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, Sat, 17 Apr 2004 00:29:07
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you need basic training first to get to basic engineering courses.
No engineering school can provide practical engineering training on up-to-date engineering practices. It takes time to prepare for a semester or quarter long technical course with the necessary lab support not to mention the myriad of engineering problems out there.
So schools can mostly teach topics that don't change much but believed to have lasting values, such as physics, engineering math, and fundamentals in engineering; in Nick's case, that would be courses in fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, etc..
Engineering curriculum these days are so packed with fundamental courses, and you need these fundamental courses to get you to beginning engineering courses. You absolutely need good foundations in calculus (at least up to advanced calculus level and some differential equations), physics (mechanics at least and reasonable E&M), and some chemistry... the list goes on forever.
By the time you have finished with these basic courses, you are well in your sophomore/junior year. You really cannot do much in engineering till the end of sophomore or beginning of junior year. This is assuming a student has not been discouraged by all these "theoretical" stuff and is still interested in engineering after the sophomore year.
I somewhat disagree with BobS's post below. I understand perfectly where he is coming from but I differ from his view that engineering school put too much emphasis on theoretical courses. There is a distinction between a good engineer and an engineer with good practical knowledge.
A good engineer can look at a mathematical equation and related what that equation means in real life. A good practical engineer can tell from experience what things should behave in real life but usually cannot provide a sound theoretical framework to explain the phenomena. The person with a good understanding of the mathematical and theoretical framework can construct models to estimate or PREDICT possible outcomes of the system even when the system is change.
Engineering diagnosis, judgment, or just simple engineering analysis is the most difficult thing to teach, this is where the person doing the teaching counts the most. In one of my previous lives :-), I taught fluid mechanics with laboratory at the advanced undergraduate level and experimental methods in fluid mechanics at a graduate level. By the time I could finish about various methods to measure simple fluid properties, I would be near the end of the semester and there would be little time to analyze and discuss results from practical situations. The best I could hope for was that students could get at least a taste of what "real" engineering was about.
The key is that one does not stop learning after school, this is where theory meets practice.
posted by 12.75.182...
, Sat, 17 Apr 2004 00:29:07
, Sat, 17 Apr 2004 13:57:16, Sat, 17 Apr 2004 08:37:21
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