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

al6200 · June 6, 2011, 7:58am

I think that the F grade usually isn’t on the curve - you have to earn it. In any case, the worst students at MIT or CalTech would probably be above average students at directional state schools. I don’t see why a school can’t graduate 100% of its class if the freshman are pre-selected for quality.

silence_kit · June 6, 2011, 12:12pm

I’ve never worked a design engineering job and I don’t know that much about car engines or airplanes, but my guess is that for the design of these things, there is still a lot of design that you can do with higher-level, more empirical models and not delving into the fundamental physics. So I bet you can get away with not being super competent with the fundamental fluid dynamics equations or whatever. My guess is that while these engineers won’t be able to see beyond the higher-level rules and come up with radically new designs, they can still probably do a good job at designing these things.

hadsed · June 6, 2011, 4:17pm

But see, being an engineer is much different than being other things. I’m sure that in some certain situation it would be vital to know thermodynamics very well (and Maxwell’s relations would definitely help with understanding that). You’re an engineer more than I am I bet, so you can tell me if that’s true, or if you could conceive of something in a different discipline of engineering that might work as well. I just can’t shake the feeling that forcing engineers to just be blind monkeys that use blackboxes built by higher lifeforms to build bridges and airplanes is right (yeah it’s an exaggeration).

RacinReaver · June 6, 2011, 7:06pm

The thing is, they’re being tested on the material in their classes. While they almost certainly would have been above average students at any other school, that doesn’t mean they’re actually learning the material in the classes they’re taking at their school. Personally, I have no doubt someone with a degree in engineering from Idaho State can have a better mastery of engineering than someone from Caltech with a 2.0 GPA.

cosmicfish · June 6, 2011, 7:07pm

In my experience, design engineers need to really understand the fundamental physics and chemistry behind what they are doing - otherwise the best tools in the world will let you down and you will know neither that it happened nor why.

As an example, I was designing a microwave-frequency component for a major company. We modeled the part, and after creating a functional computer model we had some built. They failed. We went back to the models and could not figure out why until we considered a specific material property which we had (based on the manufacturer’s statements) considered isotropic. It wasn’t. While designing the component was quite simple, had we not understood the fundamental physics behind it we would have failed miserably in our jobs.

As another example, even with great software the applications cannot set up the simulation by themselves, and knowing how to do so correctly requires that you understand the physics. Remember that these software packages are designed by and for professionals - they COULD design it simply enough that anyone could use it, but it would cost so much that no one would. If I set up an antenna design it is up to me to correctly set up the problem and recognize from the results what I have created, and that requires a lot of actual pen and paper, sweat of me own brow work.

There are certainly lots of engineering jobs where this is not the case - systems engineering is generally far removed from fundamental sciences, and many engineers work in various supporting roles (like integration & test) or engineering-related roles (like sales) where they may not need it. Lacking these skills, however, means that you cannot ever really BE a design engineer, and that is why I do not think these fundamental skills can be removed from core requirements.

Japher · June 6, 2011, 7:22pm

^Good post

silence_kit · June 7, 2011, 12:51am

I bet that you could be able to get pretty far in the design of various circuits by using the circuit models that people, who know a little bit more about E&M and device physics, developed. My guess is that having a good intuition about these circuit models can get you very far, without being too knowledgeable, for example, about how a transistor works or how to design a good one, or how to relate the transmission line theory back to Maxwell’s equations.

I may be wrong about this though–I’m only a student. It actually sounds like cosmicfish does this for a living and may actually be one of those guys who knows a little bit more about E&M, so maybe he can tell me that I’m wrong.

I agree with him in that it’s probably hard to design an antenna without having a good feel for the relevant E&M theory, or to design the components for the circuits. (What type of microwave circuit component did you design for that company, by the way?)

Well, everybody does this. No one can be an expert in everything. Physicists use tools in their work that are black boxes to them too.

cosmicfish · June 7, 2011, 1:58am

I do

You are wrong, although it depends a lot on what you are designing. If you want to design simple things, then the underlying physics don’t usually matter. If you want the words “cutting edge” to come into play, they sure as heck do. In-between it depends on the precise technology and conditions.

