uncommon for a computer/electrical engineering student to be required to take courses in everything from chemistry to fluid mechanics to English. Focus on a career path immediately.3) Use Real World Examples:Too often students graduate knowing the ideal behavour of circuits, but not the real world limitations of them. When drawing a schematic, be precise in what componensts you're using... don't just use a 1uF capacitor, use a 1uF polyester film capacitor with specified voltage ratings. Provide students with examples of when to use a 1N4001 diode and when to use a 1N4148... when to use an op-amp to amplify a signal, and when to use transistors or even coils.

author: sacherjj
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2012, 05:28:05 pm
content: Quote from: olsenn on March 28, 2012, 01:58:31 pmI agree with 1 and 3, but not with this. Perhaps it was because I had a 2nd year curriculum that was teaching many disciplines in parallel. Fluids, Thermo, Electrical, Statics, Dynamics, Chemical. All share common methods, when analogies are made. Thermal resistance and Electrical resistance make problems very similar in different contexts. I found this made me much more well rounded with knowledge. Chances are that you will have to touch on one of these disciplines other than electrical in your career.

author: Taburn
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 28, 2012, 05:42:03 pm
content: I'm in my third year of electrical engineering, so this should be interesting to followI agree with Olsenn's point #3. Just getting to know all the different types of capacitors, resistors and diodes is a bit challenging. Thankfully, digikey has a list of different types when you search for a component, which gives you a place to start.In my second year I took a class in vector calculus. The feeling at the final was that no one really got the material. What was Stoke's Theorem? Why the hell are they using a differential element that's not labeled dS for a surface integral?Funnily enough, the electromagnetics course that the math course was supposed to prepare us for started out with the math and did a far better job teaching it. I'll admit that it was probably easier to understand because of the math course, but the time spend in the math course could have been used far better.It might be a bit overwhelming to be told "This is a capacitor, this is what it does, these are the different types and their pros and cons" when all you want to do is teach KVL and KCL. I think a fourth year course about component selection wouldn't be a bad idea or maybe taking a month out of a design course somewhere.

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2012, 06:05:04 pm
content: Ah, the usual "give me the narrowest view possible so I don't have to look beyond my own nose". I have some bad news for you (a) real world problems don't restrict themselves to the narrowest view possible, and (b) they teach you this material to teach you to learn and deal with complex issues.

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2012, 06:47:31 pm
content: QuoteReal world problems (as in not yet solved) we have decades to TRY to figure out. The purpose of an undergraduate program should be to broaden your horizens, give you a taste of what it means to think, and to provide you with an arsenal of tools and background to help you get you on your way to taking on more complex problems on your own time. It's not really that the problems that you would learn are not complex (or are narrow), but rather that students are not curerently being given the time to figure out problems on their own... the current system is to provide people with a shitload of information, tell them to memorize it (not giving them enough time to understand what they are memorizing) and saying if this is something that interests you, you can try to underdstand what you memorized once you're out of school.

author: gregariz
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2012, 07:21:46 pm
content: My take is slightly different,That is there should be a clear pathway for electricians and technicians to progress towards full engineering recognition.The reason is that most graduates have terrible practical skills due to lack of interest of lack or practical aptitude. By organising Bachelor programs so they are not articulating with trades and technician programs you are turning away alot of potential *very practical* engineers. (ie if you spent 4 years on a trade you dont want to spend another 4 years on the degree). You are also turning away of lot of less affluent students who think they may only be able to afford a TAFE course. So TAFE's/Community colleges need to get their heads together with Uni's. It kind of used to work when Universities/CAE's were teaching Associate Diploma's because they were made cogniscant that some of those students wanted to continue on but would not do so if they had to do a further full 4 years.Ironically what is needed for full articulation comes back to the way Uni's structure their courses. Most TAFE subject units may only cover 1/3 or 1/2 of a uni unit material. As a result TAFE students have to repeat the whole uni unit, including the bit they know. If universities broke up their units into smaller modules it may be possible for give TAFE students full advanced standing, but they don't want to do it because it means that then they would be out of alignment with students from other faculties in the Uni ie physics students who may want to come over into engineering.Ironically the second piece of the pie is that Uni's actively moved towards these generic degrees where the first 2 years were essentially the same as a generic physics degree. Uni's actually saw this as a selling point because alot of the students had no background/interest in electronics before entering and so had the freedom to change between engineering types ie mech, civil, elec before the third year.As a result there isn't time in the last 2 years to do the specialist subjects that students 20/30 years ago used to be able to pick. ie when I went through I was able to do undergraduate units in Radar. goodluck finding that in an undergrad degree today. This is particularly true in the US, where the 'Electronics degree' has dissapeared almost completely - so you need a masters for that today. In Aus it has become hard to find the specialist degrees. The UK may be your best bet for an electronics degree where you hit the ground with analog/digital design in first year.Edit: here are 3 average degree schedules from Cal State, Southampton, and Sydneyhttp://www.ecs.csun.edu/ece/electricalengineering4yearplan.htmlhttp://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/admissions/ug/H610.phphttp://cusp.sydney.edu.au/students/view-degree-page/degree_id/6

