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.



another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[moltenmetal]

I've been arguing ever since my own Masters graduation that perhaps if we ditched one or even two of the courses spent teaching chem engs how to do analytical integration of ODEs and PDEs, we'd be able to fit in a few things the undergrads could actually use when they graduate...But there is much debate on that subject.

The derivation of things in detail isn't possible all the time, nor is it necessary to get them to the good stuff. The exercise can be left to those who are interested enough to look into it themselves, but that's not most of us for sure.

 

[GregLocock]

I was introduced to energy methods in high school physics.

I agree there is far too much higher maths in engineering courses. There'd be no harm in it as a paper that could be selected as an alternative to something else, but most of what I did I regard as unusable, There is a desperate need on the other hand for something like 'numerical methods'.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[Belgiancadengineer]

Foundation is a lie, your brain is plastic and learns all the time. You don't need to be taught the details of everything, learning works best when it is done just-in-time.

 

[FoxRox]

Foundation is a lie, your brain is plastic and learns all the time. You don't need to be taught the details of everything, learning works best when it is done just-in-time.

I agree with everything except the first three words. You need a foundation in math and physics to have a chance at learning the details on the fly.

If you don't need a foundation, then what is the point of education at all?

 

[IRstuff]

Moreover, you need a certain level of foundation. Going from calculus to Kalman filters isn't a technically difficult step, but going from algebra, it would be.

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

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

faq731-376 forum1529

 

[Belgiancadengineer]

I guess you do need a foundation, but the point of education is to mold people into obedient workers.

 

[GregLocock]

Are you deliberately trolling? How does learning about Hamiltonians make me an obedient worker?

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[IRstuff]

"but the point of education is to mold people into obedient workers."

Well, that's been a dismal failure, hasn't it?

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

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

faq731-376 forum1529

 

[Belgiancadengineer]

It harkens back to something I've read a while ago on the INCOSE website an article from 1992 it was about how Systems Engineering techniques could apply to education. Briefly it was divided into four levels:

1. Schools develop some curriculum for you, little thought is given to its meaning or value.
2. Schools develop some curriculum for you, but they try to put effort into making it valuable.
3. Schools listen to students and will take feedback into account to improve their curriculums.
4. Schools leave most of the curriculum up to the students themselves to decide and then the school implements it.

Think of the word "students" as synomyn of the word "customers" in a Requirements Management phase.
With the customers responsible for the customer requirements and the school responsible for turning them into executable technical requirements.

Then you will see current education is basically at Step 2. It was so in 1992 and it's still so in 2016, sadly enough.

 

[GregLocock]

Which has nothing to do with obedient workers. Obviously you ignored logic in your manifesto.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

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[Belgiancadengineer]

It's not a manifesto, I'm just saying the world is a sad place.

 

[hokie66]

My world is quite a happy place. But then, I am free of managers, except for my wife.

 

[SomptingGuy]

This is veering back towards the "university or trade school" discussions.

Having gone the totally sensible route (sponsored through focused engineering course and into engineering afterwards), I feel I wasted my youth. With hindsight I'd much rather have done something much less practical, with little or no coursework/labs in a nicer university. Wasted afternoons on river banks or college lawns would have been good memories to have in the bank. Late nights completing lab reports followed by massive alcohol benders with other guys is what I have instead.

Steve

 

[IRstuff]

More managers than just my wife, but hardly a sad place wrt to work. Other places in the world are indeed sad.

"Think of the word "students" as synomyn of the word "customers" in a Requirements Management phase.
With the customers responsible for the customer requirements and the school responsible for turning them into executable technical requirements.

Then you will see current education is basically at Step 2. It was so in 1992 and it's still so in 2016, sadly enough."

INCOSE has a warped view of the world, anyway. Who need we needed Facebook until it came out? Seatbelts were never a customer requirement. INCOSE is pushing a very narrow view of systems engineering, but even in the case of customer funded developments, requirements are hit and miss. Typically, a customer rarely has the systems engineering or technical experience to develop rational and robust requirements. We do the best we can to clean up their requirements and then add the requirements necessary to create a complete product. In the commercial world, one of the most famous non-customer driven developments was the microprocessor; apocryphally, Intel was told that the demand for processors was only 16,000, worldwide, and that building a microprocessor would be a complete waste of money.

"Customer" and "student" are not synonymous; while there is a "product," the typical student doesn't really know what they want to do for the rest of their lives, nor do they have sufficiently developed frontal cortexes to weigh the outcome of their choices, both in school and out. Additionally, not every student is capable of performing to the level required for any arbitrary discipline; I had a friend who wanted to be an aeronautical engineer, but couldn't make their way past trig. We don't allow K-12 children to dictate what they want to learn because we, as parents, know that their choices would lead them into playing all day, which might be good for a select few disciplines, but bad for almost anything else.



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

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

faq731-376 forum1529

 

[Belgiancadengineer]

I guess you're right. Oh well, at least life isn't that bad. Still live in the first world

 

[davefitz]

As I recall, a few years ago MIT announced a change in educational policy, to reduce the stress on students ( after some reported suicides) and reduce the number of disillusioned students that drop out- basically to dumb-down the curriculum. I had seen the same change in policy occur at my alma mater, and I think it reflects the change in capabilities and background of millennials vs boomers. Circa 1969 the US educational system had shifted away from traditional rote methods to those that "inspire creativity" and improve the student's feelings of "self worth". By coincidence, it also simplified the teaching tasks for high school teachers, who became equivalent to baby sitters and which union rules embraced whole-heartedly. And then ,finally, technology brought the use of handheld computers to the school, which eliminated any need for any student to perform basic mathematical operations manually. And so we are where we are today. Eventually, AI and expert systems will eliminate the need for the least amount of rational thought.

"In this bright future, you can't forget your past..." Bob Marley

 

[JNieman]

The common thread in people who criticize modern education is complete ignorance or separation from what actually seems to happen in modern schools.

Or maybe my experience in 3 districts across Two states is just individually exceptional. I'm very happy with the education my son has gone through and all my interactions with school staff.

 

[Belgiancadengineer]

AI and expert systems should have been much bigger today already! Wasn't there the biggest amount of buzz around expert systems in the late 80s? Why has this not seen more uptake by now?? I think people are just afraid of displacing their jobs, which is a fair thing to worry about I suppose. I wholeheartedly support increasingly higher levels of abstraction. Engineers are not calculators.

JNieman,
Good for you. Aim low, be satisfied.

 

[cranky108]

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 ask why are people graduating with a degree and not being able to pay their student loans? Why is history class so boring, and the history channel so interesting? What was intention was met by me taking a PE class?