<a href=“What%20type%20of%20microwave%20circuit%20component%20did%20you%20design%20for%20that%20company,%20by%20the%20way?”>quote</a>

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Doesn’t matter. The material in question was a substrate.

sakky · June 12, 2011, 2:37am

What I meant is that we should be more welcoming to students who are not entirely sure that they want to be engineers from the very beginning. Again, lets’ face it - few if any 17-18 year olds truly know what they want to do. That’s why they are - or at least should be - given time to explore. I am quite sure that many people who didn’t even know that they might have liked engineering might do so if they had tried it. This is surely true of all walks of life. For example, Johnny Depp has freely admitted that he didn’t even know that he wanted to be an actor - he originally moved to SoCal to become a rock musician - and only entered the profession after meeting and befriending Nicolas Cage, who encouraged him to audition for Nightmare on Elm Street.

But the key is to have them try. Right now, the daunting grade deflation within engineering, especially within the weeder courses, surely deters many people from even trying. Similarly, what if the acting profession was set up in a way that if you auditioned poorly, not only would you not receive any acting jobs, but your prospects in other professions would be damaged as well. For example, if Johnny Depp might have damaged his potential career as a musician because of bad acting auditions, he might not have even tried acting. But that’s what happens now with engineering - if you receive poor grades in engineering, those grades are permanently marked upon your transcript for life - even if you choose not to major in engineering. That surely deters many students from even trying.

Another discussion for another thread, perhaps.

But I do think it’s rather unrealistic for K-12 to provide much exposure to engineering, by the same reasoning that K-12 generally provides little exposure to a movie acting career (except indirectly through after-school plays).

Hmm, I would argue that students graduating without really meeting any standards already happens now. Again, I would remind everybody of the proliferation of creampuff majors which effectively enforce no standards. Let’s face it - most schools have certain majors in which it is practically impossible to flunk out. Unless you happened to attend a highly unusual boutique school (i.e. an “Institute of Technology”) then surely we can all think of certain majors in our schools in which this was true. Maybe it was difficult to earn straight A’s, but it was also surely nearly impossible to actually fail.

So I would ask - exactly what sort of ‘accomplishment’ has been denoted by earning mediocre grades in one of the creampuff majors? What standards have really been reached? Hence, if anybody is trying to have it both ways, it is the universities themselves. They themselves have already vitiated whatever standards they might have enforced in the past by offering these undemanding majors.

sakky · June 12, 2011, 3:10am

Then maybe you should take it up with Berkeley, who seems to have made the M.R.'s absolutely essential to the entire course, comprising weeks and weeks of confusion and pain.

Then I guess those students - in one of the highest ranked chemical engineering programs in the world - were all just really stupid. The mean score of the first midterm, which comprised mostly of the M.R.'s was a 25%. Heck, even the highest scoring student scored only something in the 60’s% I believe. So if the M.R.'s are not that difficult, then perhaps all of those students - even the superstars - must have been just really stupid.

And that would include that girl I mentioned who stayed at Berkeley and completed her engineering Phd in a lightning-fast 3 years. To this day, she has bad memories of the M.R’s and freely admits that she doesn’t understand them and probably never will. So if the M.R.'s are really not that hard, then maybe she’s just really dumb and Berkeley should revoke her PhD.

Like I’ve said - it’s no more absurd than what is already happening now, with plenty of unmotivated and untalented students and who are treating college as little more than a 4-year social and partying escapade but who nevertheless earn degrees via creampuff majors such as Leisure Studies. Surely we can all think of students who have done this - who rarely attend class or study, who don’t know what is going on and don’t care…yet nevertheless are handed degrees anyway. That to me is absurd, yet nobody seems to be doing anything about it.

If schools ought to enforce rigorous standards, fair enough, then let’s really enforce rigorous standards across the board. Why should engineering students be singled out?

And once again, I would invoke the example of that woman who later stayed at Berkeley to earn her engineering PhD in 3 years. To this day, she freely admits that she doesn’t understand the M.R.'s and never did (and frankly, never wants to). Does the fact that - by her admission - she doesn’t understand the M.R.'s mean that she is not highly innovative? Then maybe Berkeley should revoke her PhD.