author: Neilm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2012, 07:45:02 pm
content: My first year at Uni was mostly aimed at getting everyone up to the same level - there were people on the course that had never programmed (including people who had never used a word processor), people who did not know statistics, people who did not know what a K-map was. Some of those I had done - some I hadn't.My course did not have much in the way of safety work in it - indeed I don't remember any mention of creepage or clearance, or even any ideas that any of this would have to pass any form of qualification. I took an opportunity to look at EE courses in the UK and did not see any mention of a module that might cover these. OK - you might argue that someone who does Electronic Engineering might not ever deal with any substantial voltage but I thought that when I was at uni and now (15 years later) I found myself saying "but this is a low volt system - it is less than 1kV".Neil

author: slateraptor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2012, 06:13:40 am
content: Quote from: BoredAtWork on March 28, 2012, 06:05:04 pmAgreed.@olsenn1) Not all students are endowed with equal talent. Those who are able to exemplify both dedication and talent become engineers...for washouts, there's business.2) The philosophy of a university education is necessarily broad. What you describe is the approach of a technical school, and a narrow one at that. There are tons of technical schools that satisfy what you describe...and there's also a reason why these schools don't benefit from the kind of reputation that a proper research university has.3) There are two main problems with your suggestion: 1) the engineering student fails to apply his/her critical faculties to solve a real-world problem, and 2) will be shit out of luck without a clue when the components they've depended upon eventually disappear from the market. If an engineer wants to know when to use a 4001 or 4148, he can apply his knowledge of first principles, device physics and the scientific method to characterize them and come to his own empirically justified conclusion rather than blindly taking the advice of others without proper application of sound reason and verification of claims.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 29, 2012, 08:45:05 am
content: Quote from: caffeinatedbard on March 28, 2012, 01:10:59 pmLikely not.Maybe they could break it down into "theory" and "prac" strand EE courses. i.e. you could chose to get a B.Eng(Prac), or B.Eng(Theo). Maybe diverging and the 3rd year point.I would also suggest that the B.Eng(Theo) have the management type classes too.So the smart maths kids with zero aptitude and little real interest who want to go back into academia, research, or climb the corporate ladder can do the theory strand. Those with "the knack" can do the B.Eng(Prac)Would piss of the engineering accreditation institutions no doubtDave.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2012, 09:00:08 am
content: I would hope for a course that teaches how to build extremely complicated/advanced projects simply by interfacing existing tools and modules.Being able to build an opamp out of transistors is all good (and there is a place for that sort of theory) but it's not something 99.9% of engineers actually do in the real world.It's more important that people become confident at joining things to other things (basically glue logic and hardware) so they can build pretty much anything.It's a great feeling knowing you can build anything, even when perhaps you don't yet know how to make an RF transmitter.But you sure as hell know how to read a datasheet and interface to an existing premade RF module.

author: Andy
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2012, 11:00:00 am
content: A theoretical version of a BE degree seems kinda pointless. If you want the theory, do a science degree. Engineering is _applied_ science.Practical all the way!Quote from: EEVblog on March 29, 2012, 08:45:05 am

author: Neilm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2012, 07:09:15 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on March 29, 2012, 08:45:05 amThere is already a EE pure theory course - it is call Physics.Engineer = practical PhysicistNeil

author: slateraptor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2012, 07:45:42 pm
content: Quote from: Neilm on March 29, 2012, 07:09:15 pmAnd what do you suppose applied physicists are?

author: wkb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2012, 09:12:14 pm
content: Quote from: slateraptor on March 29, 2012, 07:45:42 pmWeird?Try this:theoretical physicist == two left hands, huge brainapplied physicist == one right, one left hand, oversized brainengineer == two right hands, highly tuned brain

author: caffeinatedbard
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2012, 07:04:14 pm
content: I am very impressed and thankful for all the responses provided by the different members.In reading some of your thoughts, I am curious to hear what your thoughts are on teaching "industry software" as part of the practical aspects of the engineering curriculum. For example is it worth teaching Matlab or Labview with engineering courses? In a way, it almost seems the industry is putting the burden of learning "software" tools on the colleges and not employee training initiatives.From another point of view, are colleges succumbing to doing that because 1) companies fund a lot of their research, and 2) the "theory" teaching aspect of engineering is outdated with such powerful simulation tools doing all the crunch work engineers had to learn back in the day?Another question I have is : Are colleges ready to invest in this infrastructure (servers, hardware, specialized equipment) to keep up with the ebbs and flows of technology advances or should they be investing in the infrastructure that will allow them to teach studentshow to keep upwith present and future technologies? And what would that infrastructure look like? (Insert open-source hardware pro or con here).Sorry these are scattered thoughts but maybe just one of these thoughts might trigger some more dialogue.Again, looking forward to your carefully thought out comments!-bard

