fuck that. The quote from the OP most certainly does apply to engineering. I'm EE/CPE and I'm about to graduate in the fall. All I need are four classes to graduate. Since I've started in ECE, I've got extremely high grades in every engineering class I've taken. My major GPA for both Electrical and Computer is 3.8. Even in spite of all of this, I do not believe I am in any position to know what the fuck is going on when it comes to a computer or electronics in general, I don't feel as if I could actually make or invent anything useful, and I feel like the education has done little to prepare me for an actual job in engineering. Virtually every engineering class has followed the "theory rather than application" down to a fucking T. The only class, and I mean the ONLY class in which this is NOT true is ECE 306: Intro to Embedded Systems. Most every class I have taken in engineering boils down to one simple rule: find the pattern, learn it, and utilize it on the tests. That's all it takes to get a 100 on tests in engineering; work the problems over and over, find the pattern, and exploit it. There's no application. There's not even really learning. While I feel like I've learned a few useful things (such as a very rudimentary understanding of how to program, how to read a circuit diagram, what are passive/active components, analog, digital, etc etc etc), I don't feel at all like I would know WTF I'm doing when it comes to a job and I definitely don't feel like I have a firm grasp on the fundamentals of how this shit really even works. All I know are a few little pieces and not the big picture. I know you ECE guys hate on Brickley, but after taking 435 with that guy he said we weren't even close to knowing what was doing on at the end of that class. I ended up making an A+ in there, and I completely agreed with him. Maybe this is all just a big fucking waste of time.

Keep in mind though; I am only speaking for the classes themselves. Somebody else in this thread posted about how these classes serve to raise the bigger questions in our minds that lead to independent research. This part has been undoubtedly true for me. Not only that, but I don't mind theory being taught in the classes, my problem is that theory is ALL that is being taught. I really wish there was more hands-on stuff I could be doing in these classes, and I don't mean the bullshit labs from 200 or 302. Once again, 306 is a great example of the right way (in my opinion).

[Edited on June 30, 2011 at 4:58 AM. Reason : .]

6/30/2011 4:54:33 AM

I understand some people will probably object to my viewpoint, and I don't blame you. I understand that my opinion is flawed and my attitude is probably unnecessarily negative. This is coming from a guy who is going to take 6 1/2 years to get two engineering degrees with only a difference of 3 classes between the two (my first four years were marked by an extraordinary amount of not giving a shit, tried Mechanical, hated it, did pretty shitty in statics and some other classes, then did technology education for a while because my grades sucked, realized I didn't want to be caught up in that, then I finally tried ECE but I had to go in on the contract, finally got my shit together and started making awesome grades, but I never did any co-ops because the office wanted me to take a year off of school and I just wanted to fucking graduate already. Didn't do any internships either, but I'm looking to change that in the fall). I guess, with all things considered and that much time invested......I had expectations of something totally different and I still perhaps picked the wrong major (I enjoy OOP more than anything else I've done in ECE, I probably should have done CSC instead of EE/CPE), but who's going to know exactly what they want to do when they come to college anyway?

6/30/2011 5:28:36 AM

This is a perfect example of what I was talking about earlier. Universities do a lot of things correctly, but where they fail miserably is in regards to providing real world hands-on experience to their students. The professors live in a "bubble" of research, which is essential in the macrocosm of the field, but being removed from the real world (the microcosm), makes the education lack very serious components for success and growth. This is precisely why co-ops and internships are vital for all students, not just engineers. The reality for the majority of engineers is that they will graduate to become workers that produce, or people that solve, build, and do. However, the truth is that there are realistic divides between theory and practice in any field, at any university. The distinction between majors is simply the extent of the disparity between "the theory" and "the practice" of the field of study, but don't fool yourself, there will always be a divide as long as universities keep the status quo of outsourcing the microcosm (the real world).

[Edited on June 30, 2011 at 8:30 AM. Reason : -]

6/30/2011 8:20:24 AM

someone should fwd this to the dean or chancellor or vice admiral of the college

6/30/2011 8:47:57 AM

should this go to the lounge before it is sullied?

6/30/2011 9:12:40 AM

^^^, ^^^^

University shouldn't give you job skills. Most job skills come from experience. The bottom line is that university is supposed to give people who can generate new knowledge the background and the tools to do so.

If you aren't tapping your university education, you most likely aren't working at the forefront of your field. Perhaps a trade school would have been a better option for you. This is why most people would be better off having skipped college -- the job people end up doing is too simple.

