Education Improvements? 9

[MechEng2005]

I started this thread because there have been a number of threads recently that have touched on the level of knowledge and abilities of new graduates. What would you suggest for improving the quality of new graduates so they are able to hit the ground running and succeed?

Some ideas:

- Hire professors based on their experience doing what (most) of the students will be doing after graduation (as opposed to hiring PhDs or government researchers with little experience in typical industry)

- Mandatory internship. What would be a good length? How would you verify that each student receieved the same level of experience/training during the internship? Would you have the internship graded, or pass/fail?

- More design problems. When I was a student, most problems were given as the loading on a beam is such-and-such. What section modulus is required if the yield strength is 50ksi? Students were not even required to specify the beam, just find a minimum section modulus. I am thinking something more like a senior design project where a goal is given and there are many possible ways to accomplish it. Hopefully the design could be built and tested as well, but at the very least it should be checked for all thing requirements of an actual engineering design (i.e. how easy it is to build, cost, etc).

- Tours and visits of engineering offices and/or industries. For example, I work in machine design and had seen hardly any factories or industrial plants where the machines we create are used when I graduated.

- Separating different majors in "general" classes. For example, have different calculus classes for engineering and physics majors.


I look forward to the discussion and appreciate any thoughts!
-- MechEng2005

 

[moltenmetal]

Get rid of some of the math. Yeah, controversial I know, but we spend the best part of a whole year out of four in an engineering program just to get the kids up to what amounts to the state of the art of mathematics circa 1750. The next time I need to use the method of Frobenius, I can hire a mathematician to do it for me!

On the academic side we've got two choices: four academic years, or five. The value proposition for five years is pretty slim unless you can improve the wages to make the time investment more worthwhile. I say ditch some of the math to make room for what the students need to know when they graduate. We can argue about what that is until we're all blue in the face.

Co-op programs should be mandatory, as should mentored internship prior to mandatory, meaningful licensure. Without these, engineering is not a profession- it's just job training at best and a wanking exercise at worst- "pre-business" as one poster called it in another thread, or "the new liberal arts education" as I have unfortunately heard more than one engineering educator refer to it as. I just about puked when I heard that one the first time!

Hiring experienced engineers as lecturers implies hiring RETIRED engineers, or the rare few who suffer the privations of doing a PhD after working for a while. Working experienced engineers couldn't make a living out of lecturing alone, and even if they tried their skills would rapidly atrophy and rot. Supplementing the researcher profs with seasoned working engineer mentors/lecturers/project supervisors would work better. How to pay for that is a tougher one to figure out.

Controlling the engineering supply to better match market demand for engineers would also help. It's worked a charm for the medical professions but we engineers are a bunch of prima donnas when it comes to our own economic interests. The best pay and the best work opportunities attract the best candidates. Right now, a great many depart engineering not for lack of interest but for lack of suitable opportunities. Recent boom-time economics (in Canada) have lessened that burden here a bit, but I guarantee that nobody will be there to shut off the graduation and immigration supply taps when the bust (inevitably) comes around. So it has been for the past forty years, and so it will probably go in the next 10.

 

[SomptingGuy]

- Mandatory internship.

My course had a mandatory internship requirement. One full year between school and university. Then Summer working throughout the course. Ideally a year after. As part of the application process they sent out a list of approved companies and expected you to contact them (scary stuff for a 17 year old).

On top of this, we had some week-long university seminars during our "year out", regular visits from the course liaison officer. During term time, our company HR/training people would attend meetings/dinners at college.

This is how it can work.


- Professors with experience

Many of our better ones lived two lives: their teaching and their industry consulting work.

- Steve

 

[csd72]

moltenmetal,

That is an interesting point about the mathematics that highlights an inconsistency in todays course. What is the point of teaching high level mathematics and never teching them to use it in an engineering situation.

You will never use the high level maths if you allow the computer to do the work for you.

Better to teach less maths and more engineering fundamentals.

 

[xnuke]

You know the old saying:

"If you want something done right, do it yourself."

If you want professors with industry knowledge, become one. I did - I work full-time as an engineer and teach one class a term as an adjunct professor in the evening. I had to go back and get a MS to be able to do it, but it was worth it. I teach theory along with practice in my classes. My students have to implement the theory in practical situations. My students get introduced to codes and standards. I also was taught how to teach when I became an instructor in the military, so I have a leg up on those who are simply thrust into teaching after getting their PhD. I can also talent-scout for my company, and I have gotten several students hired along with referral bonuses.

