Why is engineering so hard?

College Majors Engineering Majors
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You said it yourself. Football players lift weights because it helps make them better players. Engineers learn various things that may not seem useful at first but in the end learning it will make them a better engineer.

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<p>Again, the difference is that you're not required to be able to lift certain weights as a precondition to even play at all. Aibarr said it herself: you go out to the field to play ball, not to lift weights. Hence, lifting is simply used as a training tool, not as a screen. </p>

<p>That gets to my core objection. I have no problems with people who want to learn a particular advanced engineering subject. By all means, let them do so. Just like I have no problem with football players who also decide that they want to develop the ability to bench 500 pounds. The problem is when they are required to do so as a precondition to play. See below.</p>

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You're right if they don't pass the class they won't graduate. They expect you to do your job as a student and learn it. Nothing is impossible to understand if you really put forth the effort. You also won't graduate if you fail compisition, speech, ethics, sociology, or whatever required humanities/social science classes you have. Are these directly related to engineering? Should we remove them because they don't relate to engineering?

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<p>Let me tell you this. To this day, I still don't understand the M.R.'s. What I mean is that while I obviously understand the math, I don't understand what the M.R.'s actually mean in a real-world sense. In fact, I have never met a single engineer who actually does. They know the math too, but they freely admit that they don't really understand what the math actually means. Does that mean that we didn't 'do our job as students'? Or was simply 'doing the math' all it took to 'do our job', even if we don't know what the math meant? What exactly is the point of learning how to manipulate a bunch of equations if you don't really understand what they mean? Is this just a game? </p>

<p>You would think that the 'job' of an engineering student should actually be related to the job of an engineer. But this is not the case. Engineers in the real world don't go around writing pages and pages of derivations of equations they don't even understand. But that's what I did as a student if you want to survive. That's what a lot of my classmates did. </p>

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No because they make you a better well rounded invidividual. Think about it. If you can learn thermodynamics, you can learn a LOT of other difficult topics. Part of school is learning how to learn.

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<p>Once again, you, like the others, have misunderstood what I am saying. I have no problem in learning how to learn, if that is in fact what is happening. But it is not. Again, how much learning are you really doing when you all you are really doing is just manipulating a series of equations you don't even really understand? What do you learn when the course never shows you how the equations are actually useful in a real-world context? </p>

<p>You guys keep saying that a difficult, painful curriculum for the sake of building a framework of logical knowledge (the supposed 'learning how to learn'). I have heard this argument before, and the problem is that it is that second part that breaks down. The sad fact is that, as attested to by the link that yagottabelieve showed, students don't really learn how to learn. It is difficulty/pain just for the sake of difficulty/pain. Again, these are topics that are not really used for the purpose of really teaching anything useful (because I still don't know what the M.R.'s really mean), but just to weed students out. </p>

<p>The bottom line is that we need to discuss the reality of engineering programs. Not just the ideal. The reality is that numerous students experience great difficulty because the curriculum throws them into a initial series of courses of pure theory with little connection to the real world. When you don't know why you are learning something, you usually don't learn very much. </p>

<p>In fact, I would argue that teaching in this manner not only does not actually encourage overall learning, but actually discourages it. After all, weeding students via some arbitrary topic (like, again, the M.R.'s) warps the students' interests. Students begin to think that real-world understanding is not important. They begin to think that it doesn't really matter whether they actually understand what the equations mean. All that matters is that they can do math. After all, that's what prevents you from being weeded. </p>

<p>The analogy would be that the football players now no longer even bother to actually practice football, because actual football skills are not important. What's important is that they be able to lift lots of weight. Hence, they rationally choose to spend all their time in the weight room, and none actually playing ball. You actually give them the ball, they can't throw it, they can't catch it, they can't run with it, they can't do anything with it. But they're really strong in the weight room, and that's what matters, right? </p>

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I believe I covered this case in the part of my post (that you omitted) that states that the superstar engineers are either working for themselves, the competition, or in another field.

