CNN: "Why would-be engineers end up as English majors"

[GLOBALTRAVELER]

<p>

Man, that “modest salary ceiling” for engineering majors sure sucks, eh? I have no issues with your three other points, but the extent to which this myth is perpetuated just blows my mind. I’m genuinely curious, which undergraduate degree would you suggest for faster promotions and a higher salary ceiling?

</p>

<p>I believe that degree is called B.S. in “Bring-in-the-business-and-contracts Engineering”…but ummm…there is no ABET program in that so you pretty much have to get that knowledge through work.</p>

[Magneto]

<p>Very interesting thread. Lots of good debate. Something else I would like to bring up is the fact that alot of students also dont do engineering because of having to buy the textbook for some useless pre req (which is usually expensive). Having to buy a $200 textbook for one class is ridiculous.</p>

<p>One question I would pose to everyone is what does this mean to current students in the engineering majors having to go through this stuff?</p>

[ChrisTKD]

<p>Sakky - I think the first question to answer is why so many universities specifically design the engineering prerequisite classes to be weeder courses. There’s no question that many schools want to weed out students from engineering. Perhaps they don’t have enough professors available for teaching the higher level classes if all the freshmen continued through the pipeline? One prof can teach 200 students in Engineering Chemistry 101. But the upper division classes are going to have to be smaller. </p>

<p>Or, perhaps there’s the old “we’ve always done it this way” attittude, i.e., an academic hazing of engineering students, if you will. I have noticed on CC that the few engineering colleges that have high graduation rates are sometimes derided as being “nuturing” or “having a supporting environment” as if the students graduating may not be of the same caliber as ones who have come through the weeder programs.</p>

[cosmicfish]

<p>

People are therefore simply interested in conducting and reporting the results of experimental results. Not deriving pages and pages worth of equations. That’s why nobody remembers how to derive anything.

Not my experience at all. I have worked with over a dozen PhD’s in industry and half that number closely in academia. All of them demonstrated an understanding of the math and the derivations that far outstripped any undergrad I knew. It was in fact that level of understanding that made me want to get my PhD in the first place.</p>

<p>Heck, even the experimentalists needed to do the derivations to explain what they had discovered – the discovery itself is of less importance than the explanation, and there are a number of Nobel non-winners who can attest to it.</p>

<p>

Then let me posit the following analogy. How many engineers actually take a course on Real Analysis - which is often times one of the true ‘weeder’ course for math majors and which mathematicians will tell you is where you would learn how calculus truly operates at its most fundamental and rigorous level (as opposed to the fast-and-loose ‘toy’ calculus that is taught in lower division math courses)?

Every engineering major must strike a balance between the purely theoretical and the purely practical. The first is the domain of theorists like physicists and mathematicians, while the later is the domain of technicians. You may argue that the balance is wrong, but I disagree – the theory-heavy nature of undergrad enables a higher level of professional development. I have seen a number of engineers who (by careful design) focused on the practical courses, and they do not generally advance far as engineers.

{This is why I think that the threshold for graduation for the creampuff majors should be increased to, say, 2.5 or even a 3.0 in some cases. I think we can all agree that a student with a 2.1 in a creampuff major basically did and learned nothing and probably doesn’t deserve a degree.}

This is resolved in other ways. An engineer with a 2.5gpa can still get a job (at least, the one I knew did), while a philosophy major with a 3.5gpa bags groceries for a living (at least, the one I knew did).</p>

[cosmicfish]

<p>

Maxwell’s Relations and Maxwell’s Equations have absolutely nothing to do with one another, except for the name.

I didn’t say that they did, other than in apparent reception. In EE the things that kills people are (usually) Maxwell’s Equations and convolution, and I was trying to draw a parallel in difficulty. All of your comments relating specifically to MR are therefore things to which I cannot respond.</p>

<p>

I would argue that it didn’t help anybody. After all, how much did the students understand the M.R.'s when the midterm mean score was a 25%, and a 30% was a cause for celebration? Nobody understood anything.