As far as a mandatory internship goes, I'm all for it. However, I don't want the students to have engineering internships, but rather trades or technical internships. The big problem I see is that many graduating engineers today have no knowledge as to how things are put together (e.g., the MSEE grad who specified a welded thermowell to be used in a hot tap application instead of a threaded thermowell). At least two years worth of experience at the tech level is very valuable, and yes, I'm one of those engineers who started as a tech.

As far as design projects go, most engineering curricula seem to have a senior capstone design project now. Many schools even pair students with engineers from industry to assist the engineer in solving a problem. Sometimes, however, it is the academics who try to manage the students. Since they don't usually know what an industrial design process is like, the students don't get as much useful project experience.

Tours are good only if there is something to see. There isn't much to get excited about at my firm's offices - just a bunch of cubicles, computers, and a couple of plotters. Plant tours are usually much more interesting to students.

Keep in mind that academia has to perpetuate itself. All undergraduates are presented with material that should allow them a base to build on when they go to graduate school, whether they ever use that knowledge or not. If they weren't provided with this knowledge, the university system as a whole might die since there wouldn't be enough faculty members. As far as mathematics, perhaps there should be two tracks in engineering, one for those who want to go to work with a BS, and one for those who want to get further education, go into research, or become academics. The research track could be more math and theory intensive. The work-oriented track could have more attention paid to the design process, codes and standards, and project management. Schools could then create cross-over courses that would allow those students who took the work track to improve their math and theory knowledge prior to attending MS or PhD programs if they decided they wanted more education later. Alternatively, they could simple admit them conditionally to grad school with the requirement that they complete additional coursework at the undergraduate level. If students in the research track decided they wanted more practical knowledge, they could take cross-over courses to assist them into transitioning into the workforce.

Sorry for rambling so long, but engineering and education are both near and dear to my heart.

xnuke
"Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life." Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[HgTX]

I needed a year of calculus (in my case, high school calculus plus second-sememster college calc) to understand the basic physics (1st semester) required for basic statics and mechanics; I have a hard time taking the notion of non-calculus physic seriously at all.

I needed the third semester (vector calculus) for 2nd semester physics (electricity & magnetism). I suppose a structural engineer could skip the vector calculus & the E&M; a civil engineer getting into the fluid side of things might still need the vector calc though, and so does anyone who is going to touch thermodynamics.

Matrices and differential equations...in my field, I could have skipped those. (I did skip differential equations almost by accident when moving from one program to another.) But in other engineering fields, are those dispensable?

I guess I could have skipped optics & waves (the 3rd physics class).

But overall there's very little on the engineering side of my education I think I could have done without. My first program required us to do technical electives sampling various fields. I'm glad I did that. I had a semester of intro circuit theory that I would never have had otherwise, and a vague clue about things electrical that I would never have had otherwise. Thermodynamics is also not something I use, but that I'm really glad I did. And my first computer programming class (though maybe Kids These Days get that in high school?) was very important as well.

Even on the other side of my education...replace the literature class with a technical writing class and I have no complaints. Everyone should take economics. Civil engineers should take geology. Everyone should take some kind of history and/or government (civics) class or classes. Everyone, and especially civil engineers, should take some kind of public speaking class.

I just really don't feel like I spent a lot of my time in school spinning my wheels filling empty requirements (two unused linguistics degrees notwithstanding).

Hg

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[csd72]

I climbed with an architect once who ran his own architecture firm, but spent a day a week at the local university teaching architects about housing construction.

 

[Lion06]

You'll never get through an advanced structural mechanics or analysis course without higher level math (at least an understanding of it).
Try taking advanced mechanics and doing continuously supported beams without understanding differential equations. Or try taking a matrix analysis course without understanding matrices.
You can get by in the design courses pretty much with algebra and trig, but you need the higher level maths for the advanced analysis/mechanics courses.

 

[csd72]

StrEIT,

Thats my point. They dont seem to be teaching the advanced analysis/mechanics courses anymore, so why teach the required mathematics?

Personally I think they should teach both, but they are not apparently.

 

[Twoballcane]

You know, interesting enough, places like ITT and Phoenix University and such are taught by field experienced professionals, not too heavy on math and sciences, and kind of make up their own classes up to match industries. But, their degrees are not taken as serious as traditional colleges with subjects that everybody here is griping about. Why is that? Engineers suppose to know more than knowing how to screw a screw into a threaded hole.