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<p>If the competition is hiring these superstar engineers, then presumably that competition consists of other engineering firms. Hence, engineers would still be well paid.</p>

<p>The real problem is that, like you said, other fields often times pay even better than any engineering company will. Hence, the superstars will rationally choose to enter those other fields. Such as consulting. </p>

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Unlikely, but if it does happen, the companies who are unable (or unwilling) to make use of non-superstars will be the ones to blame, not universities.

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<p>Uh, no, universities are still to blame because they refuse to improve the efficiency of their curriculums. Again, the truth is, nobody actually uses the M.R.'s in the real world. True, they may use the intuition behind the M.R.'s, but if you never actually learn the intuition (because you're too busy slashing your way through the math), then you've basically learned nothing useful at all. Which gets to a major part of the problem: many engineering universities do not really prepare their students to be real-world engineers. They prepare them to be future engineering professors, but not actual real-world engineers. The graduates don't really know how to do anything useful. They can do math until the sun goes down, but they can't actually build anything. It's like having a guy who has set all sorts of powerlifting records, but doesn't have actual football skills. </p>

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One might ask how it is possible that professions like healthcare are able to take struggling engineering students and make functional, competent professionals out of them.

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<p>Uh, really? Does this happen? I have never heard of this. In fact, the exact opposite seems to occur. Take physicians. Many engineering students have had their med-school dreams dashed on the jagged rocks of the engineering weeder curves. Even if they dropped out of engineering, those bad grades would forever hinder their chances of getting into med-school, for the sad fact is, if you want to get into med-school, it is better to not take a difficult course at all than to take it and get a bad grade.</p>

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The analogy breaks down in one very simple way: football players are judged by their actual football performance separate from their weight training. That is to say, if you for some reason you are a complete weakling in the weight room, but you can nevertheless play football great, you're going to be given a starting position.

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<p>Well, you may have a point. I don't know offhand if there are weight training requirements for football players, but it might not be necessary for a kicker to bench press 300 lbs, even though a lineman might need to. OTOH, some sports actually do have some hard requirements for players. I remember reading somewhere once that at one time, baseball players needed to run a six minute mile to make the team. This might seem an unreasonable request, say, for a designated hitter in the cleanup position, but OTOH, perhaps the players want to be this conditioned, so they impose this criterion on themselves.</p>

<p>Anyway, I think it is unfortunate that no professors have weighed in on this discussion. (Do we have any professors here?) There is always another side to this: for every complaint that students have about poor teachers, teachers complain that the students wait until the last minute to start assignments; never show up to office hours; ask what will be on the exam instead of trying to learn the material; in general, don't hold up their end of the educational bargain. Twenty years ago, there was a thread</a> on Usenet along these lines. I found it interesting to see the responses from professors as well as students.</p>

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You're right if they don't pass the class they won't graduate. They expect you to do your job as a student and learn it. Nothing is impossible to understand if you really put forth the effort.

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<p>Perhaps, but students learn at different rates. You might have two engineers who are equally talented (on the job), but one learns a little slower than the other. The slower learner might not do as well on exams as the faster learner. Greater understanding and comprehension might come at a later time than the exams. But in a workplace setting, both might do equally well because of the requirements of the job. Or the slower student might be more willing to spend extra time outside of work, enabling them to produce as well as the faster student.</p>

<p>Note: I am not blaming universities for this. Universities have limited resources to aid students in all ways. I think it's unfortunate that there aren't more realistic data points that students can use to gauge their comprehension of subjects (if this would enable more US citizens to complete engineering degrees and become capable engineers).</p>

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You also won't graduate if you fail compisition, speech, ethics, sociology, or whatever required humanities/social science classes you have. Are these directly related to engineering? Should we remove them because they don't relate to engineering? No because they make you a better well rounded invidividual. Think about it. If you can learn thermodynamics, you can learn a LOT of other difficult topics. Part of school is learning how to learn.

