What mechanical engineering skills do you have, that you wish you gained in college? 9

[frusso110]

Hello everyone.

I'm working on a project to develop a new curriculum for freshmen level Mechanical Engineering students. The focus of the introductory (design?) course is to teach students skills that are required in the "real world". Personally, I have come up with pages of things that I learned at my first job that I wish I learned in college.

What mechanical engineering skills do you have, that you wish you gained in college?

Any responses will be greatly appreciated! If you have a project in mind to teach said skill, please feel free to mention it.

Thanks,
-FR

 

[drawoh]

Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing: drafting is taught in a superficial way. We mechies have to be able to understand and prepare drawings.

--
JHG

 

[zdas04]

Most of what I learned in the first couple of years have been of limited value in my career. I took drafting in my fourth semester and that has been useful. The math and entry level science was all foundational for upper level classes, so it was important, but I've never balanced a chemical equation using Freshman Chemistry methods and as a ME if I have something that requires knowledge of chemical bonds I'm barking in the wrong forest.

I don't know where it goes, but I have not met a new grad that can tell me what a "Standard" gas volume means or why they should care. This is a real problem in my industry. In my 5-day class for Field Facilities Engineers I ask two questions about standard volumes in the pre-test and no one has ever gotten either one of them right. Lack of knowledge of this subject is so widespread that in my master's theses I calculated velocity based on standard conditions (a meaningless number) and when I defended my theses with conclusions based on a meaningless "velocity" no one on the committee (which was made up of fluids professors and the Dean of Engineering) ever caught my error or questioned it. Since every commercial gas from Argon to Methane to Zenon is sold in SCF or SCM it is kind of important. I'd like to see it covered in Chemistry, Physics, Fluids, and "Engineering Concepts" courses. In Junior-level fluids we talked A LOT about volume flow rates as though that was a useful concept (it is actually only useful for determining bulk velocity), without ever a mention of restating volume flow rate at an alternate pressure and temperature.

A new graduate that had mastered this concept to the point that it is boring would have taken a giant step towards being useful in Oil & Gas.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[JohnRBaker]

This is not so much what I missed in college but rather what I think is being missed now and that is that with the advent of laptops, spreadsheets, calculators, engineering math tools like MathCAD and Maple, no one is teaching people how to do a first pass 'estimate' so that when you do run-the-numbers that you have some sense that what you're getting is at least in the ballpark of what you had expected it to be. This was a skill that was almost mandatory when most engineering computations were being done on a sliderule. I suspect that many out there will probably respond that with today's modern tools this is no longer an issue. If saying it would only make it true...

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[handleman]

I would say that the main skill missing from most grads today is problem solving. Nobody knows how to analyze a situation, figure out what is known, what needs to be known, and recognize what physical laws/principles/equations are needed to find the solution. Almost all problems in engineering school contain exactly the information needed (no more, no less) to solve the problem presented, almost exclusively using the principle currently being taught. The problem is, in the real world you almost always have a lot of data that you don't need and one or two pieces of data that you don't have, but could obtain if you knew how to go look for them. You also have to know what concepts and tools (mathematical, formulae etc) to use to put your data together.

I've attached to this post an actual question that I saw asked on this very forum a few years ago. I couldn't come up with a better illustration of the above if I tried.

There are two ways to solve the attached problem. Bonus points go to the person who recognizes the way to solve the problem with the given information. Passing grade goes to the person who can figure out what piece of information is missing in order to solve the problem the long way. Either solution solves this real-world problem, but very few people that I've shown it to can find either.

-handleman, CSWP (The new, easy test)

 

[zdas04]

Along with order of magnitude calcs, I see a lot of new grads that can't comprehend unit analysis (I need lb/hr, I have ft/sec, in^2, and lb/ft^3 and it is a complete mystery to me what goes in the numerator and what goes in the denominator and often get ft*in^2*ft^3/sec/lbm and call it lb/hr without any unit conversion, it really doesn't take much effort to know that you convert the area to ft^2 and then just multiply the three values together and convert seconds to hours, but it is beyond too many people).

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[frusso110]

My replies to everyone!

@zdas04 It took me until Fall of my junior year until I had this skill. Once I did, my grades shot way the heck up. We should be teaching this explicitly freshman year!