author: ftransform
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2012, 07:16:30 pm
content: IMO the future of EE depends on good professors. Here on the east coast in my state funded university I have had maybe 3 good professors in my 3 years at school. I don't think the curriculum matters as much as have people who make it bearable. All these goddamn asian/indian/russian professors with horrid accents, monotone voices and a complete lack of enthusiasm are the bullshit responsible for so many dropouts. I'm not saying all of these nationalities are bad, my favorite professor does have a bit of a Russian accent but its a joy to go to his lecture.. he gives real life examples, his life experience... teaches us how to solve problems which we would face in the real world..Its fucking SAD to think about how much money I am paying for a piece of paper and such shitty service.For instance, most of the videos made by the Indian institute of technology, available on youtube, cover the material in a more understandable/enjoyable way then half my professors. The goddamn professors in India making the videos are better teachers/english speakers then the professors here. IIT video covering Digital Signals and DSP was like 500x better then the semester long class that was being taught by a Chinese fossil man.TOOO-DEEYY WIII TALK ABOUT DEEEESSCREETE TIME FOURIA TRAS-FORM

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2012, 08:05:20 pm
content: The first two mantra's ALL EE students should have to learn are :1) i WILL NOT look down on people that have no formal education.2) i WILL sit in the lab , use a soldering iron and debug my own brainfarts.Otherwise you have no place in electronics. Too many snotty nosed 'engineers' (so your an engineer... driven any steam locomotives lately ?) making fuming piles of bovine byproduct, male type, ** see note below, and then leave the subordinants to clean up the mess.I'm with dave of splitting it in a theoretical and practical trajectory. A pure split is not feasible but there should be one where it is 20% theory / 80 % practical and one that is 80% theory and 20% practical. ( in 17 years of electronics i have NEVER done a math problem that could not be handled by a 2$ calculator with + - * / square root, power, Log and Ln )I see waaaaay to many applicants that can't answer even simple opamp questions. What questions are those you ask ?Well, you take an opamp put it as non-inverting amplifier with a gain of 10. You inject 1 volt DC on the input. How many volts is at the output ? The voltage supply of the opamp is GND and +5 volts.Guess what...99.8% answer 10 volts ( totally oblivious to the fact that the power supply is only 5 volts )0.1999 % answer 5 volts ( they got the fact that it will clip at its power rail.)0.0001 % answer : it depends on the opamp. is it a rail to rail output ? if not , it would be a value less than 5 volts... look in the datsheet to see how far the output can go towards the positive rail.Question 2 : i take an ideal opamp ( so no power supply 'trap' like in the previous question. )Gain of 10, inverting mode. Opamp has positive and negative supply. I inject 1 millivolts 1 kilohertz AC. Now, here's the 'stinker' I apply 100 millivolt DC on the positive input pin ( so this one is not grounded as in the theory books that blabber about 'virtual grounds' ). Tilt that other pin and they go banana's ! All i get is blank stares. They can't solve the damn thing ! Some take out the calculator and pound away...And the digital guys are not much better.I have a circuit where they must make some glue logic. The problem is tweaked that they always need 1 inverter , 1 or gate , 1 nand gate and one exor gate.. They get a catalogue with parts we have in stock ( 7400 , 7402, 7404 , 7408 , 7486 etc ) . Please make schematic and place part numbers. All of them manage to get this far. But, this yields 4 chips on the board ( a 7404 , a 7400 a 7486 and a 7408 ) This costs money.The beancounters require us to reduce component count and BOM cost by substituting gates. ( To make an or gate you take a NAND and slap an inverter on each of its inputs. And voila: OR gate. Run out of inverters ? Short inputs of a nand gate to make one .. .. Apply other trickery for the other gates.)I had a guy claiming he need to simulate it .. he was going to model it in VHDL , sent it through synopsys , make a testbench in Modelsim and simulate it... because he could not believe that two inverters and a NAND make an OR gate.. So you need 100K$ in software to do this ?I thanked him for coming by and showed the door. I parted with this advice to him : do 'More TTL , less VHDL' ... it get's you hired.This is REAL engineering. You can design circuits all you want, eventually you will get real-world criteria. ' too expensive' 'too many parts' 'no money for this kind of test equipment' 'sorry can't use processor xyz , only abc allowed' and you WILL have to adapt. We don't live in an ideal world. For every engineer that has access to a lab with all possible test equipment imaginable , and no budget or cost restrictions there are 500 million engineers that don't. And guess what. Your chances of being in that group of engineers have such a lab are infinetesimally slim.And please, STOP teaching stuff with 'ideal' components. They don't exist ! Give the example with the 'ideal part' spend 2 minutes on it and then spend an hour explaining the traps ! Tech people to read datasheets. ( tell them what input common range means for example... )NOTE : If you don't get the 'bovine by product , male type' . A bovine is a cow... a byproduct of cows is their 'output' ... male type cow is a bull.... like in B.S. ..Ever wondered what the BS in BSEE stands for ? ( i sometimes wonder if it stands for 'Bachelor of Science' or the above BS...)It get's worse with MSEE . I think the M stands for 'Mega'... The S remains bovine byproduct.