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<p>Actually, I don't have a problem with this. I think many, perhaps most professors would also agree.</p>

<p>I'd also like to point out that the sorts of students I'm talking about, generally speaking, aren't flunking out of school. For various reasons, they don't perform at what might be considered a better than average level, and in some cases, they're flirting with academic probation. But eventually, they do graduate, with at least the minimum requirements, and perhaps a bit more. Sakky draws a much sharper line than I do - he's talking about students who flunk out of an engineering program (and possibly the school as well). Perhaps they have "ruined their chances for life" at getting into a competitive grad school or company, but it's not necessarily the case that they'll never work as engineers. But I don't think universities are at fault here. They can't do everything, and they don't claim to be able to. If anything, I would like it if it were possible for students to get earlier, better indicators that they are in trouble, and the opportunity to fix the problems before they're part of their permanent records.</p>

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<p>My metaphor does just fine because engineering performance is measured by your ability to grapple with problems you can't understand until you understand them. So it's both a tool and a screen. The fact that it might not have anything to do directly with what you're going to end up doing in your job is the "tool" part (plus, you are quite possibly going to end up in a job where you actually DO need to know that stuff! I was very surprised by some of the things I actually ended up needing to know in order to do my job), but the fact that you learn how to deal with difficult material without anybody holding your hand is the "screen" part.</p>

<p>And I've not known of anybody who failed at engineering because they didn't understand Maxwell's Relations. One misunderstood concept will not kill your chances, it will not doom you to failure. I have, however, known of people who failed at engineering because they didn't understand LOTS of engineering concepts. I think that's a pretty reasonable prerequisite for being an engineer-- understanding engineering concepts.</p>

<p>If you decide to change out, sure. Wipe the slate, make sure it doesn't follow them. I agree with you there. But if you're going to be an engineer, understanding engineering and being able to figure out difficult concepts isn't too much to ask.</p>

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I remember reading somewhere once that at one time, baseball players needed to run a six minute mile to make the team.

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<p>I believe CC Sabathia is now the highest paid pitcher in baseball. I'd love to see him complete a 6-minute mile. Heck, I'm not even sure that he could complete a 16 minute mile, unless perhaps somebody put a pizza at the finish line. </p>

<p>That's precisely the point. Ultimately, what really matters in sports is how you play during the actual games. Not how well you do in practice or in training. Practice and training are mere support tools for your actual gameplay. </p>

<p>I actually like aibarr's invocation of weight-lifting in conjunction with football, because I think it supports my point perfectly. Sure, the players will do a lot of lifting. But then, in conjunction they will actually go out to play football. Hence, not only will there be actual scrimmages and football-specific drills, but you will actually play real live games during the season, and you will ultimately be judged on how well you play during those games. No team will just have their players lift weight for years on end without actually playing any games.</p>

<p>But that's what happens in engineering. You have to put up with several years of "weightlifting" before everybody has to play an actual game (i.e. the senior design project). Now, to be sure, some engineering students actually will engage in engineering projects, internships, co-ops, or whatnot throughout their entire time in school. But many do not. All they are doing is just lifting weights. Hence, you end up with some surely strong guys, but who don't actually know how to play the game. </p>

<p>Another major problem is that people get bored because of the bait-and-switch. You sign up for the football team because you actually want to play football. Even the backup players know they have a chance every week of being called up to start. But if you instead were told that you have to lift weights for several years before you even got the chance to play at all, a lot of people wouldn't sign up. After all, lifting weights is not what they signed up to do. If that's what they wanted to do, they would have just gotten themselves a gym membership on their own time. Similarly, students who choose to major in engineering do so because they want to build cool technology. If all they wanted to do was just learn theories and mathematics for years on end without ever building anything, they would have become science or math majors.</p>

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My metaphor does just fine because engineering performance is measured by your ability to grapple with problems you can't understand until you understand them.

