<p>Yes, of course there are checks and balances for critical components but we still see occasional engineering disasters despite this. I think the point is that we don’t want idiots coming into the profession due to the nature of work. Engineering programs intentionally weed out the ones that can’t hack it. This inevitably will make students feel like profs are trying to screw them over but it is this way because it has to be. Even with checks and double checks for designs, if an engineer makes a mistake it could still risk lives or at the very least cost the company a lot of time and or money to correct the problem. It is for this reason that engineers have to earn their degree and struggle through a very rigorous curriculum (unlike many other majors). If engineering was set up so anyone who started would graduate, we would probably see more faulty designs and disasters due to people that have no business being engineers.</p>
<p>^^ Agreed, I just don’t want the HS students who don’t know much about engineering to think it is that easy to bring down a plane.</p>
<p>
Honestly, I think this is vastly overstated. Yes, there are quite a few engineers whose designs directly influence the safety of those who use their products. However, I doubt that colleges have this in mind when they are designing curriculums. It’s mainly about brand protection, if a college weeds out more aggressively the average quality of graduating engineers increases. That’s why a school like Purdue actually has a very good reputation with rather low quality admits.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I would agree with this. Purdue is able to maintain its reputation despite a noticeably lower standard of admission because the rigor of the coursework and grading system is similar to that of much more selective programs. </p>
<p>People like me are thankful for this. Purdue is probably about the only school in the country where you can get a top ten name brand school on your resume despite that fact that your high school record is subpar. With that said, people like me will not last one semester here without a complete 180 degree turnaround from the high school days. Where I never studied before, I study constantly now where I used to have a great social life, now not so much I look at it like I just wasnt mature enough in high school to realize the importance of a good education, now I am and work hard to get one. Im thankful that the opportunity was still here by the time I took my head out of my a**</p>
<p>Interesting thread…a number of students talked about the benefits of a weed-out system for engineering. I personally disagree that making courses harder than they need to be, hazing students, and giving unnecessary work is helpful. These things exist, but I don’t think they’re a good idea.</p>
<p>At least on the sophomore courses on up, I really don’t believe Purdue followed this model at all. I just think Purdue wants high standards for their engineering graduates.</p>
<p>I see brand protection and not screwing up designs to be very closely related. If an engineer screws up a design that costs lives and or a lot of money for a company to correct, it reflects badly on that engineer’s alma mater. Moreover, I think the reason that engineering programs are set up the way they are is to ensure that graduates have earned the responsibilty to design and test critical components and that they will represent their alma mater well in industry.</p>
<p>Why don’t communications, sociology, or business programs have rigorous curriculums and the weed out mentality like engineering programs? Wouldn’t they want to uphold their department’s reputation as well? (I’m not trying to pick on any certain major, I’m just being honest) The answer is that engineering is unique in that a minor mistake or miscalculation could lead to catastrophic failure and or millions of lost dollars to redesign a faulty component. I think this is at the very heart of why engineering is so rigorous and why the people who can’t handle it must be weeded out.</p>
<p>Some departments weed out students in order to keep the size of student enrollment in the departments at a manageable size.</p>
<p>This is likely not the reason that engineering programs weed people out. If this were the case then wouldn’t all non-engineering programs weed people out like engineering departments do? Engineering programs could always expand and hire more falculty also. My point is that you don’t see other programs (liberal arts, business, etc.) weeding people out like engineering programs, so the protect your brand argument is not the fundamental reason that engineering programs are so difficult to complete. In my opinion, it is because we don’t want idiots becoming engineers due to the responsibility that engineers have.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, it’s much more on the companies that the engineers work for than the schools that they attended. I don’t think half the people in my firm know where I went to school (and they wouldn’t, if it weren’t for the fact that the only adornments in my cubicle are Rice and Illinois pennants), and I <em>know</em> my clients don’t know where I went to school. They don’t ask, they don’t care, they just know what firm I represent, and the firm’s reputation is the one that my every action is associated with.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is the real issue. Ethics is a very, very big deal to the engineering profession, and it’s important to everyone involved–engineering educators, engineering companies, professional societies, etc.-- that there be a great deal of integrity associated with our profession, otherwise what good are we?</p>