It DOES help, but you need to understand that not every single thing taught in college is meant to be completely understood and applied. In many cases, the goal is to provide a sufficient introduction so that people can understand what it is for and be prepared to invest the additional time and effort should it be required for work or graduate study. Someone who DOESN’T receive this introduction doesn’t even know if they want that job or grad program that will require them to use it.</p>

<p>

It certainly didn’t help that girl who stayed at Berkeley to complete her PhD in 3 years, and still freely admits that to this day, she still doesn’t understand the M.R.'s (and doesn’t care).

So a PhD had a gap in her knowledge. Graduate research degrees are so narrow that almost all PhD’s have some areas where they don’t really possess significant knowledge. I know tenured, well-regarded EE professors who cannot design a circuit, simply because they didn’t really care for that part of their undergrad education and by choice or chance have not touched it since.</p>

<p>

Students are free to take an optional class, just like how right now, engineers are free to take Real Analysis as an elective. But nobody is going to force you to take it.

Again, if they have no introduction to it, how are they going to know to take it, or who to go to with a problem. For that matter, is there ANYTHING so general that every single engineer needs it? I am an EE and I have not designed a single circuit since my undergrad 5 years ago – does that mean that EE programs should skip circuit design?</p>

<p>

If the other colleges have an issue with that, hey, that’s their problem. Each school should be worried about improving the prospects of its own students.

I am talking about other colleges in the same university. Consider that your proposals also have to be accepted by the other departments – perhaps Business doesn’t WANT to accept curving or no-grade courses from former Engineering students.</p>

<p>

Regarding the notion of abuse, hey, plenty of abuse already happens right now at most schools. If schools want to curb abuse, they should curb all types of abuse - notably the ‘abuse’ engendered by students cruising through a 4-year party and an easy degree via creampuff majors - not just focusing on whatever abuse may happen within the engineering program.

And there are already remedies – 4-year partiers generally pay the price for the rest of their lives with intermittent and low-paying employment. Those career fields that accept them for lucrative jobs do so by their own choice, and (as you have noted before) the appropriate remedy then for those so interested is to simply not be an engineer – if you want to be a doctor/lawyer/financier, and those jobs value GPA over major, then take the major that will give you the GPA. I see no reason to bend over backwards to make engineering programs more friendly to those who don’t actually want to be engineers.</p>

<p>

The upshot is that, as things stand right now, the letter grade that you earn in an engineering class often times has little to do with what you actually know about the material on any absolute basis. Grading is relative. In the land of the blind, one-eyed men are kings.

Not in most of my classes. The biggest curve I ever saw was about 20%, and that was by far the exception and not the rule. </p>

<p>

But it doesn’t need to be. The lowest-scoring student in the class might nevertheless still be a competent engineer. But we’ll never know because he was weeded out.

He might also make a competent astronaut or a stunning rock guitarist. At some point he actually has to demonstrate ability. The “weeder courses” at my school stopped very very few people with specific weaknesses (e.g., an inability to figure out convolution) – you could retake that course a few times if needed, and since you presumably aren’t focusing on that area it won’t slow you down as long as you finish by graduation time. The people stopped by weeder courses are those unable to handle ANYTHING, or perhaps everything except one specific narrow area.</p>

[cosmicfish]

<p>

There’s no question that many schools want to weed out students from engineering.

Not in my experience. My department was trying to figure out how to both boost enrollment AND completion rates. They perceive “weeder courses” as a mercy - a way to identify future drop-outs and shift them to other programs BEFORE they sink themselves completely. A student who gets a D in sophomore-level “Intro to Electrical Engineering” can get the hint and take another major, but someone nursed along until they are an EE senior with a 1.98 GPA is well and truly screwed - it would have been far better had they acknowledged their poor career choice while they still had a functional GPA, money in the bank, and loan eligibility.</p>

[skbryan]

<p>What bothers me about this article is the comments section with ■■■■■■ talking down on engineering who claim to be engineers themselves. Anyone can claim to be anyone online and give a basic explanation of what they do. Why are people doing this? Probably jealously of not being able to get an engineering degree. They claim that business and finance jobs make tons more money. The reality is that not everyone can be rich so getting a degree in business won’t guarantee anything. You can work your way up in engineering ane make over 100K easily. If these people actually are/were engineers, then my only guess is that they have a friend who makes more than them so they generalize all business majors to make millions. Pretty pathetic.</p>