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<p>I agree, your metaphor works just fine...to support my points. </p>

<p>You say that engineering performance is measured by your ability to grapple with problems you can't understand until you understand them. Well, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I still don't understand what the M.R.'s actually mean in any real-world sense. Nobody that I know does, and I know a lot of engineers. I think even RacinReaver has conceded that he doesn't really understand what they actually mean either. </p>

<p>That's where the logic breaks down. I have heard quite a few of you say that engineers need to learn difficult topics in order to develop greater insights and the ability to learn how to learn. I would agree...if that actually happened. The problem is, it doesn't happen, for if nobody ever teaches you what these topics truly mean, then all you are doing is just hacking-and-slashing your way through a jungle of arbitrary math equations that mean little more than gibberish to you. I have no problem with schools teaching difficult theoretical topics when you then show how those topics can be used to solve actual engineering problems. The problem is that that second part often times does not occur. </p>

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The fact that it might not have anything to do directly with what you're going to end up doing in your job is the "tool" part (plus, you are quite possibly going to end up in a job where you actually DO need to know that stuff! I was very surprised by some of the things I actually ended up needing to know in order to do my job), but the fact that you learn how to deal with difficult material without anybody holding your hand is the "screen" part.

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<p>That leads to the second problem: what is the nature of this screen? Again, can I say that I truly understand chemical thermodynamics? Honestly, no. Even that girl who eventually got her PhD in 3 years freely admitted that she didn't really understand that course (which is why she dared not TA that course). But we passed the "screen".</p>

<p>So, that gets to what I was saying before: who's getting screened out? Apparently it wasn't the people who didn't understand the material, because nobody understood the material. As far as I can tell, the screening process eliminated people on the basis of luck and pure math ability. Luck because when the cutoffs of an A and D grade is only an exam score of 30% and 20% respectively (because the average exam score on a 3-question exam was a 25% with a tight S.D.), then that basically means that getting a great grade and a terrible grade is only merely a portion of a single test question. Pure math ability because the exam questions are basically page-long math derivations, and if you couldn't do those derivations, you failed. What that means is that even if you did actually understand the topic on an intuitive level, you would fail if you couldn't do the math. </p>

<p>So what you ended up with among the screen-survivors are some people who were just plain lucky and some other people who were simply good at math. I tend to include myself in the former category, but even if I was in the latter, the fact is, I still didn't understand what the heck was going on, and even now, I still don't. But hey, at least I survived the screen, and back then that's all that mattered to me.</p>

<p>But that's not what should matter. Or, put another way, that's not what an engineering screen is supposed to be. You want to use difficult material as a screen, then it should be difficult material that is actually relevant to engineering. For example, how about this screen: have the students go out and build their own, working battery. Why not? That's an eminently practical problem. It is also highly related to (chemical) thermodynamics. Not everybody is going to be able to do it. But I would argue that those who actually can do it have displayed some strong real-world engineering ability. Far more so than those who just survived the M.R.'s. </p>

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And I've not known of anybody who failed at engineering because they didn't understand Maxwell's Relations. One misunderstood concept will not kill your chances, it will not doom you to failure.

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<p>I happen to know quite a few people who failed because they didn't understood the M.R.'s. I also happen to know quite a few people who passed even through they didn't understand the M.R.'s. Like I said before, I don't even understand the M.R.'s, at least not in any real-world sense. </p>

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I have, however, known of people who failed at engineering because they didn't understand LOTS of engineering concepts. I think that's a pretty reasonable prerequisite for being an engineer-- understanding engineering concepts.

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<p>I think you are now agreeing with me. You are correct - you should understand engineering concepts. The M.R.'s are little more than mathematics. I think somebody here (perhaps RacinReaver) said it best when he said that the M.R.'s are really just a set of expressions regarding the mathematical continuity of partial derivatives of thermodynamic states, and have little actual real-world engineering meaning. </p>

<p>What that means is that those who just happen to be good at math can do enough to manipulate those equations well enough on the exams. Note, they don't actually have to understand what the equations mean. All they need is to be good at math. At the same time, those people who may actually do understand the engineering concepts will still fail if they can't actually manipulate the math. </p>

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But if you're going to be an engineer, understanding engineering and being able to figure out difficult concepts isn't too much to ask.