author: wkb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2012, 09:13:39 pm
content: Quote from: olsenn on March 28, 2012, 01:58:31 pmThat sounds like watering down a university to "Google101".

author: JonnyBoats
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2012, 02:04:10 am
content: I see a real conflict between what is hot "right now" to accomplish the task that industry requires and "timeless knowledge" that can serve one well through a 40 + year career as an engineer.When I was starting out I learned a lot about vacuum tubes. Heck I could draw from memory the circuit for the "All American 5" 5 tube AM superordinate receiver. I could even compute all the component values given the tube parameters. I also learned Calculus and differential equations + some electronics equations like Maxwell's laws and Kirchhoff's equations. Oh and some practical tools like soldering, using a slide rule and log tables along with computer programming.Now obviously I am revealing my age, but think about what knowledge lasted a lifetime and what was obsolete within a few short years. The pace of change today is much greater than it was back then, so much of what is being taught today will become obsolete or outdated very rapidly.I'm not saying that teaching things like SPICE and CadSoft Eagle are bad, but I do think a through knowledge of differential equations will be more useful for solving the problems one will face 20 years from now than either of those software programs which will most likely be replaced with something else and long forgotten.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2012, 05:37:48 pm
content: @johnnyboats.. I don't agree. Why wpend time doing hard (read : time consuming) maths by hand.. When you get to work in the industry you'll have access to Matlab, mathcad , SPice.So what if you can solve a electronic circuit using maxwells equations by hand. NOBODOY in his right mind does that !. You send it through Spice or, in case of very complex RF circuitry, tools like ADS or Eldo.Of course, if your ambition is to DESIGN tools like Matlab, ADS or ELDO : be my guest. have a ball with Maxwell. But then your are better off studying applied mathematics... and coding.

author: wkb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2012, 05:55:55 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 06, 2012, 05:37:48 pmBecause you need to know what is behind all these shiny CAD tools in order to understand their limitations. Just punching in numbers is not proper engineering.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2012, 11:04:33 pm
content: Quote from: wkb on April 07, 2012, 05:55:55 pmWell explained, sir .

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2012, 12:09:06 am
content: Quote from: wkb on April 07, 2012, 05:55:55 pmindeed, just punching in numbers is not proper engineering, but you don't need to understand maxwells equations , and be able to solve them by hand in order to use a tool like Hyperlinx to optimize your PCB for EMC. Now, if you are going to MAKE a tool like hyperlinx : that's a whole different story.In other words : what kind of engineering do you do : Make screwdrivers , or use screwdrivers.. I don't need to understand the laws of thermodynamics to use a soldering iron, i'd rather have someone explain which part to hold.. ( seen to many MSEE's burning their fingers the first time they had to hold one )So the big question is : where do you trade off. And there is no plain and easy answer. I personally would be all for an 'applied engineering' and a 'theoretical engineering' split.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2012, 12:32:34 am
content: Quote from: Psi on March 29, 2012, 09:00:08 amMy friend,that doesn't come" within a bulls roar" of knowing how to build a transmitter!If you are talking about the little modules that produce a couple of milliwatts,they are basically toys.If you mean modules which can produce serious power levels,like 300W or more,which are normally RF Amplifiers,& not self excited ,you need to know how to drive them,combine them for greater power output (something which is fraught with traps for the unwary) , couple them to a load,how to supply DC power to them,& design protection circuitry for the whole thing.I have fairly recently spent a lot of time making Radio Transmitters work which were designed by someone who thought RF design was easy,& had never had the pitfalls pointed out to them.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2012, 01:23:24 am
content: Quote from: JonnyBoats on April 06, 2012, 02:04:10 amA large amount of the stuff you learnt about the old 5 tube Superheterodyne.(I really love the spell check alternatives on this Forum!),has applications way beyond the original use.You may look at a more modern circuit,& your understanding of that circuit is founded on the old stuff--just things like knowing what ispractical & what is ridiculous!One thing I've noticed among people doing TAFE Diplomas,is that they usually have a good idea of IT stuff from home studies,& as this has become a larger part of the curriculum,they can get a pass with a very shallow knowledge of Electronics.They hence, tend to go for Software based answers to technical problems where "a transistor & a relay " would do the job!I suspect this happens a bit with EEs ,too!

author: slateraptor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2012, 03:23:42 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 08, 2012, 12:09:06 amIn your previous comment concerning op amp and logic minimization interview questions, I unequivocally agreed that there are no excuses for any undergrad engineering candidate not being able to sufficiently answer those simple questions.But to say that a proper engineer has no need to understand the mathematical basis behind what he's designing around because of the existence of complex software is equally unacceptable; the software is there to crunch numbers that can't be efficiently performed by a human, not as a sorry excuse for failing to understand what's going on behind its convenient veil of false reassurance. Your assertion isfundamentally no differentthan the hypothetical interview candidate who can't optimize a particular glue logic design for reduced component count because he doesn't have a firm understanding of mixed logic, Boolean algebra and K-maps.Quote from: JonnyBoats on April 06, 2012, 02:04:10 amEffectively the point that a few of us were trying to get across to all those who feel that focusing on convenient particulars of today is of greater long-term intrinsic value than timeless first principles.