@handleman. What an excellent answer. Coming up with "missing information" problems for freshman engineers could be extremly beneficial to them in the long run. I'll get started on your problem now..

@Mr. Baker - Nice to hear from you. What do you mean? Do you have any examples to share?

@drawoh - GD&T is something I've considered myself. I think a single lecture would probably be worth while. We wouldn't really be able to spend enough time on it in a freshman level introductory course though.

Looking forward to more answers, and hopefully some projects or problems that you all have experienced that really taught you what it meant to be an engineer.

 

[zdas04]

To illustrate John's point, I recently had a 5 year engineer input the density of a low pressure gas into a blackbox program as 7.9 lb/ft^3 and was willing to accept an impossible outcome. I looked at the number and said "do you really believe that number?". He started spluttering and wrote his equation on the white board-- psi times SG over the right gas constant for air for lbf/ft^2, but wrong for psi, over temperature. I told him that "lbm per in^2 per ft is not the same as lbm per ft^3". A glance at the physics would have said that low pressure gas has a density considerably (i.e., 144 times) smaller than he input. With no feel for the magnitude of the expected result any number is as good as any other number.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[HornTootinEE]

I'm not a mechanical engineer, but this thread applies to almost any of the engineering disciplines. Interesting reading.

I have't been out of college long (6 yrs) but have found a few things that you don't learn in school:

-Calculus wasn't about integrating, it was about understanding what that integral meant and was trying to tell you
-Circuits class wasn't always about V=IR, it was about understanding the concepts that you will run into in the real world
-You can't plug something into a model and trust the results unless you can start out being able to reflect your results from actual measurements. Eventually, you'll start to "feel" when your model is being stupid or being correct.
-With enough experience, you know what to expect on the other end of a calculation, and you learn "short cuts" to do on the fly in your head if you're in an operating situation that doesn't allow you the convenience of paper and a calculator.

Project example of college vs. real world: I got in an argument with my boss about the effects of an oversized capacitor on a long medium voltage electric distribution line, and also the governing factors of electric power flow (not always voltage difference in AC systems!!) And he did not believe me... probably doesn't until this day. Even with field data to prove it. Point being: He had done very little actual engineering and analysis before he was the boss, I'd been doing it for 4 years hot and heavy when we got into this argument. He'd never seen the difference between voltage drop and phase angle difference and it's relation to real and reactive power flows in a power line. I'm no expert, but even after a short time in the workforce I'd beaten him hands down. Imagine what the next 30 yrs of "war stories" will do for my education!

That might all be Greek talk, but the point was that the boss had no feel because he'd never experienced the model and he'd never verified the results with field measurements. The gray haired engineers that had "seen it all" do still have value... and thats why. they can do on the fly CORRECTLY what a new grad can't even understand yet. And it's not that their college education was all *that* much different.

 

[fegenbush]

I didn't learn about applicable codes until I was out of school. ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code, IBC, etc. So much of our work is based on some sort of predetermined acceptance criteria that is not communicated to students.

I agree with John's point. Dimensional analysis and estimating should be taught from day one. It helps to develop the gut check early on.

Last thing: (Applies to US only) English/American units! Decimal feet and decimal inches! So many texts use only SI units that I had to play catch-up with simple constants.

 

[drawoh]

frusso110,

If the budding engineering is going to work in design, GD&T is the language he must learn to use. A single lecture will be enough the tell undergrads that they need to know this stuff. After a full semester course, they actually will know it, at least as well as they know everything else.

--
JHG

 

[Ron]

Engineering school teaches you to think. Beyond that, it does little to prepare you for professional life. Given that, I have learned so much more since graduation (36 years ago) than I could have ever learned in an academic environment. I've learned that theory and practice vary in closeness....sometimes theory matches practice, sometimes not. One key is knowing when to use one or the other.

 

[frusso110]

Do you have an example of a project that you worked on within your first 5 years in which a light bulb clicked and suddenly everything made sense? I would be interested in hearing what made it click for everyone.

For me it was when I started designing parts and assemblies with the focus of my mind to put everything together.