[toodleooo]

<p>“In physical science the first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the state of Science, whatever the matter may be.” William Thomson Kelvin</p>

<p>engineering is a type of science that is nothing if not about quantifying. and if the numbers aren’t right your gizmo won’t work. teamwork and support are important to making things work. but to be on the team you have to do your share of the quantifying, and get it right. i don’t know how you make hard things easier to understand - i’m just a chemical engineer.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

They perceive “weeder courses” as a mercy - a way to identify future drop-outs and shift them to other programs BEFORE they sink themselves completely. A student who gets a D in sophomore-level “Intro to Electrical Engineering” can get the hint and take another major, but someone nursed along until they are an EE senior with a 1.98 GPA is well and truly screwed - it would have been far better had they acknowledged their poor career choice while they still had a functional GPA, money in the bank, and loan eligibility.

</p>

<p>How about an even better option: don’t admit that student into the engineering program at all. Why admit students who are just going to be weeded out anyway? </p>

<p>How about another option: don’t ever have that student fall to a 1.98 GPA. Let him graduate, even with just a 2.1. Why not? From a talent standpoint, the difference between a 1.98 and a 2.1 is infinitesimal. But at least with a 2.1, you can still graduate.</p>

<p>After all, it’s not as if your school is really preventing all supposedly incompetent engineers from entering the labor force anyway. I assume that you actually went to an above-average engineering program. What that then surely means is that the guy with the 1.98 GPA and flunked out could have probably graduated and become a fully-fledged engineer had he simply just gone to an easier school. Put another way, some students at easier engineering schools probably wouldn’t have graduated if they had gone to your school. Hence, those easier schools will be producing ‘incompetent’ engineers no matter what your school chooses to do.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

It DOES help, but you need to understand that not every single thing taught in college is meant to be completely understood and applied.

</p>

<p>That goal was certainly accomplished. To this very day, I’m still mystified as to what the M.R.'s can actually be used for on a practical level. </p>

<p>

In many cases, the goal is to provide a sufficient introduction so that people can understand what it is for

</p>

<p>Not even that goal was accomplished. Like I said, I still don’t know what the M.R.'s are used for, and nor do any of the other practicing engineers that I know. </p>

<p>

So a PhD had a gap in her knowledge.

</p>

<p>And it’s not just one. I know plenty of other PhD’s in engineering who freely admit that they don’t understand the M.R.'s either. </p>

<p>

Again, if they have no introduction to it, how are they going to know to take it, or who to go to with a problem. For that matter, is there ANYTHING so general that every single engineer needs it?

</p>

<p>So by that argument, it seems as if you are arguing that all engineers should indeed be mandated to take Real Analysis. Well, if that is true, then perhaps you should take it up with the engineering administrators, because few if any require such a course now. </p>

<p>

I am an EE and I have not designed a single circuit since my undergrad 5 years ago – does that mean that EE programs should skip circuit design?

</p>

<p>Which is why I advocated obtaining input from industry - as industry is supposedly the target audience - regarding what practicing engineers actually need to know on their job. We then pick out the X most commonly demanded skills, and we teach those as requirements. </p>

<p>I said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t know of a single chemical engineer who actually uses the M.R.'s on their daily jobs. So, again, why did we learn them? Particularly when there were plenty of other skills that we probably should have learned instead, such as basic machinery. </p>

<p>

Consider that your proposals also have to be accepted by the other departments

</p>

<p>Why? Each department is (usually) an autonomous entity, over which other departments do not hold veto power.</p>

<p>I’ll put it to you this way. I’m sure that other colleges (in the same school) deeply resent the fact that certain majors such as ‘American Studies’ are widely considered to be creampuff majors largely populated by students with little motivation or academic talent and who are interested mostly in a 4-year party and social experience. But those majors nevertheless continue to exist. Those other colleges apparently are unable to prohibit those majors from existing. </p>

<p>

[perhaps Business doesn’t WANT to accept curving or no-grade courses from former Engineering students.