author: jahonen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2012, 06:12:03 pm
content: Quote from: slateraptor on April 08, 2012, 03:23:42 amI think he means that purposefully doing several pages of complex hand-written algebraic manipulations is pretty much wasted time (unless you are just interested about mathematics basics), as you have a computer to do those manipulations for you and without those stupid simple mistakes which render whole result useless. What is required is that one should be able to formulate the practical problem in a mathematically valid way, how to solve that is entirely different thing. That is where a CAS is a handful tool. Another thing what is useful skill, is to be able to judge if the final result actually makes any sense.Practical problems tend to be different from school assignments in such way that they do not contain any designed-in hidden simplifications and one might want to put in even more complications for evaluation of non-idealities and thus they tend to be unpractical to solve by hand. That is valid even more for Maxwell equations, closed form solutions rarely exist even for moderately complex problems.Regards,Janne

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2012, 09:09:34 pm
content: Jahonen formulated exactly what i mean. A lot of courses focus too much on the theory , and don't spend time on the practical problems.I remember from my courseware we spent multiple weeks on calculating of RLC circuits and drawing vector diagrams of current and voltage. Great, you do need to understand what is going on. But, in 17 years of electronics design i have NEVER drawn a vector diagram ... practicality of all those hours spent on solving those puzzels ? ZERO . Northon , Thevenin ... Great tools. Practicality ? ZERO. When's the last time you used norton or thevening theorems ? If it can't be done using using ohm's law it'll get run through a simulator.But the professors love them. They can fill whole blackboards with mathematics and don't have to think about the real-world. They are sheltered in their cocoon om 'ideal components'. Put a soldering iron in their hand and give them a board with an R-C filter on that does NOT behave as in the calculation and they are totally lost.The proof of the pudding is in the eating.. and they are VERY bad cooks. They may be good at following the recepies but they haven't noticed the flower had bugs in it , the milk has 'gone-off' and the eggs ware past their time...I see way too many beginning (read:just out of school ) engineers that hace no clue that the capacitance of a capacitor is subject to temperature , voltage AND frequency !. What do you mean ? this 1Uf is not 1uF if i put 5 volts across it ? Heat it up , cool it down , drive a high enough frequency through it and it becomes an inductor. And it gets worse ... their eyes glaze over if you drop terms like X7R Y5V C0G and the fact that a 1uf 10 volt X7R in 0805 package will derate differently than a 1uF 10 volt X7R in 0603... Nobody ever told them that. But , they can recite how to calculate how many farads for a given plate surface,distance and dielectric 'constant .. big whoop. score : 0 for practicality.And that 'dielectric constant' they heard about... it ain't a constant either.. only when you 'idealize it' does it become a constant.Here's another funny bit : i see a lot of these guys that scatter 100nF caps all over their board. Becasue it is 'fashionable' and they were told this is the best way to decouple power rails.. Hasn't anyone ever explained them this was true when edge time was in the order of microseconds ? now that we are in the nanosecond and picosecond range a 100nF cap does NOTHING. they are inductors.Same goes for that rule ' scatter 100nF caps and some 10uF tantalums...' they should be called unobtainium capacitors... and besides. ever looked at the impedance plot of capacitors ? and looked at what happens if you put different values in parallel ? ever heard that two different value caps in parallel can actually resonate ...I was in the same case 17 years ago. Fresh out of school. First problem to tackle : design analog front-end for ADSl modem. I spent more than a year tweaking it because the components didn't want to behave as on paper. Change a 1uh inductor with a 1uh inductor from a different company and the filter went off tune, because of impurities in the core material.. put in a filmcap as opposed to a ceramic one : same story. But, can't use filmcaps they melt in reflow. Put it on a board and it gets even worse. All of a sudden there were all these real-world restrictions and effects that had not been covered in my 4 year course. Nobody had even hinted at the existence of such problems , nor talked about the pitfalls i was going to encounter. This was a mountain of problems to overcome. I asked myself if the last 4 years had been a waste of time. Here is this 'high-tech' education and the first thing i have to do comes crashing down in flames because it didn't teach me nearly enough. What had i been doing in the 4 years of education ? it was all useless. The design only worked on paper.That is my gripe. When a new engineer enters we have to spend more than two years bringing them up to speed with the 'real world' before they become more or less self-reliant. This raises the question : what have they been spending their time on in this 4 year course ?And now that i'm the 'mentor' and 'old salt' i have to do this with the new loads of engineers. 17 years later.. and we haven't advanced a bit in the level of education.Funny that you mention Karnaugh maps. That is the gist of my little 'interview question'. If all you can do is 'apply procedure xyz' ( like karnaugh maps and Quine McKlusky) you can't solve that one... KM and QmC are reducing algorithms ... and in my little quiz you need to be able to think for yourself ( as opposed to mindlessly following the algorithm ) and do the opposite : expand the logic ..