Design can be learned once they are in the company. There are so many different industries, companies, and technologies each with their own way of design. It is difficult to create a program that can suit each industry and technology, and on top of that, the program has to stay up to speed, which in these days, we can’t event do that as individuals.

I feel that their education is just fine; I blame the companies for not spending the money on training. When I graduated and the first company I joined would not even sponsor me for IPC training, but we designed printed circuit board. The reason, I could learn all of that from the senior engineers. And we all know how that goes.

The new grads are primarily trained as Analysis and Test people, it is up to the company on how to best use their talents. If hired for something else and you did not train them, then how can you blame the college for not preparing them?

A word to the new grads, don’t unlearn what you’ve learned. This is your edge over the designers. Use your knowledge (math, physics, chem….etc) and analysis skills to weed out problems out of a design. You can see and calculate what others can not or forgot how to do. I can’t tell you how many times I have found hidden problems by doing the analysis. You will be a star if you found problems and fixed using your “engineering (math, physics…etc)” knowledge. I have been at a job fair and I showed my portfolio on some of the designs I did with the analysis and the department mangers looking at it said “wow your doing real engineering work!”. I was hired.


Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."

 

[TheTick]

I think the greatest improvement in U.S. education would be for students to shut up and quit whining. I was appalled at how much whining and complaining there was about homework loads and test schedules. Bring back the paddle!

 

[Twoballcane]

Tick you have uncanny timing for your comments…star for you

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."

 

[xnuke]

I know this isn't a direct hijack, since the focus of this post is related to ITT, but I apologize for the rant that follows.

ITT and others like it are not engineering schools. They are technician/technologist schools. They're more of a business than the university system. They just want the money that comes from keeping students in the seats. They make it almost impossible to fail.

I taught at ITT Tech for about 15 months after I got out of the military. Their entrance standards were low enough that I could've gotten accepted as a fourth-grader. Of approximately 100 students I taught at ITT, I would consider hiring around four. I liked teaching in the military; I hated teaching at ITT. Most of the students I had were seeking a piece of paper, not trying to learn anything. I had electronics students six months short of graduation that couldn't solve a simple DC circuit. Others couldn't use a transistor as a switch, much less an amplifier. I had a student who asked me how to do a hexadecimal math calculation the first day of my microprocessor lab. I asked him if he had taken and passed the digital course where students learn number systems; he said he had. I pointed him to the library, and he swore at me and told me to just f***in' tell him how to do it. I refused and told him to hit the books, and got a nice nasty-gram on my end-of-course evaluation: "Refuses to help students."

I blame the ITT HQ and the other instructors at my branch school. At the time I taught, there were instructors who gave students quizzes with four questions, where each question was worth 10% of the grade. They got 60% for showing up to take the quiz. ITT HQ controlled the content on the midterm and final exams, and some of the questions were just plain pointless. I taught my students the addressing modes of a microprocessor they studied: their names, how they worked, how to use them, etc. The final exam asked "How many addressing modes does the microprocessor have?" If they don't know how to use any of them, it doesn't matter if they know how many! That was typical content.

One student failed my course, then got a D when he repeated it. I found a job in industry in the same business park as the school and signed up to be on their curriculum advisory board, so they knew how to get in touch with me. About a year later, I ran into a classmate of the student mentioned above, and he told me that the student complained to the administration about his second grade, and they arbitrarily raised it to keep the kid happy. They never bothered to call me and ask me about the grade. I had detailed records, including all the kid's weekly quizzes and exams that I wrote and administered. I confronted the program director about it (who was by then working for a different school), and he said that it was easier than dealing with the conflict.

ITT divided each course up into six or seven different grading areas such as homework, quizzes, exams, midterm exam, final exam, attendance, participation. If a student failed one or two areas, they could still pass the class. I had a student fail every weekly exam and quiz I gave, so I knew his level of knowledge was low. However, he showed up every day and participated, and got mediocre grades on his homework. He got enough points on the ITT HQ midterm and final exams, so he passed the class. I would've failed him in a heartbeat if I had the opportunity. He had no clue what he was doing.

This was in the late '90s, so things may have improved at ITT (after the Dept. of Justice probe into their operations), but I doubt it. Again, this may have been just at my branch, but I doubt that, too. It seemed to be systemic. I left ITT on good terms, so I'm not disgruntled for any reason other than because I feel they did a disservice to the students. I would not encourage any student to go to ITT.

My apologies for going off like that.

xnuke
"Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life." Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[HgTX]

I don't think anyone here was actually *advocating* going to ITT instead of engineering school.