What people need is a way to figure out whether they are capable of working at the forefront of their field and whether their job will give them that chance. That will determine whether the college degree is worth it. Do this before college and people can save time, money, and effort on getting a worthless degree.

But the US government promotes a college degree bubble in the same way it promotes a housing bubble, and politics prevents them from doing the right thing and cutting off the cash.

[Edited on June 30, 2011 at 9:13 AM. Reason : .]

6/30/2011 9:13:38 AM

I know a woman who is reasonable intelligent, book-wise. She took out loans to fund her education. 4 years undergrad in finance, 2 years MBA, and another 2 years for her PhD in econ. After a year of unemployment, she finds a job in finance that she quits 6 months into it because she realized she hated the "corporate" world.

She takes out more loans to go back to an ivy league school, to do what?... be an elementary school teacher. She met her fiance while there and quit in the middle of the program completely. When the fiance found out about her debt situation, which she'd been lying about and hiding from him, he promptly broke off the engagement. Now, being 28 years old, having six figures worth of debt, no job or relevant experience, she goes though bankruptcy filing only to realize AFTER that student loans do not get forgiven through personal bankruptcy, LOL.

She is now a 28 year old PhD holder living at home working at a tanning salon who spends her weekends at the beach blowing 22 year old dudes who pour beers on her while she is giving them head.

Everything in this story is true and I have it on good authority from first hand story of a guy who was there involving the last part. Just letting you know what a higher education can get you.

6/30/2011 10:11:20 AM

destitution, promiscuity, and humiliation.

college is dangerous kids

[Edited on June 30, 2011 at 10:17 AM. Reason : i thouroughly enjoyed that post ]

6/30/2011 10:16:15 AM

does anyone feel that MBA degrees, unless from a top tier program, are completely watered down and an inherent waste of time and money?

6/30/2011 10:18:37 AM

MBAs are the new high school diploma.

6/30/2011 10:25:09 AM

the buck has to stop somewhere. Highschool only wont get you in the door. bachelors wastes your time from what im hearing. how can anything above that compensate the "waste" from the bachelors degree.

4+ years to add a Pal Hal Degree doesnt seem like the answer but when people saw the job market crash a few years ago graduate programs exploded. Has this worked out for people?

6/30/2011 10:31:56 AM

Quote :

"She is now a 28 year old PhD holder living at home working at a tanning salon who spends her weekends at the beach blowing 22 year old dudes who pour beers on her while she is giving them head. "

Tell her I said "Hello."

6/30/2011 10:33:15 AM

Quote :

"but when people saw the job market crash a few years ago graduate programs exploded. Has this worked out for people?"

For some people, a graduate degree can mean the difference between flipping burgers in a hot kitchen and transferring phone calls in an air conditioned office.

6/30/2011 10:37:50 AM

http://www.thielfoundation.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15

let's discuss how few of these goals are going to be realized in two years. i'm thinking like 0% here.

6/30/2011 10:45:28 AM

has it? your friend is getting beers dumped on their head

[Edited on June 30, 2011 at 10:48 AM. Reason : mental image is making me lulz]

6/30/2011 10:46:09 AM

Quote :

" Laura Deming wants to extend the human lifespan for a few more centuries—at the very least"

she wants to create crippling scarcity that would destroy already broken programs that transfer debt from one generation to the next.



[Edited on June 30, 2011 at 10:55 AM. Reason : she also wants to play god]

6/30/2011 10:51:37 AM

i would like to the know the woman of which pikey speaks

6/30/2011 10:54:04 AM

This is her:

6/30/2011 10:56:35 AM

That'll do. Hook it up

6/30/2011 10:57:59 AM

man that girl is not pretty.

6/30/2011 11:00:28 AM

yeah.. gonna have to pass on that

6/30/2011 11:01:33 AM

Quote :

"I know a woman who is reasonable intelligent, book-wise. She took out loans to fund her education. 4 years undergrad in finance, 2 years MBA, and another 2 years for her PhD in econ. After a year of unemployment, she finds a job in finance that she quits 6 months into it because she realized she hated the "corporate" world. She takes out more loans to go back to an ivy league school, to do what?... be an elementary school teacher. She met her fiance while there and quit in the middle of the program completely. When the fiance found out about her debt situation, which she'd been lying about and hiding from him, he promptly broke off the engagement. Now, being 28 years old, having six figures worth of debt, no job or relevant experience, she goes though bankruptcy filing only to realize AFTER that student loans do not get forgiven through personal bankruptcy, LOL. She is now a 28 year old PhD holder living at home working at a tanning salon who spends her weekends at the beach blowing 22 year old dudes who pour beers on her while she is giving them head. Everything in this story is true and I have it on good authority from first hand story of a guy who was there involving the last part. Just letting you know what a higher education can get you."

ahahaha you're a gullible little shit

6/30/2011 11:05:59 AM

Where in my story did I allude to her level of attractiveness?