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2012, 10:14:13 pm
content: Yep , i am surprised 17 years ago it's still the same .Supposedly somebody goes into a 4-5 year course to learn something , NO !According to you , it looks like anyone who is anywhere serious about electronics is just out to get a certification ... because , the education system still sucks balls .

author: caffeinatedbard
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2012, 10:24:56 pm
content: @free_electron and @jahonen --Thanks for sharing that. If you don't mind, could you give specific examples of things you would do differently? For example, what would you change so engineering students are better prepared or even better, what things would you suggest to recent students who have already gone through the grinder and are now facing the realities of the non-idealities of the engineering world?I for one would very much appreciate your thoughts. I am sure others are eager to hear what you would have to share.-bard

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2012, 10:30:46 pm
content: Pretty much.All the stuff i ran into 17 years ago is still the same stuff that engineers fresh out of school run into today... I coach one or two a year where i work and the similarities are striking. Many have never built anything practical from the ground up (apart from slapping some modules together), and the few that do, did it on their own time as a hobby... but not as part of the coursework...When interviewing candidates it is very obvious which ones have electronics as a hobby and which ones only did the coursework ...I had a brilliant intern a couple of years ago. Working on his PhD. The problem he was tasked with was fairly complex and was a closed loop servo system with feed-forward compensation. He brilliantly carved into mathematics, built a model in MatLab , modeled it and came up with an elegant solution. When it was time for him to now translate this into a practical circuit with 3 opamps ( he had a filter , a gain stage and an ingrator : that's 3 opamps ) he failed miserably. Board design was a disaster. He picked the wrong components. Had no idea resistors have a tempco ( his system was to compensate for temperature delta's.. and it screwed up because the resistors themselves were pulling the wrong way, causing very slow oscillations ). He had no clue how to pick an opamp from digikeys website to fit his circuit. He couldn't solder ... So i jumped in and we spend 3 months tweaking his system so it was practically feasible. In the end we were able to demonstrate proof of concept.At the he told me he felt really frustrated becasue he had no idea 'real components' behaved so badly. He got to the point where he said he only wanted to theoretical things , because the practical stuff was 'too hard'... his education had never prepared him for this...That alone is food for thought...I don't have the answers. Only questions. It makes me wonder why.Are we so stagnant in education ?Is education behind the industry ?Is it a lack of interest from the students ( only interested in the paper so they can get a nice job ?(huh...they think.. prepare for the cold shower of long days and life long learning...)Is it lack of motivation ?Is 4 years too short ? Maybe we need 5 or 6 year courses .. or we need to start earlier , like at 15 or 16 years of age.The field of electronics is so wide that maybe we need to split it into more subfields. Change the curriculums and split them. the last two years could then narrow down to a field of interest. or you could make the last two years so the student can pick his fields of interest.Most important : how can we fix this ? I don't know.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2012, 02:59:04 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 08, 2012, 09:09:34 pmBut I'm only a Tech! What the Hell would I know!

author: slateraptor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2012, 12:12:57 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 08, 2012, 09:09:34 pmNothing more than an academic exercise...coincidentally, exactly the kind that every computer science and ECE major at my uni is exposed to.EDIT: After some thought, I'm feeling more confident that the issue is less engineering academics, more a growing number of students who lack genuine passion for the field. That being said, if every graduate had a comparable amount of practical know-how right out of college as someone who has been in industry for 5+ years, professional EEs would soon find themselves in the same suck ass predicament as software developers, where a 30-year-old coder is nearing "retirement" age.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2012, 12:48:45 pm
content: I won't shock you with a answers i got from my lecturer today ,Q: How many students graduate from ITE being slightly interested ?A: Maybe only 5%Q: What's the teaching style here ?A: No formulas , just practical calculation and work .Oh i see , okay ,Q: All "ideal" components teaching style ?A: Yes , because ... (He didn't answer onwards)Q: So what about in UniversityA: They still teach ideal components but students have to design their own opamp (And how many times do they actually know anything about actual world component pitfalls ?)I'm very depressed now , it turns out in oh so many years of competing , they (the school) never won themselves even 3rd runner up .That just goes to show how many percent of the students actually go into the course to learn something .... NOT .Mind you i am talking to a lecturer that graduated from a big university that i can't remember what , and this is a technical school ... Oh well .(And as you expect , no SMD)

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2012, 03:29:20 pm
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on April 09, 2012, 02:59:04 amyou are pulling my words out of context. I was talking about spending 3 weeks of courses on rlc circuits and drawing , by hand, the voltage and current vectors to show phase shift. And you had to figure it out on millimeter paper with the little arrows. That is useless.Quote

author: slateraptor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2012, 04:52:27 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 09, 2012, 03:29:20 pmThe attitude is more like, "I learned that at uni. What were you doing?" Oh, that's right....and when you actually try to explain it properly, it flies over their head anyways and everyone who isn't an engineer thinks you're just trying to look smart. Fuck that noise. It gets old with a quickness, and the world keeps turning.