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<p>Let me put it you this way. I have three (yes, three) engineering degrees from some of the highest ranked engineering schools in the world. Yet, I freely admit that, to this day, I don't really understand the M.R.'s. Is somebody going to revoke my engineering degrees? </p>

<p>I recently talked to the girl who finished her engineering PhD in 3 years and has worked as a highly successful research engineer for many years now. She also freely concedes that, to this day, she also doesn't really understand the M.R.'s Will anybody dare to say that she isn't a real engineer? </p>

<p>All of you are arguing an entirely different point from what I am saying. I completely agree that engineers should have to figure out difficult engineering concepts. The problem is that that doesn't actually happen. Instead, what you end up getting are just a bunch of graduates who simply happen to be good at math (or are lucky, or both). They don't understand engineering concepts, and frankly, they don't really need to in order to pass. </p>

<p>Look, all, I'm not disputing the ideal of an engineering education. What I am talking about is the reality of an engineering education. It is perfectly fine to teach difficult concepts as long as you relate them back to real-world engineering problems. But it is that second part where things fall down.</p>

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Hence, you end up with some surely strong guys, but who don't actually know how to play the game.

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<p>You're not understanding me, or not listening to me, or whatever, so I'm going to quit beating dead horses for now.</p>

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<p>what is an "M.R."?</p>

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<p>Maxwell Relations...a concept in thermodynamics that sakky seems to think is the ultimate downfall of engineering programs across the country.</p>

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You're not understanding me, or not listening to me, or whatever, so I'm going to quit beating dead horses for now.

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<p>Trust me, aibarr, I have listened to and understand your arguments just fone. You are not listening to me, which is why I have had to repeat myself several times now. </p>

<p>Again, I have no problem with the concept of teaching difficult concepts in order to actually improve engineering knowledge. The problem is with the execution. Again, not to beat a dead horse (but since you brought it up), I still to this day don't understand what the M.R.'s actually mean, in any real world sense, despite the fact that I survived that 'screen'.</p>

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Maxwell Relations...a concept in thermodynamics that sakky seems to think is the ultimate downfall of engineering programs across the country.

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<p>I am simply using the M.R.'s as the most egregious example. It is hardly the only one I can think of. The equations to describe Navier-Stokes turbulent flow are also rather infamous in my mind, given that there is an actual million dollar prize (the Clay Prize) for anybody who can provide even preliminary progress towards understanding such equations. Even to this day, that million dollar prize has yet to be claimed, and it is known as one of the great unsolved problems in physics today (such that anybody who can even make significant progress on them at all will not only win that million dollar prize, but will probably win the Nobel in Physics). So why did we students have to try to struggle through it? Believe me, none of us even came close to claiming that prize. </p>

<p>See, that's precisely the problem. The OP asked why majoring in engineering is hard. My answer is that it is hard because the curriculum often times asks you to attempt tasks that are impossible, and they know that the tasks are impossible. Hence, what seems to separate those who manage to pass and fail is simply a combination of luck and ability to do quick math. Not engineering ability. To this day, I don't understand the M.R.'s. But I did pass that thermo class, and that's more than a lot of other people could say. But does that prove that I am a better engineer than they are? That's questionable.</p>

<p>If you want to teach difficult concepts in order to convey engineering knowledge, I have no problem, * as long as that actually happens*. The problem is, that that doesn't actually happen. What actually happens is that the concepts that are taught are so difficult and/or the application of the concepts is so unclear that nobody understands them. Nobody knows what's going on, not even your best students. All you do is just instill cynicism in your students. They just resort to the mentality that they just have to survive, and they don't really need to know what is happening, because that is impossible to know what is going on. Put another way, they start to see the curriculum as simply an obstacle that they have to surmount, and they don't really need to know what is happening, as long as they are able to pass. You don't want to instill that sort of cynicism in your students. But that's what happens when you are teaching materials that are simply too hard and too abstract. When even your best students can't see why they are learning something, they inevitably view the process as a game.</p>

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<p>oh ok. im all too familiar with Maxwell's hideous equations.</p>

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<p>you cannot get away with being a weakling if you play on the line. it just won't happen.</p>

<p>you can, however, be a total weakling if you play cornerback but your going to have to run really fast.</p>