6/30/2011 11:06:17 AM

I'm sure that story is 100% true

6/30/2011 11:06:46 AM

her face is....lumpy?

6/30/2011 11:08:55 AM

Bitch looks like Chipper Jones

6/30/2011 11:22:34 AM

i'd hit it let her blow me

you guys are nuts

[Edited on June 30, 2011 at 11:52 AM. Reason : s]

6/30/2011 11:51:54 AM

parentcanpay

Quote :

". There's no application. There's not even really learning. While I feel like I've learned a few useful things (such as a very rudimentary understanding of how to program, how to read a circuit diagram, what are passive/active components, analog, digital, etc etc etc), I don't feel at all like I would know WTF I'm doing when it comes to a job and I definitely don't feel like I have a firm grasp on the fundamentals of how this shit really even works."

Do you believe that your learning is or should be limited to the classroom environment? Your outlooks is, unfortunately, too common. I've been interviewing a lot of engineering students as part of a joint pilot program between Cisco and NCSU, and i'm amazed at how few students pursue any further knowledge beyond what's in the classroom. If you're a EE/CPE, you should own an arduino and be doing all kinds of shit with it. If you're a CSC major and you haven't written any code on your own, you're doing it wrong. Engineers are tinkerers, and you should feel compelled to play with and tinker with shit to see how it works and what else you can make it do.

What i'm guessing is that a lot of people who have no true interest in engineering are becoming engineering majors to chase dollars. You can have a 4.0GPA but if you haven't taken the time to apply what you've learned and learn beyond coursework, you're not cut out for it, and you'll find that you can't compete.

6/30/2011 1:11:30 PM

6/30/2011 1:26:26 PM

^^ The reason for this and the fake? whore story above is the student loan bubble. The government ultimately supplies the funds for most student loans, thereby allowing people who normally wouldn't get loans to get them. It's the same as the housing bubble.

Plenty of european and asian countries have lower college attendance and completion, yet their industries and productivity are competitive with ours.

Putting more people through college does not have a societal or economic benefit if those people are not college material in the first place.

The worst part is since anyone can now get a BS, people now have to get higher level degrees to distinguish themselves. But since the government will also pay for those post-bachelor degrees, there is a glut of that as well. It's a vicious cycle caused by the unintended consequence of promoting higher education. Education is no longer a useful metric for distinguishing candidates.

6/30/2011 8:48:59 PM

another issue i think america has is the entitlement that seems to come with holding a degree. as many have said, very few degree programs produce someone with marketable skills. many people get a degree and think they're entitled to a certain lifestyle. when they really can't afford it, they spend other people's money to try and afford it and go into debt. in other countries, people take the jobs they can get and live by the means afforded by said job.

when a degree doesn't cut it, the assumption and ultimate societal push is to get even more formal education to afford the lifestyle you want. this floods the market with "qualifications" that ignorant HR folks have to wade through. in general the HR folks have no idea about the knowledge and skills brought by a degree and make the assumption that more formal education is better. this leads to the devaluation of both formal education AND practical application education. we have a pretty vicious cycle here

6/30/2011 9:48:16 PM

@ BobbyDigital:

No, I don't believe my learning should be limited to the classroom environment at all. That was never the issue. My issue was simply that the courses relied too much on theory, and while theory is good, I just wish that wasn't ALL I was doing. I agree with you 100% on people doing engineering to chase dollars and the students not pursuing any knowledge beyond the classroom. I feel that most, if not all of the people I meet in my engineering classes do wish to make good grades, but that is as far as it goes. I really don't think most of them could give a fuck about tinkering with anything or really have any kind of curiosity beyond the classes.

I have several ideas of my own that I've been kicking around in my mind, and honestly I probably should have done CSC since I really enjoy OOP (right now, I'm trying to teach myself Ruby and so far it's been a blast, and I've been fooling around with a few old radios that I found in some boxes). The application, curiosity, and experimentation is the most fun part of "engineering" to me (and I seriously DO NOT mean the 200 or 302 labs. That was just an exercise in monotony), and the fun stuff is what has been severely lacking in the EE/CPE engineering classes in my opinion (once again, except for 306).