author: dfnr2
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2012, 06:50:09 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on March 29, 2012, 08:45:05 amThinking back to my engineering school, this was pretty much how it shook out. We had three tracks: Computer Engineering, Circuits/Control/Communications, and Solid-state engineering. The curriculum was pretty similar for the first two years, and in the third year the different tracks had their own special courses. There was also room in the 3rd and 4th years for more electives, such as advanced labs (more hands on) or more in-depth control theory, E&M, etc. classes.I will say that the emphasis of all tracks was to foster development of good, practical, competent engineers. I think that advanced lab classes and term projects are great ways to introduce practical considerations, and encourage students to understand them from solid underlying principles.For the record, I assert that the distinction between "practical" and "theoretical" engineers is artificial and not so accurate. In my experience, the engineers that are really good in one area (making stuff) are also pretty good in the other (understanding principles), and vice versa. I suggest there is a positive correlation. Engineering students should be given every opportunity while in school to learn solid principles, and also to make real-world stuff in a way that highlights the value of those principles.I do think that there is a distinction between "engineer material" and "management material", where "management material" is a euphamism for mediocre engineer who can't produce. I doubt those guys would happen to have excellent theoretical understanding. BTW, I believe that plenty of great engineers are also good with people and management.Dave

author: dfnr2
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2012, 07:16:07 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 08, 2012, 12:09:06 amI have to disagree. The engineer who doesn't have at least an intuitive grasp of Maxwell's equations will, in general, tend to design inferior PCB's compared with the engineer who does have a good intuitive grasp. Both may be able to run EMC optimization tools, but those tools will be able to do a better job with the intelligently designed PCB.QuoteA lot of engineering involves first building the tools, then using them. If you only use the screwdriver, you're a mechanic, not an engineer.QuoteIt's just sad to see an engineering grad that can't hold a soldering iron as it is to see an engineering grad that isn't comfortable with Maxwell's equations.Dave

author: BBQdChips
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2012, 08:55:51 pm
content: People, all people, have differing strengths and weaknesses when it comes to the ways in which their brains accept data. For some people, the spoken word is very easily understandable, but if they read on paper, they are not as likely to grasp the concept of whatever they are trying to learn. Some folks are really good at hands on, do it and learn formats. But, they also tend to have become that way due to an underlying inability to learn by some other more conventional means. Sorta like the person who is deaf, but learns other ways to communicate because of their disability.This is a truism with all people, just in differing degrees. And, while you might not be clinically considered to have a learning 'disorder', that does not mean you might not be weak in one area and strong in another. Some people are very strong in many areas, and those are the folks that don't generally need told things twice to 'get it'.My guess would be, if someone wanted to change a curriculum to better transfer information to the students, it would be wise to evaluate the students individually, and maybe have 2 or 3 parallel running course types that were geared toward the strengths of the individuals. Not so much playing the averages game and always relying on the written word. Or doing so for lack of initiative to try something new.I like folks who try new stuff. Often times,I've been impressed with peoples 'new' ideas.I think that line of thinking will become more and more important in the future, just because of the levels of complexity rising in these types of fields. Sooner or later, the mind runs out of space for new stuff.EDIT to add...I also think that 18-24 is really not a great age for learning. I'd say that 25-35 is the best age, or was for me. I don't think I was good at focusing when younger, and after 35, I was too burned out on the stuff to care. As much as I'd like to take in more information, I think my brain has sprung a leak. I don't know if others feel that way after 45 or so, but, I can tell I'm not nearly as sharp as I once was, and I have way too many things on my mind to stay after a problem to completion. Am I alone in that?

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2012, 11:14:06 pm
content: Quote from: BBQdChips on April 09, 2012, 08:55:51 pmtht's why i'd opt for two directions : one more practical stuff , one more theoretical stuff.Myself i'm more the practical guy. formula's don't mean a lot to me. i'd rather breadbord something quickly , mess around with some parts to get a feel of how a circuit behaves. and then close the loop between the 'paper' and the 'experience'.Most of the systems i work on a mechatronical in nature and it's very hard to model the behavior of the system. it's easier to actually take the real motor , hook it up to the driver and a scope and see how it reacts. Let's see what this does ... ah ok , so we can eliminate this from the model as the impact is negligible.

