where is engineering going ? 8

[rb1957]

not very far if this note from online university course (structures analysis) material is true ...

"obtaining this relation requires energy methods, which is graduate material"

which is sad since energy methods aren't so difficult to grasp, and also because the undergraduates are being told "take this on faith ... you're too dumb to understand it". ok, my ad lib ... maybe they're being told "take this on faith, 'cause we don't have time to show you the details".

I get the problem ... the syllabus is so broad now that they can only go an inch deep, and graduate degree allows them to delve into details of a few topics. But the problem I see is that students and graduates aren't given the tools to derive things for themselves, they're restricted to looking things up (in wiki) and taking a lot of things "on faith". Worse is that this mindset is placed in them where they should be learning how to prove things for themselves, at the foundation of their career house ... bad foundation = bad house.



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[ornerynorsk]

"-free of managers, except for my wife."

(as all of the married males on the forum silently nod in understanding) hokie66, I almost lost a perfectly good cup of coffee on that one! Well done.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[CheckerHater]

Why is history class so boring, and the history channel so interesting?

"For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert"
Arthur C. Clarke Profiles of the future

 

[drawoh]

I look at modern education and wonder. Why is there a higher crime rate near high schools? Why is the normal pay for high school students the minimum wage?

I read somewhere that a lot of burglaries are committed by high school students at lunchtime. What do they get, forty minutes?

I am a technologist with a three year diploma, and I took strain energy in third year, and it is indeed useful stuff to know. In college, I generally took history as my elective, so I find it fascinating. Perhaps high school history would be more interesting if they included some classes on debunking idiotic crap like Ancient Aliens.

--
JHG

 

[IRstuff]

"I read somewhere that a lot of burglaries are committed by high school students at lunchtime. What do they get, forty minutes"

>>Much easier to mug someone for their lunch than wait in the interminable lines.

"Why is the normal pay for high school students the minimum wage?"

>>Have to start somewhere. Doesn't make sense for them to be getting $100k/yr for the jobs they're qualified for, although, there certainly are a number of jobs that pay reasonably well that do not require degrees.

"I ask why are people graduating with a degree and not being able to pay their student loans?"

>>There's something I learned in college called "supply and demand." Just because you have a degree does not make you automatically employable. Someone who gets a Bachelors in English Lit might just wind up working as a bank teller (I worked with him, and he actually had a Masters), which makes it hard to pay off a $150k loan. The most popular major is psychology, but the demand it fills is for social workers, and the same problem with paying off loans results. People were told to get college degrees, but weren't really told what degrees they actually needed. Conspiracy theorists believe that the push for STEM degrees was to try and push down starting salaries, and by extension, keep existing salaries from growing as before. Uc Berkeley has about 3156 engineering students. If even a additional small fraction of the 14,429 admits went to engineering, that would drop the starting salaries pretty dramatically, assuming similar GPAs, etc., of course. The other side of this is that there were ~11k students that DIDN'T major in engineering, and a lot of them got degrees in things that are not overtly employable.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[cranky108]

Assumption 1: Not all high school students graduate. So why is the pay for high school graduates the minimum? Are high school graduates not worth more than dropouts?
Conclusion 1: A High school graduate is no more valuable than a high school dropout.

Assumption 2: If someone goes to college, would they not be smart enough to know they are getting a degree that does not pay enough to pay off their student loans?
Conclusion 2: Economics is not part of a college education. Or apparently is planning for the future.

Assumption 3: If more students graduated in Business, the salaries of managers would go down.
Conclusion 3: If more Business graduates were to happen, engineering salaries would go down, because business people can't pay people who work for them more than they make.

 

[IRstuff]

"Conclusion 2: Economics is not part of a college education. Or apparently is planning for the future."

By then, it may be too late anyway, since most schools require declaration of major no later than sophomore year; I declared my major at the end of freshman year, and BEM101 wasn't even available until sophomore year. Additionally, it's well known that the frontal cortex, where consequences of actions are calculated, does not fully develop until at least the mid-20s.