I frankly also find your examples of internal combustion engines or flying machines to be unconvincing. Many such devices are actually designed by mechanical engineers - and many mechanical engineers, including the ones at Berkeley, do not learn the M.R.'s, or at least not to great depth. So why are the chemical engineers singled out?

I continue to ask the question, why exactly should chemical engineers be weeded via a topic that practically nobody in industry actually uses, or, heck, even understands? {I’ve talked to many practicing chemical engineers, and to a man, they’ve all agreed that they barely understood the M.R.'s when it was taught to them.}

Then at the risk of beating a dead horse, I would again invoke the example of the girl I know who stayed at Berkeley to complete her engineering PhD in a mere 3 years. She freely admits to this very day that she does not understand the M.R.'s and probably never will, and indeed, that old thermo course still gives her bad memories. Nevertheless, she completed her PhD with an award-winning dissertation and several publications, and took a job in the R&D division at a top firm (that shall remain unnamed) as - yes - a design engineer.

Maybe that firm should never have hired her because she lacked the understanding of fundamental skills such as the M.R.'s. Nevertheless, as stupid of a move as that may be, they still hired her as a design engineer, and now she’s Section Head of her division.

So tell me again why the M.R.'s are so crucial to understand?

As I suggested before, those firms who truly believe that new hires truly must understand the M.R.'s can simply choose not to hire anybody who is unable to demonstrate such understanding. {Of course such a policy would then mean never considering hiring any chemical engineer from Berkeley from that particular class year, if the mean score of the first thermo exam that revolved around the M.R.s was a 25%, and even the highest score was only in the 60’s. Nobody understood the M.R.'s.}

But as you admitted yourself, plenty of engineering jobs do not require such fundamental knowledge. So why not let people who lack that fundamental knowledge or don’t want to acquire it nevertheless compete for those jobs?

cosmicfish · June 12, 2011, 8:11am

That horse has been well-beaten. One person is not conclusive of anything. Perhaps she understands it better than she thinks she does. Perhaps she is so good at the rest of it that her lack of knowledge in this area is tolerated. If I am going to use single people as general guidelines then I can just as easily state that college is unnecessary (thanks to Bill Gates).

Because design engineering is generally considered to be the “core track” for engineering. Engineering is a professional program, and while it may lead in many different directions it is oriented towards producing designers. Further, those other engineering jobs do not as a rule require skills beyond what design engineers study. Finally, the difficulty people have in learning MR does not stop the vast majority from graduating - despite a 60% maximum score, Berkeley does not flunk every engineering student.

sakky · June 12, 2011, 4:27pm

Yet you admitted yourself that plenty of engineering jobs - notably the “non-design” jobs - do not require knowledge of (supposedly) fundamental skills.

That seems deeply tautological - the ‘core track’ of engineering is necessary to learn because it has been defined as the ‘core’. More importantly, I don’t think anybody is outwardly accusing those engineers who do not work as ‘design’ engineers to not be ‘true’ engineers. They are just as much engineers as the rest of us.

I said it before and I’ll say it again - those firms who truly feel that their design engineers should possess fundamental skills, however defined, are perfectly free to not hire those students who lack such skills. Nobody is forcing you to hire them. If your company has made, in your opinion, inappropriate hires, then you should take that up with your hiring manager. But those companies who also hire engineers but who do not feel they need those fundamental skills and those engineering students who also feel that those skills are unnecessary should nevertheless be able to establish their own labor market and match with each other. Why do you want to prevent them from doing so? They’re not hurting you in any way, so why do you care what they do?

Indeed, plenty of people passed despite knowing practically nothing. {Like I said, the mean score was a 25%.} Hence, you cannot conclude that most students truly learned much about the M.R.'s anyway, if the mean score was so pitiful and even the very best student did not score particularly well. Yet many of those students nevertheless eventually graduated and took jobs as engineers. Employers did not seem to have any problem with their supposed lack of knowledge of the M.R.'s.