author: SuperFungus
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2012, 02:52:12 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 08, 2012, 09:09:34 pmI think Norton and Thevenin theorms are mistaught, but completely useful. The utility is you can apply Thevenin to eliminate a loop, and Norton to eliminate a node. Repeat to reduce (many) circuits down to the point where you can solve by inspection.Besides, every time you think about loading your circuit down or pulling a pin up etc. you're using the concept from Norton and Thevenin equivelent circuits that the circuit will respond just like an impedance and a source, even if the actual circuit doesn't look anything like that. That alone is important, and it helps you believe that its true to solve a circuit long hand, and then solve it with norton/thevenin and see the equivalency. So to answer your question, last time I used Thevenin's theorm? 5 minutes agoI also disagree with the second point about running things through a simulator. Spice doesn't spit out the design equations for a topology. To DESIGN a circuit and not just ANALYZE it you need more information than a simulator will give you. Thinking *IS* required.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2012, 02:59:40 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 09, 2012, 03:29:20 pm

author: slateraptor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2012, 03:26:36 am
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on April 10, 2012, 02:59:40 amThe "point out what you have tried" part is usually enough to get my attention; it shows an honest effort on the individual's part which resulted in an honest-to-goodness loss of productivity. Time permitting, it would only be professional courtesy to assist at the point, so long as it doesn't become habitual. The "silver spoon" approach, on the other hand, seems a lot more prevalent amongst the "young blood"--a half-assed attempt at best to independently resolve the issue at hand before crawling to certain "convenient" individuals for help...I blame it on a combination of characteristic laziness and professors' weekly scheduled office hours. Ironically, in this age of digital information, the problem appears to have gotten worse. Meh.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2012, 05:51:29 am
content: Quote from: slateraptor on April 10, 2012, 03:26:36 amIn some places,the Management culture mandates that Techs shouldn't think for themselves,so" That is an Engineering decision!",becomes the standard response of your so-called Technical betters in the hierarchy.Even worse,are the places where you are not allowed to approach this Demi-God directly!After working for years in places where "If it's wrong,fix it!"was the norm,& where we had learned there were very few things we really needed to bother the Engineers with ,it was a profound culture shock to find myself working in a place where Techs were assumed to not be able to "walk & chew gum at the same time"!There were several bits of legacy circuitry which were no longer necessary,(& in one case,never had been),so in a terrible breach of protocol,I grabbed the Engineer as he was passing,& showed him one of the suspect circuits.He agreed that it was redundant,& we were allowed to stop wasting manhours making something that didn't do anything,but I became "an Enemy of the State",as far as my immediate superiors were concerned.I don't know if they were afraid of big, bad,"Bogey Engineers",or what,but they hadn't done anything after I had reported the problem several times!

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2012, 03:35:32 pm
content: A smart retort would be,"No,thats why we have VNAs!",but I must concede your point for your situation of designing something ultimately for sale in large numbers.In the context of the places I've worked,the Engineer,or quite often the Tech would cheat by using filter design tables,& then "tweak" the thing using a VNA,or whatever else was available.Remember,Engineers designed complex filters in their thousands by hand,back in the day.EXACTLY ! You sim it , go in the lab , put it together and run it on a vna. And then you discover all the crap the sim could not tell you. So you tweak it with real parts and a soldering iron, and then you put it in a temp chamber and run the vna. Then you bitch at the parts makers for having lied about their components, you tweak it some more , run the vna , temp chamber some more and then you have it put on a PCB to find out it behaves now differently than your spiderweb / breadboard, so we are back to soldering, vna and temp chamber. And then , when it finally passes, you run the real signal through it ... To find out it still doesn 't work right.. Because the vna only uses sinewaves and the real signal has much higher crest ratio and the filter rolls off wrong ... And we're back to square one....As a real world Technician,you have to cope with the results,redesign some stuff "on the fly" & curse the poor Engineer for what may not be his fault!Read mantra 2 ... I want the engineers to debug their own brain farts. It is the only way for them to learn. Otherwise they keep making stuff that don't work right..A bit unfair on new Engineers!Back in the day,some Organisations had "Cadet Engineers" .This gave people the chance to work in the real world during Vacation,etc,.Not a lot was expected of them,but they would be given projects to do under the supervision of a Senior colleague.!Ah, were down to the ' back in the day'.In my time we had to walk two hours, sometimes in the snow, to get to the internet... And now? They click and voom instant access to all possible information.Good luck finding a cadet engineer these days. They're off to 'playa del procrastinacion' ...That is where the exposure that Cadet Engineers got was an excellent thing!I like the usage of the word 'was' in this sentence...Times change... So i would like to see that kind of stuff done in education, and not be left to the goodwill of the student.I've never had any Engineer actually "look down on me" in a snooty way.You must have never worked with german or french engineers then.... Sacrebleu and sauerkraut..

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2012, 12:40:44 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 09, 2012, 03:29:20 pmYou're right, it's useless, but it has it's advantages also.The main goal of the Engineering course, as I expierienced, was to eliminate the 20% most stupid people, and to eliminate those who can't concentrate long enough on something where the meaning isn't clear from the beginning.Also the abstraction level is important. Learn to think about things you've never seen, even don't exist yet.Engineering is about getting things done. Most of the Bachelors are far better in practice.Too many comparison is done between the one who studied EE, and the one who didn't.Thats véééry wrong.Compare the EE to the ones who did something different, with the same effort..