</p>

<p>Hey, too bad. I’m sure that business probably doesn’t want to accept students who were forced to learn the M.R.'s rather than something actually marketable. </p>

<p>

I see no reason to bend over backwards to make engineering programs more friendly to those who don’t actually want to be engineers.

</p>

<p>And that’s a deeply cold and provocative statement considering that most every other major seems to do so. Poli-sci departments know (or should know) full well that the vast majority of its undergrads are not actually going to become political scientists. History departments know that most students won’t become professional historians. Bio departments know that most students won’t become professional biologists. Heck, even math departments - a discipline not exactly known for easy grading - know that most students won’t become professional mathematicians. </p>

<p>Why should engineering be the outlier? </p>

<p>

And there are already remedies – 4-year partiers generally pay the price for the rest of their lives with intermittent and low-paying employment.

</p>

<p>And by the same argument, a market-based remedy would (supposedly) come to fruition. If engineering companies truly valued such skills as the M.R.'s, then those engineering students who chose not to decline the now-elective M.R. class would simply not be hired for the best engineering jobs. Instead, those jobs would go to those students who did take the M.R. class. </p>

<p>So what’s the problem? Just as students currently have the choice between a less vs. more marketable degree in the form of Leisure Studies vs. Engineering, they would also have the choice between a less and more rigorous version of engineering…and if that rigor truly conveyed market value, then the market would surely respond in kind, right? </p>

<p>But I don’t see what is so controversial about allowing students to have the choice. Again, nobody is stopping anybody from learning the M.R.'s. If you want to learn them, you are perfectly free to take the appropriate elective course, just like any engineer who wants to learn Real Analysis is free to do so. </p>

<p>

Not in most of my classes. The biggest curve I ever saw was about 20%, and that was by far the exception and not the rule

</p>

<p>Then it seems as if your engineering program was a clear exception. As a general rule, it seems that engineering exams at most schools are curved to around a 40-60% mean. </p>

<p>

He might also make a competent astronaut or a stunning rock guitarist. At some point he actually has to demonstrate ability

</p>

<p>But he did demonstrate ability - or at least, more ability than some of the graduating engineers at the low end of the curves of the 4th tier schools. Those engineers are going to be ‘polluting’ the labor market with their supposed inability, yet nobody is stopping them. </p>

<p>Again, the upshot is that many - almost certainly most - of the engineering students at higher ranked schools who were weeded out probably would have graduated and become perfectly viable engineers had they just gone to an easier school. The higher ranked schools are therefore simply applying an arbitrary standard regarding who is allowed to be an engineer and who isn’t which is unsupported by the other schools. </p>

<p>And besides, if the student truly does lack ability, then you would expect that companies would simply not hire them, right? So why not allow them to graduate, even with mediocre grades?</p>

[sakky]

<p>

What does real analysis have to do with the idea that someone who took freshman (or high school) calculus should remember how the area under a curve relates to integration?

</p>

<p>What does this entire tangent - that you brought up - have to do with this thread at all? </p>

<p>

How many are you claiming is “many”? You are trying to dismiss actual data on grade distributions by claiming a large drop rate due to poor performance, without providing any information on how large the drop rate actually is, or the reasons why students drop it (which may be poor grades, but may also be due to scheduling fit or other issues like getting into too many courses and needing to drop one).

</p>

<p>Well, since you keep asking for a numerical estimate, I think it’s only fair that you first provide a numerical estimate yourself. Surely you’re not claiming that the drop rate is 0%. </p>

<p>

Is there anything wrong with Berkeley ChemE having a more academia-centric focus than other departments around the country? I haven’t taken ChemE 141 yet, but I’m really happy that my department takes a more rigorous approach to thermodynamics than other departments.