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I am simply using the M.R.'s as the most egregious example. It is hardly the only one I can think of. The equations to describe Navier-Stokes turbulent flow are also rather infamous in my mind, given that there is an actual million dollar prize (the Clay Prize) for anybody who can provide even preliminary progress towards understanding such equations. Even to this day, that million dollar prize has yet to be claimed, and it is known as one of the great unsolved problems in physics today (such that anybody who can even make significant progress on them at all will not only win that million dollar prize, but will probably win the Nobel in Physics). So why did we students have to try to struggle through it? Believe me, none of us even came close to claiming that prize. </p>

<p>See, that's precisely the problem. The OP asked why majoring in engineering is hard. My answer is that it is hard because the curriculum often times asks you to attempt tasks that are impossible, and they know that the tasks are impossible. Hence, what seems to separate those who manage to pass and fail is simply a combination of luck and ability to do quick math. Not engineering ability. To this day, I don't understand the M.R.'s. But I did pass that thermo class, and that's more than a lot of other people could say. But does that prove that I am a better engineer than they are? That's questionable.

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<p>So what other impossible tasks do engineering programs ask of their students besides learning the Maxwell Relations?</p>

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oh ok. im all too familiar with Maxwell's hideous equations.

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<p>No, not the Maxwell equations, which are the fundamental formulas in classical electromagnetics. I am talking about the Maxwell relations, which are an entirely different set of formulas that have to do with thermodynamics. They share only one characteristic: they were both discovered by the same man (J.C. Maxwell). </p>

<p>Here's the difference:</p>

<p>Maxwell</a> relations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>

<p>Maxwell's</a> equations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>

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So what other impossible tasks do engineering programs ask of their students besides learning the Maxwell Relations?

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<p>I happen to think that the Navier-Stokes equations are arguably even more notorious than the M.R.'s. Seriously, if even the best mathematicians in the world have never actually been able to solve the N.S. equations - for which a standing million dollar prize exists for anybody who even provides progress towards a solution (without needing to provide the complete solution) - then what hope do us mere engineering students have in dealing with these equations? </p>

<p>Now, to be fair, obviously engineering students are not expected to actually completely solve the N.S equations, because nobody in the world can do that (yet). The engineering students are generally expected to calculate only a subset of the equations, with some simplifying assumptions. But that means that there is a very fine line between using the N.S. as a way to teach useful engineering knowledge and just blowing your students away with impossible math. </p>

<p>But look, I think I'm a pretty reasonable guy. I am not saying that engineering students should never have to attempt to learn difficult material. Here's what I think should happen. You can introduce the students to the M.R.'s and tell them that this is difficult material to understand. You can try to walk them through some of the equations. You can even assign some homework questions based on them, as homeworks generally aren't worth that much in terms of final grading, and it will give the students some practice in attempting difficult topics. Then you can say that those (few) students who actually want to learn more about the derivations of the M.R.'s can take another elective class where they will dive into those relations in great detail. Or you can point them to some books or papers where they can learn for themselves. But for the rest of this class, we are now going to move to useful applications of thermodynamics, at which point you can start talking about far cooler topics such as azeotropes, eutectics, phase diagrams, and the like. That stuff is cool because it is actually used in industry. </p>

<p>We're talking about engineering programs here. Engineering programs are supposed to be teaching you practical applications: how to actually build things. If all I wanted to do was wade in math formulas all day long without ever learning how to build anything, I would have been a math major. </p>

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you cannot get away with being a weakling if you play on the line. it just won't happen.</p>

<p>you can, however, be a total weakling if you play cornerback but your going to have to run really fast.

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<p>Right, and to extend the analogy, while some of us engineering students probably will need to be beast weightlifters (i.e. those engineering students who will get their PhD's in some heavily computational engineering subfield), many of the students just want to be defensive backs, receivers, or kickers/punters where you don't really need to be the strongest guy in the world. At the end of the day, what really matters is whether you can play ball well. Not how much you can lift in the weight room. </p>

<p>Put another way, when I signed up for the school football team, it was because I wanted to actually learn how to play football. Not so that I would just end up lifting all day long and never actually learn how to play ball. If I just wanted to lift, I wouldn't have joined the team. I would have just bought my own gym membership and become a powerlifter.</p>

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I happen to think that the Navier-Stokes equations are arguably even more notorious than the M.R.'s.