So if that’s the case, why even bother using the M.R.'s as a weedout mechanism at all. As a case in point, because the mean score was a 25%, then earning a 20% was effectively failing (hence being weeded out), whereas earning a 30% was cause for celebration (probably equivalent to an A-). But really, what’s the difference between a 20% and a 30%? Either way, you didn’t know much.

cosmicfish · June 12, 2011, 5:54pm

All jobs require awareness of the fundamentals, design engineering requires competency. My point about the dead horse is that evidence of a single design engineer without competency in a particular area is hardly conclusive.

I started off in one of those non-design positions. I did not need to calculate and manipulate all the equations that design engineers do, but I still needed an awareness to rough out what was happening.

Tautological? To say that “core track” of engineering is to design? I suppose you could define it differently - you could say that the core track of engineering is to produce quality cheerleaders, I am just not sure why you would.

Are you actually working or planning to work as an engineer? I ask only because so many of your threads focus on the inherent advantages of going into finance (or such), so I had just written off that you had ever worked as an engineer, or would. I ask because when you start making recommendations about what engineering firms need, it helps to know what experience you actually have.

Which, under your plan, would be Americans. I don’t see any virtue in dumbing down our engineering programs until the only ones who can get the top quality engineering jobs are internationals.

Apparently, they feel that exposure and a 25% level of understanding is sufficient as a minimum. The fact that you feel the standard should be lower does not change the fact that they apparently feel differently.

Magneto · June 12, 2011, 10:21pm

Im sorry, I dont really understand the evolution of this thread or know what an MR is, but I just want to know what this means for the students that have to put up with it?

boneh3ad · June 12, 2011, 10:35pm

M.R. is their abbreviation for Maxwell’s relations. They typed it so much they eventually got lazy. The funny thing is, it seems to have been one slightly less than useful topic that is taught in some curricula and yet it has been used here as the epitome of why engineering programs should lower the bar as far as what fundamentals they expect graduates to know. I can’t really disagree more, but I suppose people are entitled to their opinions.

sakky · June 14, 2011, 9:01pm

Really? In this very thread, other students who were former chemical engineers admitted that their schools hardly taught the M.R.'s at all. One students said that it occupied, at most, one lecture, and was barely tested upon at all.

That seems pretty conclusive to me. When it seems as if other schools hardly ever teach the M.R.'s at all, then that means that they’re probably not fundamental skills. Or surely, at least, not fundamental enough to use them for purposes of weeding.

And like I said, when the average midterm grade was a lowly 25%, that means that even those students who supposedly were taught the M.R.'s learned very little about them. Heck, even the best student earned something only in the 60’s, which means that he still didn’t know very much. So maybe not a single engineer from that class should ever have been hired? Yet what I can tell you is that many of them are indeed successful engineers.

But it is tautological. After all, where it is written that the ‘core track’ of engineering must be design, when you admitted yourself that plenty of engineering jobs don’t actually involve design?

And what would you say if I told you that I had actually worked as an engineer for years?

I’m not sure that it would be Americans, nor am I sure that it would necessarily involve dumbing down anything. After all, if fundamental skills - as you define them - were truly necessary to learn, then you would expect that Americans - or at least the more forward thinking ones - would continue to learn them as electives.

After all, right now, most Americans realize that in order to obtain a decent job, they probably need to obtain a college degree. Nobody is forcing them to attend college- everybody is free to enter the workforce right out of high school. But many Americans nevertheless make the choice to attend college. Those who don’t are punished in the labor markets, as the better employers are free not to hire those without degrees, which is precisely what happens now.

By the same token, if it was made known that certain fundamental courses were necessary for a successful engineering career, then you would expect that wise Americans would freely choose to take those courses even when not required to do so. And those who don’t would be punished in the labor market, as employers would be free not to hire them.

So again I ask - why not give people free choice? What are you so afraid of? Like I said, if your employer believes that certain fundamental skills are necessary, then they can simply implement a hiring rule that states that nobody who hasn’t taken the corresponding coursework will be considered. Is that really so hard? Why force everybody else in the labor market to follow that rule? If some engineers graduate without certain courses, then maybe they won’t be hired by your employer, but if other engineering employers want to hire them anyway, what’s wrong with that? Why do you want to stop that transaction? It has nothing to do with your employer. {If the fear is that those other engineering companies will then design unreliable components, then your employer can decide to not use their components.}

And apparently the fact that chemical engineering programs at other schools barely teach the M.R.'s at all is clearly sufficient for them.