Interesting rant, though.

Hg

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[gwynn]

From conversations with those who have graduated from similar universities with civil engineering degrees over the past 20 years or so, I have noted a few things.

Structural hours have dropped off. The field of civil engineering seems to keep expanding and hours in other civil disciplines are added at the expense of either mandatory or optional structural hours.

Practicing engineers teaching fourth year and graduate structural design courses is fairly common. We had practicing engineers for some of our geotech courses and lawyers taught our law course as well.

Emphasis on seismic design, the full theory of which is not taught in undergrad, and the reduced structural undergrad hours have made a Masters degree required for most "interesting" structural engineering jobs. By interesting I mean those which do not mean the graduate spends year one designing simply supported beams, year two on one way slabs, year three on bearing walls etc.

In my opinion, the generally required Masters degree has pushed some of the brighter students into other disciplines, as an extra year or two of lost wages takes a long time to make up - which the required econ course makes sure they are aware of.

I believe that structural engineering needs to either be split off into an entirely different degree, say from third year on, or far more optional hours need to be given in third and fourth year. Either one would allow those who wish to enter structural engineering accumulate enough knowledge and abilities to be employable with a Bachelor's Degree.

 

[rapt]

SomptingGuy,

A year between school and university is not an Internship, it is a years holiday from study.

It would be like a doctor doing his internship before starting university.

It has to be at least 1 year and possibly 2-5 and has to be a controlled on the job mentored training/education period after completing the study part of the degree.

 

[GregLocock]

"A year between school and university is not an Internship, it is a years holiday from study." I beg to differ

I did what was known as thick sandwich, 1 year in industry, 3 years uni, 1 year after (plus a bit during).

This was run by the company, not the uni.

I breezed through my first year at uni partly because I worked hard, and partly because the preceeding year had taught me how engineers work to some extent.

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[KENAT]

This topic, or similar has come up a bunch of times and been discussed in various levels of detail.

One big thing for me based on my experience at Uni would be to improve the quality of teaching. I have no doubt all our lecturers were very clever and good researchers. However some of them were awful teachers, for a variety of reasons including in at least 2 cases language barriers.

That said, some people still managed to get good grades in their classes, maybe these were the self starters who put in the extra effort in the library etc. to find out the information that was almost impossible to obtain from the lecturers. So maybe the apprantly poor teaching served a purpose.

One recurring theme I've heart in both UK & USA is that most high school graduates aren't at the level they used to be/aren't ready to dive into Engineering. A big part of the first year of Engineering at Uni is just getting everyone up to speed - which then limits what can be covered.

For instance I took 'old school' double maths pure & applied at VI forme/highschool. However most of my peers going onto Engineering took single math, in many case a more modern modular form called SMP maths(or Simple Minded Peoples maths as we reffered to it). Fast forward to university and I had already covered 90% of the first year math & mechanics at VI form, while many of my peers hadn't seen most of it before and some really struggled to the point of dropping the course.

rapt - what? There is a difference between a 'GAP year' as it was called in the UK, and a year 'internship' directly related to your intended area of study.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[SomptingGuy]

rapt,

I have to come back on the year out thing too. My course too was a fully planned 1-3-1 sandwich course.

The first block of 3 months was spent full time at a technical college studying most of the practical aspects of engineering (drawing, machining, materials, electronics, engine & fuel pump building, all wrapped around a pretty comprehensive design & make project).

Then 9 months spread around 3 research departments, given real projects to work on and seriously good access to experienced engineers, including a dedicated mentor.

I once asked our personnel manager why the company was prepared to devote so much effort, with no guarantee that the students would either contribute or return. He said it was the most economical way to produce good engineers.

For me it made choosing ang getting a job I knew I'd like and be good at very easy. Most of the better engineers where I work were either sponsored by that company or by some other part of the auto industry.

- Steve

 

[SomptingGuy]

more...

Getting into one of the approved sponsoring companies was much harder than getting into university. During my first interview I asked about the numbers involved:

3000 requests for application forms.
2000 forms sent out.
500 first interviews
60 second interviews (tests, team activities, 3 more interviews).
30 taken on.

I failed at the final hurdle this time, exhausted and devastated. It was the most emotionally draining experience of my life to that point (and the first notable failure). Then I applied for a load more and eventually got an offer.

So while most of my school friends were living it up at university, I was doing 9-5 in some shabby research facility in the arse end of London, earning peanuts. Hardly a holiday.

- Steve