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<p>I don't use Maxwell's Relations, and I've used very little of thermodynamics in general because all the heat expansion I encounter is fairly linear. But CFD and FEA were two of my favorite tinkertoys in undergrad and grad school. Learning about Navier-Stokes was a total "wow that's so cool" moment for me in fluids. I sure can't prove that solutions exist in all three dimensions, or that the solutions are smooth, and that part is what I'm going to leave to the million-dollar mathematicians. But looking at eddy simulations and studying magnetohydrodynamics, figuring out and understanding the forces generated by moving fluids? That's really cool stuff. I really loved CFD stuff, and that's why I almost ended up designing nuclear sub turbines.</p>

<p>It's just conservation of momentum. The only tricky part of it is that they're expressed as nonlinear PDEs. The "impossible" part that you're talking about, with the Clay prize, is to prove that they work in all three dimensions, and that there are no singularities and no discontinuities. Mathematically, it's interesting, and it's still a challenge. Engineeringly (it's a word now!), it's dead useful. We can't use <em>all</em> of what Navier-Stokes implies because it hasn't been proven yet, but we can use large chunks of them to solve problems. We use them in industry... Why shouldn't they teach them?</p>

<p>School is specifically for learning this stuff. Difficult stuff like this, I wouldn't want to learn in industry, on the fly. If I'm gonna sink, I'd rather sink in a place where there's at least the possibility of dropping the course, or walking away from the project, without being fired and losing my home.</p>

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<p>they also share another characteristic. they are both ugly, hideous, obnoxious equations</p>

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<p>Am I the only one who thinks engineers just like to complain. I mean common guys, its not that bad.</p>

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<p>I have been an EE major for 4.5 years. And let's me tell you, ENGINEERING IS HARD in many ways</p>

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I don't use Maxwell's Relations

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<p>Neither does any other industry engineer that I know. The only people who use them are academics, and even the vast majority of them probably don't use them. If your specialty is not chemical thermo, then you are never going to have to deal with the M.R.'s. </p>

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We use them in industry... Why shouldn't they teach them?

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<p>Once again, let me re-explain. I never said that you shouldn't teach these subjects. Never.</p>

<p>What I said is that if you are going to teach them, then you need to make sure that you are clearly connecting them to real-world applications, and not just calculating math just for the sake of math. One of the top reasons that people drop out of engineering is that they find the coursework to be too theoretical. </p>

<p>Here's what I think should happen. You show what the N.S.'s are. You then maybe have a few homework questions on it. But then, you make sure you connect the N.S.'s to real-world engineering problems. And you certainly don't start screening people out just because they can't derive pages and pages worth of N.S.'s (or the M.R.'s for that matter) on their exams. If you are going to screen people out, it should be because they can't perform actual engineering tasks. </p>

<p>Here would be an appropriate screen. Have the students build stuff. If we're talking about chemical engineers, have them build a real working battery. Heck, if they're of age, have them build a small-scale liquor distillery. I think most college kids would love to be able to do this. Then the ones with the best projects are allowed in, and the ones with the worst projects (or projects that didn't even work) are screened out. See, now you're screening for actual engineering ability. </p>

<p>Instead, what you end up having are "engineers" whose only real skill is the ability to do lots of math. That's all. They don't really know how to build anything, because they never really had to know. For example, I was just talking to a girl who got her B.S. and MEng from MIT, and she freely admits that she doesn't really know how to work as an engineer. When people say "Oh, you graduated from MIT with 2 engineering degrees, so you must really know how to build stuff.", she says 'No'. All she really learned was math, because that's what was tested. In other words, she was basically a math major, in the 'disguise' of an engineering student. </p>

<p>Look, engineering is supposed to be practical. You are supposed to come out of an engineering program actually knowing how to actually construct practical things. That's what makes engineering different from math or science. Again, if I just wanted to manipulate math equations for 4 years without learning their practical significance, I would have been a math major. </p>

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School is specifically for learning this stuff. Difficult stuff like this, I wouldn't want to learn in industry, on the fly. If I'm gonna sink, I'd rather sink in a place where there's at least the possibility of dropping the course, or walking away from the project, without being fired and losing my home.