<p>Contractors could probably guess and build a good building/airplane/widget. What value engineers add to the equation is essentially a guarantee that the building/airplane/widget that we design is efficient, functional, and most importantly, SAFE. As a result, we don’t let just anybody into the field. This value gets more critical as the job gets more tied to life-safety.</p>
<p>I agree with ME 76 to some extent. Now, its not engineering, but Harvard business school was under the spot light after the financial crash. People started to wonder if these “top” schools really did make a difference in education when their alumni were pretty much at the top of the mess. </p>
<p>Here is one such story that talks about this effect: <a href=“http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103719186[/url]”>Business Schools Mull Over Blame In Financial Crisis : NPR;
I cant find the nytimes story.</p>
<p>
Actually, several business programs <em>are</em> like that. Doesn’t both Wharton/Haas have steep curves? Aren’t accounting programs known as weeders generally? I tend to think that programs with direct ties to certain employers <em>do</em> try this. Nursing as well…</p>
<p>I don’t see how listing the top couple of business schools supports an argument at all. These are exceptions, not the norm. Lets be honest, business is much less rigorous than engineering and even accounting programs do not weed out students like engineering programs. Students go from engineering to business, not the other way around. Contrary to what business majors might say, their programs are just not as difficult and they don’t weed people out like engineering. Engineering majors are hit with the calc, physics and chem sequence first and then the core engineering courses. The number of courses and the difficulty just can’t compare to practically any other major. Regarding nursing, I do not know as I have never taken a nursing class but I highly doubt they weed out as many as engineering programs.</p>
<p>The point is, practically no other department feels the need to weed students out like engineering. Engineers have the highest starting salaries out of undergrad for a reason but I still think a main reason that engineering programs are set up this way is to ensure that graduates are technically competant and that they do not make catastrophic errors once in the field. In my opinion, this is the driving force behind the way that engineering programs are set up.</p>
<p>
I have seen no data which shows that engineering programs weed out more than most other college degree programs. Of course, this is hard to fathom because I <em>know</em> that engineering GPAs are less.</p>
<p>The difference is that engineering programs usually have smarter students to begin with. Therefore, weeding out 30% of the students in engineering versus weeding out 30% of the students in business requires two different difficulty levels. Coupled with the market needed skills generally confers the salary premium.</p>
<p>people are mixing up weeding out with drop outs…30% are not weeded out…students drop out too…you know, because it’s hard. </p>
<p>people drop out of med school too…or drop down to pharmacy school or whatever, people drop out of all kinds of stuff, like gyms, anything that’s desirable but difficult there’s always going to be the drop outs, </p>
<p>there’s not some big picture conspiracy or a university plot against the students, engineering is just tough…</p>
<p>If by dropping out you mean those that can handle engineering but they generally don’t like it so they switch majors, then I see your point. However, it is my suspicion that the majority of people that drop out of engineering do so because they can’t hack it. I can also say that my undergraduate engineering class was more than cut in half from start to finish.</p>
<p>ME 76, yea some drop out because they don’t like it, but most drop out because they can’t hack it…I agree with you. I’m just commenting that the university isn’t trying to kick them out, the universities just set a high standard, and I truly love them for it; it’s a huge responsibility they’ve held for a 150+ yrs and the engineering profession, including the students, really benefits from this.</p>
<p>In spite of what you might think, and despite the critical responsibilities of MDs, the wash-out rate from medical schools is extremely low; once accepted, a med student has to mess up pretty badly to be dropped from their program. For this and other reasons, I don’t think weeding out is practiced because of the critical nature of engineering practice, it is primarily because many large state universities don’t have the personnel, resources or facilities to support the number of candidates entering as freshmen through the entire four-year program. It is a simple question of numbers.</p>
<p>weldon, we can agree to disagree : )</p>
<p>though I will say again I do not think ‘weeding out’ is practiced by schools; if it were in some cases then I agree with you it’s about resources. But in reality they don’t weed out…that 30% of students somebody referenced, they dropped out, there’s a difference.</p>
<p>meaning, the school has no involvement in this ‘weeding’ process people speak of, it’s the student, they can’t hack it so they drop out. What the school’s do is set standards, because it’s engineering, and we’ve had em’ for a 150+ yrs.</p>
<p>sorry one more thing, you could correlate very high selectivity in admissions as a result of limited resources, but I don’t really think so, it’s there, but I dunno…you know like keeping the number of students that enter very small…which is a piece of the pie why say Georgia Tech has lower selectivity than Princeton Engineering, because Princeton is much smaller program capacity and G.tech is an engineering hub infrastructure. though that’s not a good example…what do you think? I dunno</p>