Your conclusion for #1 is dubious; high school dropouts have about 2x the unemployment rate of graduates, so even they were getting the same hourly wage, the statistical salary expectation is about 2x higher for graduates. Therefore, high school graduates are indeed more valuable than non-graduates. based on statistical compensation.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[SomptingGuy]

"most schools require declaration of major no later than sophomore year"

Beginning of upper 6th form here in UK, as part of the application at the age of 17. Some may switch during their course, but it's far from the norm.

Steve

 

[IRstuff]

That just makes it worse for the frontal cortex...

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[KENAT]

Speak for yourself IRstuff, I had my plan A & plan B worked out long before I got to high school.

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[IRstuff]

Well, I did too, but I didn't actually wind up staying that course over the years, but that was sheer luck on both ends. I remember my mom asking where I was applying, to which I replied, "Well, I'm applying to XYZ, since that's where I want to go." "Silly boy, what if you don't get accepted?" So, yeah, frontal cortex not fully operational. Applied to a few other schools, but I got into XYZ anyway, so no biggie.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[KENAT]

When I say plan A & plan B I meant for careers, other than Oxbridge & the distinction between real universities V polytechnics there wasn't quite the same amount of snobbery over which university as in the US.

I applied to all 6 (or was it 8) schools allowed by the UK UCAS system, only Imperial was smart enough to reject me and they weren't my first choice anyway.

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[GregLocock]

I had Cambridge as #1, so I was told not to bother applying to Bristol (!?). For that matter i don't think Southampton gave me an offer either.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[KENAT]

Well that's odd, Southampton is my "alma mater" and I wasn't even smart enough to take the Oxbridge exam.

I just remembered, I was the one that asked my guidance counselor what my back up should be if I flunked my exams and they basically told me not to worry about it based on my predicted grades.

Guess I really was an exception, shame that exceptionalism didn't continue.

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[GregLocock]

I thought it was all internal politicking between unis. Quite funny in these days of publically available league tables, or maybe they didn't like the uncertainty of being the backup plan.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[KENAT]

Yeah, I was thinking the same Greg on the politics, clearly not an aptitude thing so either:

1) You applied to our 'rival' so we wont' consider you.

OR:

2) If you applied to Cambridge you're statistically unlikely to come to us so not worth the effort of interviewing or some such.

Always being risk averse my ultimate back up was Hertfordshire where they were amazed I was taking double math A level - probably should have been a clue that my back up may have been a bit too safe.

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[SomptingGuy]

I remember the alleged politics too. If you are going to apply to X, they need to be 1st on the list, Y need to be 1st or 2nd, Oxbridge must be somewhere on the list but 5th is ok, etc. That advice was nothing more than hearsay from school teachers now I look back. I reckon I could have shuffled my list and had the same set of offers.

My father sat me down and made it clear that I would have a good time at any of the 5 places on my list and would come out well qualified. I was wasting my time agonizing over 5 excellent choices - a first world problem.

For the record (in 1986)...

1 Imperial (must be 1st to be considered)
2 Brunel (back-up, since they could provide industrial placements)
3 Bath (place filler)
4 Loughborough (place filler)
5 Cambridge (5th is apparently ok)

And as it turned out, #5 was wrong (passed their exam, but wasn't given a place). Bitter? Me? Never!



Steve

 

[GregLocock]

When I was applying Bath was still rebooting its engineering course, plus it was my Lo-Cal uni. Brunel and Lowbrow weren't even in the frame. Well I guess that's enough ancient history.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[cranky108]

I never had to worry because state universities were required to take any students that graduated from a state public high school. And since an in state school was all we could afford, that made it easy to decide on because there were only a few state universities.

Now I can look back and see that the only thing that made the state universitys known is the sports teams.

 

[KENAT]

Hmm, well either my tutor/advisor was holding out on me or by the mid 90's the politics had reduced because I don't remember any scuttle butt about which places you couldn't mutually select or needing to rank them etc.

Southampton
Bath
City University
Queen Mary's
Hertfordshire
Imperial (rejected)

As to the OP, pretty sure the 'Principale of Minimum Total Potential Energy' as my lecturer called it was second year aero structures. i.e. a core requirement to get your bachelors not even a final year elective or some such. Seems a little odd for it to have moved all the way to grad studies.

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[rb1957]

'cept that'd be "principle" ! (yes, I'm the self-appointed principal/principle corrector !)

and I think they're talking about using infernal strain energy to solve redundant structures.

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