So obviously we have a clear difference of opinion. But that’s the problem. If something is truly ‘fundamental’, then there should not be any difference of opinion, at least among learned parties. For example, every respected physicist would agree that objects fall down (rather than fall up) according to gravity. That is a truly fundamental fact of physics.

But the M.R.'s do not seem to be fundamental, for otherwise, there would be a consensus opinion about their pedagogical necessity. It would be as if a highly respected physics department continued to argue that objects actually fall up, whereas other departments insisted that objects actually fall down.

sakky · June 14, 2011, 9:07pm

No, actually the point is that the M.R.'s do not seem to be fundamental

But the greater dispute is to define what is meant by ‘fundamental’. I admit that I don’t have a crisp definition of the term ‘fundamental’ (at least not yet) On the other hand, it surely seems to me that my detractors don’t have one either, but are defining fundamental to be ‘whatever any particular college program says it is’. Yet since it is my detractors who continue to invoke the concept of ‘fundamentality’, I think the burden of proof is on them to define what exactly is meant by that construct.

Even more importantly, it is then incumbent upon them to then explain why the M.R.'s fall into that category of fundamentality, particularly in light of the fact that many other schools barely teach that concept. If something is truly fundamental to chemical engineering, shouldn’t all, or at least the overwhelming majority of, chemical engineering programs teach them as requirements?

Either that, or you have to admit that the M.R.'s may not actually be fundamental, however defined.

aegrisomnia · June 15, 2011, 10:28am

Hey guys, this is my first post, so please be gentle. I’ll admit that I haven’t read all the posts in this thread.

Regarding the specific question of M.R.s… maybe academics should “force” (for lack of a better word) students to learn these. Their being of an abstract or academic nature is not a genuine argument for not covering them in an academic curriculum. College isn’t (shouldn’t be) job training, after all.

Now if you’d rather start from the hypothesis that the higher education system is shot - and maybe I agree - then it still seems like you’re rather arguing for it to continue along its current path than for it to go back to the way it was in the good old days. I’m not sure I agree that this is best for industry or academia.

Regarding the question of whether students should freely choose what to take - in a sense, I agree that this could be a feasible model, but it’s not very pertinent. The real question is what competencies should those students possess who are granted B.S. degrees in engineering, and do these competencies include an understanding of M.R.s? I believe this should be based on principle, not on accidental market forces.

Fundamentally, I think this position is justified by the observation that the free market is not always the best way to ensure utility is maximized. Every now and then, you need somebody in a position in authority to intervene.

cosmicfish · June 15, 2011, 5:14pm

And it is perhaps in part because Berkeley DOES provide such a requirement that its engineers are so highly regarded. If Berkeley feels that such knowledge (however minimal) is required to obtain a degree from that institution, that is their decision, and given their reputation in engineering I am loathe to question it (especially outside my field). Likewise, if you feel that such an in-depth curriculum is not to your liking, I would suggest you query these other respondents as to their schools, and study there instead.

In many places, including dictionaries, encyclopedias, and mission statements. Further, while there are many non-design engineering jobs, all of them require an understanding of design, if not the practice. The reverse is not true - design engineering jobs generally require little or no knowledge of the types of roles non-design engineers may practice.

I would be quite intrigued, for of all the posters on this forum I cannot think of any who have spoken so much about what other people should do while speaking so little of what they themselves have done. Neither through statement, nor anecdote, nor inference that I have seen have you ever implied so much as a single day spent working in a professional capacity in any field. If you have done so, I would very much like to hear about your experiences, and learn the reason you have taken such pains to conceal them.

Absolutely, provided even the most exceptional college student could be expected to graduate with a full understanding of what the breadth and depth of their field truly is, and what appropriate preparations are required to make their way within it, and provided that, equipped with that knowledge, sufficient students would have the wisdom to press on along that path, forsaking short-term enjoyment for a seemingly-nebulous long-term benefit. It is in no small part the responsibility of the faculty to make many of those determinations on behalf of the students, so that no graduate of their school, having fulfilled the minimum requirements, might find themselves so underprepared that they cannot aspire to a reasonable range of jobs.