7/1/2011 1:05:33 AM

I'm just glad my more formal education will never be devalued... because you literally can't do my future job without this degree - and hopefully more states will allow licensure

7/1/2011 1:09:31 AM

Quote :

"The government ultimately supplies the funds for most student loans, thereby allowing people who normally wouldn't get loans to get them. It's the same as the housing bubble."

Yeah god forbid anything but our corporate-dominated markets determine who does and doesn't get educated

7/1/2011 6:53:03 AM

So just as the government's kindness in the housing market ended up screwing over poor people who got loans they couldn't afford, they have screwed over people who got degrees they couldn't afford.

Oh, and by the way, it's the government's willingness to fund any student loan that has driven tuition prices up (just like the housing market), making college unaffordable and a huge financial risk. Double whammy.

But it's all good intentions, right? The fact that the government policy has the opposite effect doesn't matter?

7/1/2011 7:00:53 AM

Plenty of people who couldn't have afforded college at all were allowed to do so via federally subsidized loans. These people aren't necessarily working at the Food Lion now; many are engaged in careers that use their expertise. It's not like post-college success maps directly onto pre-college financial status.

7/1/2011 7:06:31 AM

Right. Let's raise prices significantly for everyone else so that a few sub-prime people can get houses.

This has worked out really well.

- The cost goes up for EVERYONE at a far faster rate than cost of living. NCSU tuition has risen almost 300% since 2000. How the fuck is that making college more accessible?

- It becomes a bad financial decision for a larger amount of people since the rate of returns from degrees don't change. Edit: Whoops, not right. The rate of return decreases since the price has gone up but salary has stayed the same. Furthermore, since real income has stayed the same or dropped over the years, the greater amount of college degrees has not led more income for people. In other words, they may not be working at food lion, but they are working somewhere that pays comparably (the government, perhaps).

- And people who would not have been allowed to make a bad financial decision before are allowed to make one now.

If the government had not driven tuition prices up at a ridiculous rate, people would have been much better off working and saving up to get into college rather than taking out huge loans on inflated college prices. Before where it may have taken a year to save up for college, it takes 3 years to pay off a loan.

This is bad policy no matter how much of a bleeding heart you are.

[Edited on July 1, 2011 at 7:41 AM. Reason : .]

7/1/2011 7:26:19 AM

Again, not everybody needs to get an english degree or whatever, but funding for vocational and technical training is a good idea. Not everybody's going to have the option to work and save up here soon, nor does it make sense to force them to do so in a way that competes with manual labor from other countries (where the price of labor is much lower).

I don't understand this backwards notion that we need to compete directly with China. We need to train more skilled workers so that we can continually stay ahead. Manufacturing nowadays is more than just opening and closing the gate on an injection moulding machine.

7/1/2011 7:52:53 AM

Ok, since you've moved on to some irrelevant strawman arguments, I'll take that as your concession on the government funded student loan question.

7/1/2011 8:36:45 AM

Can't we just agree to disagree on this? I don't believe American market forces are going to adequately provide for peoples' educations. The points we disagree on are pretty far from the issue at hand and would require a lot of arguing.

Quote :

"If the government had not driven tuition prices up at a ridiculous rate, people would have been much better off working and saving up to get into college rather than taking out huge loans on inflated college prices. Before where it may have taken a year to save up for college, it takes 3 years to pay off a loan."

I'm going to need evidence that government regulations drive up tuition as much as you claim and not demand for a college education, primarily originating in private industry.

[Edited on July 1, 2011 at 9:05 AM. Reason : .]

7/1/2011 9:01:56 AM

I did not use my degree today

7/15/2011 1:32:47 PM

Quote :

"funding for vocational and technical training is a good idea"

this has promise imo


but i'm not as well versed on many of these things as i should be.

you guys can ignore anything i post in here...im just reading and randomly interjecting to make it seem as though i know what im talking about


and btw Pikey youre story reminds me of a girlfriend i know.
student loans up the ass.

and she dropped her job and all because she wants to be a model

let it be known homegirl is not that cute.

[Edited on July 15, 2011 at 1:38 PM. Reason : fggf]

7/15/2011 1:36:25 PM

Quote :

"I don't believe American market forces are going to adequately provide for peoples' educations."