</p>

<p>What is undeniable - and what the Berkeley ChemE department surely knows - is that many (almost certainly most) of its graduates enter the workforce as opposed to grad school, however much they may wish otherwise. Hence, they need to provide an education that is also appropriate for those students.</p>

<p>But that’s not to say that Berkeley shouldn’t provide a more academic flavor either. That is why I advocate that the program provide a choice. Those students who want to pursue a more theoretical, academically oriented chemical engineering program can take a course that teaches the M.R.'s and other esoteric topics as an elective. Other students who are headed to industry can pursue more practical fare. </p>

<p>

I would be really disappointed if my department took shortcuts just to make the program “doable” for uninterested, mediocre students.

</p>

<p>Nor does it mean that the removal of M.R.'s from the required curricula (which ElevatemeLater’s program apparently does) necessitate that the program become a magnet for mediocre and unmotivated students. You can provide highly rigorous yet highly practical and marketable coursework in exchange. Like I said before, how about offering a true design class where students have to compete to build a working prototype of something, from which students may ultimately be able to derive their own published single-authored scientific paper or patent? {Like I said, if a guy can get a publication in a physics journal about the social networks of the lyrics of rappers, then surely some engineering students will be able to obtain a publication from an engineering prototype they developed.}</p>

[sakky]

<p>

Not my experience at all. I have worked with over a dozen PhD’s in industry and half that number closely in academia. All of them demonstrated an understanding of the math and the derivations that far outstripped any undergrad I knew. It was in fact that level of understanding that made me want to get my PhD in the first place.

</p>

<p>And not in my experience at all. Furthermore, I think you will find that the vast majority of working engineers (BS/MS/PhD) will attest to the fact that they’ve forgotten the vast majority of what they had learned in school, especially the more heavily theoretical fare. </p>

<p>

You may argue that the balance is wrong, but I disagree – the theory-heavy nature of undergrad enables a higher level of professional development. I have seen a number of engineers who (by careful design) focused on the practical courses, and they do not generally advance far as engineers.

</p>

<p>Then why not give students a choice. Schools can recommend a series of more theoretical electives because they (supposedly) will, as you claim, enable a higher level of professional development. And if that is indeed true, then students will surely do so. </p>

<p>But the salient question is that why do you require everybody to take those courses? Even more saliently, why do you then weed people out if they can’t complete those courses? </p>

<p>In short, cosmicfish, what are you so scared of? Are you scared that engineering students will make (supposedly) bad choices? Even if they did, so what? You said yourself that students in creampuff majors are making bad life choices, yet nobody is stopping them. So if we offer the M.R.'s as an elective, and students make the (bad) choice not to take that course, well, people should have the freedom to make bad choices, right? </p>

<p>Just as you said that the market will exact condign punishment upon those students who enjoyed a 4-year party through a creampuff major, then surely the market - being apparently the perfectly efficient resource allocator that it supposedly is - will also surely exact punishment from those engineering students who refuse to take useful theoretical electives. So what’s the problem?</p>

[cosmicfish]

<p>

How about an even better option: don’t admit that student into the engineering program at all. Why admit students who are just going to be weeded out anyway?

Sure - just find a way to reliably identify those students who won’t graduate, and then find a reason not to give them a chance. Because I am sure that all “good” students coming in succeed, and no “bad” students coming in fail.</p>

<p>

How about another option: don’t ever have that student fall to a 1.98 GPA. Let him graduate, even with just a 2.1. Why not? From a talent standpoint, the difference between a 1.98 and a 2.1 is infinitesimal. But at least with a 2.1, you can still graduate.

Well if it is okay to switch a 1.98 to a 2.1, why not switch a 1.8 to a 2.2, or a 1.5 to a 2.5? You’ve got to draw a line somewhere, and while as an engineer I don’t mind rounding I DO mind acting like the numbers are completely arbitrary.</p>

[cosmicfish]

<p>

So by that argument, it seems as if you are arguing that all engineers should indeed be mandated to take Real Analysis. Well, if that is true, then perhaps you should take it up with the engineering administrators, because few if any require such a course now.

No, for two reasons. First of all, Real Analysis covers material to which engineers have already been introduced (to the best of my understanding). Second, you have to draw a line somewhere, and they do – you cannot include everything, and the people who design such programs think that MR is apparently worth including and Real Analysis is not.