Or it could be that each school must determine how many fundamentals can be reasonably taught, based on the qualities of the faculty and student body, and on the resources available, and that they must then refine that list to ensure the maximum return for their students. If Berkeley were South Central Louisiana State (Go Muddogs!), perhaps teaching Maxwell’s Relations would be unfitting, but your complaint seems to hinge on the fact that Berkeley, one of the best engineering programs in the world, teaches its highly competitive students too much. If that is your issue, I would simply suggest a less competitive school - there are many to choose from, and (as you noted) this one simple step would spare you or any others from having to study such a difficult subject.

sakky · June 15, 2011, 9:05pm

But now you’ve just subtly changed the argument, perhaps without even realizing that you have. Now you’re conceding that the M.R.'s may not actually be “fundamental” at all (however defined), but now are arguing that the M.R.'s are only necessary for ‘highly regarded’ engineers. In other words, ‘average’ engineers don’t know the M.R.'s and don’t really need to know them, but only the ‘exceptional’ engineers do.

But if that truly is the case, then that makes it all the more sad that many engineering students from Berkeley and other highly regarded schools don’t even take jobs as engineers at all…but instead run off to the aforementioned finance and consulting alternative careers. They are taking their - as you say, highly reputable engineering training - and not even using them for their purported purposes.

Which again seems deeply tautological, or at least self-referential. Design is core simply because it has been defined as core.

First off, I never tell anybody what they should do. What I do is tell people what other people have done, and allow them to them make their own judgments about what they ought to do. I am not anybody’s father, and don’t claim to be.

Secondly, while I generally attempt to avoid discussion of my background so as not to personalize any thread, I know that I have actually let such discussion slip through (indirectly) numerous times.

But, as you said yourself, anecdotes are not particularly persuasive. What is far more persuasive is a collection of data. And what is indisputable is that the data states that many people who start as engineering students are weeded out and flee to the English or other humanities majors (as per the start of this thread), yet almost no humanities majors are weeded out and end fleeing to engineering.

And once again, you are conceding the point that the M.R.'s are not truly fundamental, if students at South Central Louisiana State do not have to learn them. Nevertheless, I presume the graduates from SCLS are still able to compete for a reasonable range of jobs.

But my basic issue is why should the M.R.'s be used as weeders. A Berkeley student who can’t understand the M.R.'s is nevertheless probably still at least as qualified as an engineer from SCLS or some other average school. So why flunk him out of the university entirely? Why tag his transcript with an F that he can never wash away? The very least you can do is let him leave the program with a clean slate. Heck, let him transfer to SCLS with that clean slate if he wishes.

But that doesn’t happen now. After all, I suspect that even SCLS and surely most other ‘average’ engineering schools would not want to admit a transfer student who had flunked out of his previous school, even if it was a highly reputable program such as Berkeley. Hence, by flunking such students out, they’re left even worse off than the students at SCLS. Heck, they’re even worse off than if they had never come to Berkeley at all, for if they had not, they could presumably utilize their pristine high school records to win admission to a bevy of schools. After flunking out of Berkeley, you probably won’t even be admitted to a low-end school. I can think of one former engineering student at Berkeley who flunked out and was reduced to working as a supermarket security guard, because that’s the best he could do. No other school wanted to take him because his academic record was sundered.

And that’s terribly sad. That’s why I advocate that universities be far more circumspect about how they go about weeding students out. They’re playing with people’s lives. These people are not mere statistics, but flesh and blood human beings. Engineering programs should not be treating human beings so callously. Ideally, nobody should ever be weeded out at all, as schools should simply never admit anybody unworthy. Assuming that that is not possible, then the next best step is to only weed people out who truly are not able to master the fundamentals - and now it seems as if we all agree that the M.R.'s are not fundamental to chemical engineering (for if they were, then every chemical engineering program would require them). And if somebody needs to be weeded out, fine, why not at least let him walk away with a clean slate? He’s not going to complete an engineering degree anyway - who cares what his engineering grades are? Why do you have to continue to torment him even after he has left the program?

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