I agree, as this concept goes against the fundamentals of a free-market capitalist societies. Broad-spectrum adequate support for people in general doesn't exist naturally in such a society. It rewards the competitive, not the collective.

Government-funded student loans by their very nature would increase the premiums for everyone across the board, but it can be argued to be the lesser evil in comparison to the alternative.

The question isn't which is better, as neither are ideal, but rather what would strike the balance?

Vocational training in high schools, learning basic finance, college credit at public universities for technical/marketplace training before college, would all be helpful government programs that would gear students to become more ideal candidates for corporations. There is no crystal ball, but I feel that infusing more real world education is essential to the advancement of American exceptional-ism.

[Edited on July 15, 2011 at 2:59 PM. Reason : -]

7/15/2011 2:53:07 PM

Quote :

"The quote from the OP most certainly does apply to engineering. I'm EE/CPE and I'm about to graduate in the fall. All I need are four classes to graduate. Since I've started in ECE, I've got extremely high grades in every engineering class I've taken. My major GPA for both Electrical and Computer is 3.8. Even in spite of all of this, I do not believe I am in any position to know what the fuck is going on when it comes to a computer or electronics in general, I don't feel as if I could actually make or invent anything useful, and I feel like the education has done little to prepare me for an actual job in engineering. Virtually every engineering class has followed the "theory rather than application" down to a fucking T. The only class, and I mean the ONLY class in which this is NOT true is ECE 306: Intro to Embedded Systems. Most every class I have taken in engineering boils down to one simple rule: find the pattern, learn it, and utilize it on the tests. That's all it takes to get a 100 on tests in engineering; work the problems over and over, find the pattern, and exploit it. There's no application. There's not even really learning. While I feel like I've learned a few useful things (such as a very rudimentary understanding of how to program, how to read a circuit diagram, what are passive/active components, analog, digital, etc etc etc), I don't feel at all like I would know WTF I'm doing when it comes to a job and I definitely don't feel like I have a firm grasp on the fundamentals of how this shit really even works. All I know are a few little pieces and not the big picture. I know you ECE guys hate on Brickley, but after taking 435 with that guy he said we weren't even close to knowing what was doing on at the end of that class. I ended up making an A+ in there, and I completely agreed with him. Maybe this is all just a big fucking waste of time."

I actually feel like this is a well articulated expression of that position - which is not new to me by any means.

There's plenty of dirt to be thrown on even the most practical of technical disciplines. But I think it comes down to what one's perspective is. If you think you can't go through NCSU, get an engineering degree, and become a designing engineer of some type... then you probably won't. Because if you think that, you are probably not motivated.

Look, the statistics for graduating engineering classes even are not all that great. We don't produce 100 EE majors and then see 99 young professionals working in the field a year later. In fact, you're likely shooting somewhere around around half, if even that. But that doesn't mean the rest of them are failures.

If you like the content and are passionate about it, then you'll be in the group that does well. And with the demographic trends in engineering... yeah, you've got a pretty good career in the works. But not everyone who gets one of the degrees aligns with this. This is why things like industrial engineering actually help by providing flexibility in career path. In spite of all the "dumbed down curriculum" dirt being thrown at it, I don't see their graduates doing any worse.

I have a tendency to think negatively about the economy too. But there are career paths that get you to a very good position. An engineering degree is a good approach to a lot of them.

7/15/2011 3:09:52 PM

ITT people don't know the difference between engineering and engineering technology

7/15/2011 3:28:00 PM

I agree that the NCSU engineering programs, for the most part, don't teach how actual current things work in industry.

7/15/2011 6:13:54 PM

Hey pretty girl did you go to college to get all that knowledge

7/15/2011 6:15:34 PM

Did you get your BA with all that knowledge

7/15/2011 6:16:56 PM

Quote :

"I agree that the NCSU engineering programs, for the most part, don't teach how actual current things work in industry."

Pretty sure that's inherent to the industry as technology far outpaces education. Moore's law, son.

7/15/2011 7:17:17 PM

one of the problems with trying to relate to "industry" in engineering school is that there are TONS of different "industries" that this stuff can apply to. Sure, teachers can try and apply it to more real world examples, but in the end those examples will only end up being useful to a handful of people probably.

As an ME I think that most teachers (at least on the thermal and fluids side) did a good job at State. It was up to me through internships and jobs to learn how to apply it to areas that were specific to the industry I went into.

7/15/2011 10:05:02 PM