Which is why I advocated obtaining input from industry - as industry is supposedly the target audience - regarding what practicing engineers actually need to know on their job. We then pick out the X most commonly demanded skills, and we teach those as requirements.

</p>

<p>Can’t comment on ChemE specifically, but I am pretty sure that they did exactly that.

Why? Each department is (usually) an autonomous entity, over which other departments do not hold veto power.

It turns out that they all have to work in the same common framework. I know, shocking that a university would require that all the colleges work together.

Hey, too bad. I’m sure that business probably doesn’t want to accept students who were forced to learn the M.R.'s rather than something actually marketable.

By definition, almost nothing from the old major is marketable in the new one. Also, they can teach them the new material – the fact that you learned MR doesn’t affect them in the least. Conversely, they need some method of deciding how to compare transfer-majors with their current crop, and I’m guessing they prefer actually holding students accountable for their performance.

And that’s a deeply cold and provocative statement considering that most every other major seems to do so. Poli-sci departments know (or should know) full well that the vast majority of its undergrads are not actually going to become political scientists. History departments know that most students won’t become professional historians. Bio departments know that most students won’t become professional biologists. Heck, even math departments - a discipline not exactly known for easy grading - know that most students won’t become professional mathematicians.

And how much time do they spend catering to those? How many of their required core courses are based around alternate career possibilities? I don’t recall seeing “Dishwashing Fundamentals” on any list of required Philosophy courses, and that would seem a prime example of catering to likely alternate career possibilities. Preparing for those alternate careers is the responsibility of the student, not the department, although you do generally get electives to allow you to do so.

But I don’t see what is so controversial about allowing students to have the choice. Again, nobody is stopping anybody from learning the M.R.'s. If you want to learn them, you are perfectly free to take the appropriate elective course, just like any engineer who wants to learn Real Analysis is free to do so.

Ah, but they DO have a choice. Most fields have “Technology” degrees that eliminate much of that unpalatable theory in favor of more hands-on and practical application. Such graduates (strangely enough) have reduced career opportunities and salary expectations, but hey, at least they didn’t have those weeder courses. Now, if you cannot find a 4-year CET degree that would allow you to skip MR, then lobby for one. But this is what you are really asking for.

But he did demonstrate ability - or at least, more ability than some of the graduating engineers at the low end of the curves of the 4th tier schools. Those engineers are going to be ‘polluting’ the labor market with their supposed inability, yet nobody is stopping them.

But all that means is that he was “superior” to that 4th tier student THEN – and we are concerned about NOW. NOW we have a successful 4th tier student who is probably not getting hired for a complex or critical job. And you know what? That failed top-tier student can probably STILL get into that 4th tier school if academic rigor really is the problem.</p>

[cosmicfish]

<p>

And not in my experience at all. Furthermore, I think you will find that the vast majority of working engineers (BS/MS/PhD) will attest to the fact that they’ve forgotten the vast majority of what they had learned in school, especially the more heavily theoretical fare.

Sure, that was sort of my point – in practice engineering is specialized, but that doesn’t mean that everyone has to pick a specialty on day one and learn nothing outside of it. The breadth of engineering education is necessary so that people can successfully identify and develop those specialties that they will use.</p>

<p>

Then why not give students a choice. Schools can recommend a series of more theoretical electives because they (supposedly) will, as you claim, enable a higher level of professional development. And if that is indeed true, then students will surely do so.

They do. My school had a large number of electives recommended for those heading to grad school or more theoretically-focused employment. </p>

<p>All these things that you say don’t happen DO happen, you just disagree where the line is drawn. You say that students marginally failing under the current system should be allowed to graduate, without explaining why students who marginally failed under YOUR system should not. You say that the current programs are too theoretical for some, without explaining why YOUR desired program would also not be too theoretical for some. </p>

<p>

In short, cosmicfish, what are you so scared of?

