Confessions of an Engineering Washout

"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." - Thomas Edison.

The poster has probably more humor in the U.S. than elsewhere. The Edison quote is common motivational fodder here. The "perspiration" referred to has more to do with perseverance than with labor.

 

JLV,

Interesting you should ask that question. I was the only student that wasn't simultaneously enrolled in engineering physics.

On one exam, the equations described a phenomenon that I could actually picture; had worked with in other settings. I outscored everyone else except a fellow from Hong Kong who'd already taken the course once before in H.K.

After that, back to tailgunning. I've often wondered whether the instructor figured I'd cheated on that one quiz!

What I didn't get was what the material was ALL ABOUT. Truly! The Universe expresses itself in differential equations, something I finally realized just a few years ago. Whilst taking the class thirty years ago, I was completely clueless.

Oh, nothing so complex or interesting as the simplist Penrose. I do ham radio. Transmitters and networks deliver power to antennas most efficiently when everybody's impedences "match"; I suddenly realized that I had never proven the maximum power transfer theorem to myself but always took it on faith. Like I said, it was a trivial exercise but it explained several things to me about DC and RF current flows that I had never understood before.

 

I remember one of the brightest students I met in the US failed a probability exam (that is a difficult class, too) because he wasn’t familiar with playing cards. Nevertheless you passed a difficult course, a C is a passing grade, so why give it up? Engineering physics is definitely a tough subject, much more than mechanical eng., but you shouldn’t have been discouraged for such a small setback. I mean, you´re a lawyer, I am sure you have no regrets about it, but a silly C is nothing.

I was taught the course without physical examples. Same as linear algebra. Just abstract math, and it worked for me pretty well. In fact, diff eq is a course about tricks to solve those diff. eq you might encounter along the way. But I also think that they should have done it differently. Instead of putting everyone in the same class, they should have separate students from majors and provide study materials relevant to their majors and design the class according to their interests. I am sure nowadays they use computer graphics that make the course a lot more meaningful. One can solve most diff eq. with Matlab or similar, but still I think that course is needed. Nevertheless, many times, like yourself, I also find myself I understand silly things I couldn’t understand back when I was a student. Who knows why that happnes...

Ha ha ha , I also have some facts that I took solely on faith.

Ok, I was just curious to know if someone had finally found a practical application for those differential equations…….


Regards

 

Actually, JLV, the real irony is that diffyques was about the last really difficult math class I'd have needed for engineering. I'd gotten an undeserved "B" in vector calculus the semester before.

My engineer friends tell me that I think like an engineer; certainly I enjoyed getting my A.A.S. in E.T. from CIE.

I don't know, though...those were the final days of discrete wiring and vacuum tubes...as a young engineer I'd have been stuck looking a a design filled with half watt 5% resistors in order to determine which could use cheaper 10% resistors instead...yuck.

And I HAVE enjoyed my life in the law. I find that engineering analysis and GOOD legal analysis have some things in common.

 

Yeah, the perspiration part, hum?

You are truly a renaissance man. I am sure you chose the right career. That resistor thing doesn´t sound too exciting to be honest.

 

Actually quite a few liberal arts, business and education majors who suffer through their inevitable math requirements might agree with him. (Especially those who saw their overall GPA fall from a perfect 4.00 solely due to low grades that were nevertheless hard-earned by sweating through those dang math classes.) But you're right, students in pursuit of engineering degrees should never expect alternative teaching methods to aid them in understanding the very subject on which their degrees are based. If they don't get all the math they need to get out of engineering.

Kit

 

Thanks for sharing the link. Interesting story with shades of Ohio State University College of Engineering in the 60's. It looks like nothing has changed!

Dick

 

Re: Re: Confessions of an Engineering Washout

The other link to the 1957 committees on improving science and mathematics in education tends to confirm that nothing has changed.

 

You know, this whole thing leads to a great injustice in legal education.

The average engineer probably has a somewhat lower overall GPA than the average lotos eating liberal arts major (like me). The reason is, engineering is HARDER than English literature.

But law school admissions formulas apparently do NOT take the difficulty of the major into account, at leaast on the first go-around. The admissions committee generally multiplies one's LSAT score by a weighting factor then multiplies one's UGPA by another weighting factor, adds the two products and behold! the admissions index.

Though law schools often deny that this is how they work, those selfsame schools actually PUBLISH annual tables showing percentage of applicants admitted as a function of UGPA and LSAT scores. It's pretty obvious.

Now, many (most?) law schools pretty much automatically admit applicants whose indicies are high enough and reject those whos indicies are low enough. (State schools often apply a factor for residency as well. Private schools sometimes apply a factor for 'second generation' applicants as well as, or so I STRONGLY suspect, applicants from wealthy donors' families. There are (or were) also 'diversity' factors, a.k.a. 'affirmative action'.)

They then examine the mass of applicants "in the middle". It is at this point that they look at things like extracurricular activities and the relative difficulty of one's major.

So, engineers are at a competitive disadvantage in law school applications and this is reflected, I think, in the severe under representation of engineers in law school. And THAT'S weird because engineering is an EXCELLENT background for law.

Moral: If you want to be a lawyer, study what really interests you and is relatively easy for you. That way, you will be among the "automatic admits".