 

[zdas04]

In one class that I teach I dissassemble an equation that is in wide usage to show where each bit came from and the underlying assumptions. Then we discuss how the equation is commonly used and evaluate the underlying assumptions from a "does this feel right in this situation?" standpoint. Stuff like the basis for the equation assumes no friction, but the development of one of the correction terms assumes enough friction to dampen swirl. Near the end of the discussion everyone is thinking "this equation is crap, how could anyone ever use it?", and then I go into exactly how widespread the use of the equation is and show how well it actually matches many real-life situations. The message is that many times you can get to a "good enough" answer without satisfying all of the assumptions and boundary conditions perfectly. I wish I had had a flavor for "good enough" in college.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[JohnRBaker]

It's like the '80/20 rule' in software development; you can usually get 80% of the value from a project for about 20% of the cost that it would have taken to reach 100%.

Sometimes 'good enough' is.

However, that being said, there is that old adage; "The the enemy of 'Excellence' is being satisfied with 'Good Enough'."

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[IRstuff]

"I would say that the main skill missing from most grads today is problem solving."

I'm not sure that can actually be taught, at least, the part of problem solving that involves determining how a problem should be solved. My teenaged son has great difficulty with that phase. Once shown, he generally can do the math, but figuring out how the problem is to be solved often eludes him.

Not an ME, but wish I had some sort of heat transfer class. Thermo is good, but often couched in theoretical things. But pure heat transfer is very useful, and it's clear that many engineers either forgot their thermo or never took anything like it.

TTFN
faq731-376

 

[burningDiesel]

@handleman: (Unless I'm mistaken & making a fool out of myself)
This is not a 'missing information' problem, it's a too much information problem.
All transfers are linear in nature. So the answer is 630*48/40 = 756
The thing that is missing is the conveyor belt diameter I guess, if you want to use all data given.

 

[KirbyWan]

I think a great set of lessons I wish I had in school would all be focused on failures and bad design. This is where engineering gets interesting and are the core of where most lessons are learned. Something that picks apart an engineering failure to learn what went wrong. I wonder if Henry Petrosky would write an engineering textbook. It doesn't even have to be a major failure. I have an egg timer with a magnetic back on my fridge, but the start stop button is near the side and the base that has the magnet is about half the size of the face so every time I hit start or stop it flies off the fridge. Slap that designer!

Outside of that there are a bunch of "things" that can be bought and put together to do different things and getting a sence of what is out there would be helpful. Sensors, actuators, yada yada yada. Give em a box of parts and ask them to come up with something. I also think being able to read a specification is a good idea and it takes going through them a few times to get the idea of what the point is. There are plenty of free mil-specs that can be used. Corrosion is my bane and my grounding in freshman chemistry was helpful when I went to study on my own the causes of corrosion, but as an ME I understand that all we really need to know is don't put these metals together, and if you do it will corrode this fast. And designing fastener connections.

Well that's about two semesters worth.

-Kirby

Kirby Wilkerson

Remember, first define the problem, then solve it.

 

[zdas04]

Kirby,
Your signature tag line, is really another item for this class.

What I've seen in my career is that as you move away from high school to gray haired Engineer the world gets progressively less black and white. In in a good high school physics class you'll learn that Watts = Volts * Amps. In college you'll add a power factor. In real life you'll add such things as "effects of an oversized capacitor on a long medium voltage electric distribution line" (whatever that means), plus you'll learn that the magnitude of the voltage has an impact on how much power you'll get from the product of potential and current. I find that as I get older I see fewer and fewer black and white issues, everything has nuances and shades of gray. If you dump the indeterminate characteristics of nature on an Engineering freshman you'll chase them to the school of business, it is just too much to get their young heads around, but a flavor of uncertainty would be really useful. I had a Mechanics of Material teacher that stressed that we had to honor the data quality. Let me use and example from another field to illustrate. If a car is going 30 mph +/- 5 mph and you determine stopping time as 2.566666667 seconds then you are wrong. No partial credit, just wrong. If the acceleration term was -20 ft/sec^2 +/- 5 ft/sec^2 then the answer is 2.67 seconds and extra credit would be available if you said it was between 3.44 sec and 1.46 ft/sec (you might get away with 1.467 sec, because of some hang overs from slide rules). Honoring the data was non-negotiable with that guy and most of the class dropped after the first test, but those of us that stayed never implied more precision than the data would support after that semester.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[handleman]

@sdebock: You get the bonus points!

-handleman, CSWP (The new, easy test)