Mostly I am scared of having to work with, teach, and mentor engineers who don’t understand the fundamentals of their fields. Everything I design with my theoretical knowledge has to interface with systems designed by other engineers, and when they DON’T understand the theory AT ALL it is effectively impossible to interface with them without teaching them the material.</p>

[WastedxYears]

<p>If you guys took all the time that you spent arguing in this thread and spent it on finding a practical use for Maxwell’s Relations, then I am sure it would have been done by now.</p>

[ucbalumnus]

<p>

@sakky

How about an even better option: don’t admit that student into the engineering program at all. Why admit students who are just going to be weeded out anyway?

</p>

<p>With high school grade and SAT inflation, it may be hard to figure out which of many students who got A grades in high school math and 750+ on the SAT math really are good enough to handle engineering. Also, other factors, not knowable by the admissions committee (or even the student or parent) may appear after enrolling (e.g. whether the student will have a tendency to party too much). Plus, lots of students change their majors (any major) for reasons other than failing the intro course.</p>

<p>

@sakky

Then why not give students a choice.

</p>

<p>You should have majored in EECS at Berkeley. No specifically named upper division courses – mostly free choice of EE and CS courses to complete the required number of units of such courses (there are some subcategories to satisfy, but the lists of courses that fulfill those is relatively large).</p>

<p>Of course, then you would probably be here complaining about why some topic is in some course that you chose to take.</p>

[noimagination]

<p>

How about an even better option: don’t admit that student into the engineering program at all. Why admit students who are just going to be weeded out anyway?

Please provide evidence showing a strong correlation between factors available at the time of admission and eventual engineering GPA.

After all, it’s not as if your school is really preventing all supposedly incompetent engineers from entering the labor force anyway. I assume that you actually went to an above-average engineering program. What that then surely means is that the guy with the 1.98 GPA and flunked out could have probably graduated and become a fully-fledged engineer had he simply just gone to an easier school. Put another way, some students at easier engineering schools probably wouldn’t have graduated if they had gone to your school. Hence, those easier schools will be producing ‘incompetent’ engineers no matter what your school chooses to do.

You ignore the existence of ABET accreditation standards. Presumably, passing an accredited engineering program should indicate solid abilities.

I said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t know of a single chemical engineer who actually uses the M.R.'s on their daily jobs. So, again, why did we learn them? Particularly when there were plenty of other skills that we probably should have learned instead, such as basic machinery.

How many engineering programs require a course covering Maxwell relations? A lot of your posts seem to come down to “Berkeley engineering does x, and it’s bad!”</p>

<p>Maybe you should just complain to Berkeley.

And that’s a deeply cold and provocative statement considering that most every other major seems to do so. Poli-sci departments know (or should know) full well that the vast majority of its undergrads are not actually going to become political scientists. History departments know that most students won’t become professional historians. Bio departments know that most students won’t become professional biologists. Heck, even math departments - a discipline not exactly known for easy grading - know that most students won’t become professional mathematicians. </p>

<p>Why should engineering be the outlier?

There just aren’t that many jobs out there for professional historians. If the history department catered solely to that group, enrollment would implode. But the faculty are tenured, so they can’t be fired, and thus students have to be persuaded to take history courses.</p>

[MaineLonghorn]

<p>^Also, I don’t care if some students don’t become engineers. Structural engineers, in particular, hold the lives of a lot of people in their hands. The school needs to feel confident that EVERY graduate is prepared to practice in the field. I think engineering SHOULD be the outlier.</p>

[ucbalumnus]

<p>

@MaineLonghorn

How many engineering programs require a course covering Maxwell relations? A lot of your posts seem to come down to “Berkeley engineering does x, and it’s bad!”</p>

<p>Maybe you should just complain to Berkeley.

</p>

<p>Or specifically the Chemical Engineering department, since the course that he is complaining about is not generally taken by engineering students outside of Chemical Engineering.</p>

<p>That said, there will always be some curriculum variation across schools based on what the interests of the faculty members are. More mundane differences like quarter versus semester system can also cause differences in content. However, curriculum variation is not unique to engineering. Indeed, humanities and most social studies areas, where there is less of a constraint due to prerequisite chains, ABET accreditation, or a large number of graduates going directly to related industry jobs, may be more prone to curriculum variation than engineering or science.</p>