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<p>I have never known a single practicing engineer who has ever been fired because they didn't understand the M.R.'s. Like I said before, to this day, I don't really understand the M.R.'s. I've never been fired. I don't know a single practicing engineer who did understand the M.R.'s, and they've never been fired. </p>

<p>You say that school is a place to learn this stuff. Well, it gets down to what we mean by 'learn'. I got a 30% on my thermo exam. Hence, I didn't understand 70% - or the vast majority - of what was happening on the exam. So can you say that I really "learned" the material? I wouldn't say so. But, the mean on the exam was a 25%, and so my 30% meant that I was not going to fail. At that time, that's all I cared about, for this was a weeder, and all I wanted to do was survive. I had no idea what the heck was going on, and I didn't have time to find out. All I wanted was to avoid getting weeded out, and if that meant deriving a whole bunch of equations without knowing what any of them meant, hey, you did what you had to do. As did that girl who later got her PhD in just 3 years. I remember: just like me, and she also had no idea what the equations meant or why. She was just trying to survive. </p>

<p>But the upshot is that nobody really 'learned' the material. Even those people who passed the class - heck, even those who got A's - didn't really 'learn' the stuff. They were too distracted with the task of simply trying to avoid getting weeded. People quickly figured out that they will never know what is going on, and they don't need to, for all they need to know is just how to manipulate the math. In fact, actually trying to learn what the equations meant is actually a detriment, because it takes time away from learning how to derive the math. If you actually know what the equations mean, but you can't perform quick derivations, you're going to get weeded. Sad but true. </p>

<p>The bottom line relates to a general truism in life: people will tend to do what is measured and rewarded, to the detriment of what is not measured. For example, I read about one bank who decided to reward employees based on customer satisfaction, only to watch profitability drop through the floor. After all, the easiest way to improve customer satisfaction is to give customers everything they want, i.e. low-interest loans, high-interest deposit accounts, etc. Heck, bank employees were providing loans whose interest rate was actually below the bank's cost of capital. But hey, it certainly improved customer satisfaction, right? Similarly, the management of the Sears automotive repair shops once infamously tried to incentivize its employees based on how many procedures they sold, only to predictably have their employees perform unnecessary customer repair jobs for problems that didn't actually exist, with Sears ending up being brought up on charges for fraud. One software company began to pay its programmers for the number of bugs they fixed, and naturally what happened is that those programmers wrote highly buggy first-builds so that they could go back later and fix those bugs. Or, even better, they could write bug-fixes that created more bugs somewhere else, resulting in an endless series of opportunities to fix bugs and hence collect more pay. </p>

<p>Similarly, if engineering programs place such a keen emphasis on deriving math equations (i.e. 'math gymnastics'), but with little emphasis on what the math actually means, then you end up with lots of graduates who are really good at math, but don't actually understand what the equations mean. The students are just following their rational incentives, for they're just trying to avoid getting weeded out.. In other words, you basically end up producing mathematicians, not engineers. Many of the graduates don't really know how to build anything, yet (I thought) that was the whole point.</p>

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You say that school is a place to learn this stuff. Well, it gets down to what we mean by 'learn'. I got a 30% on my thermo exam. Hence, I didn't understand 70% - or the vast majority - of what was happening on the exam. So can you say that I really "learned" the material? I wouldn't say so. But, the mean on the exam was a 25%, and so my 30% meant that I was not going to fail. At that time, that's all I cared about, for this was a weeder, and all I wanted to do was survive. I had no idea what the heck was going on, and I didn't have time to find out. All I wanted was to avoid getting weeded out, and if that meant deriving a whole bunch of equations without knowing what any of them meant, hey, you did what you had to do.

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<p>That's *exactly *what I did for my modern physics course.</p>