DL Engineering Degree

Re: Exceptions Proving the Rule ?

I am starting to wonder of you are an engineer by any measure. So much time to stick to one irrational point?

 

Lame Engineers

My experience is the opposite. I've known a couple of outstanding engineers without a formal engineering degree, but many lame non-degree "engineers"...

True. But even these students have to troop in off the farm to do their lab work.

 

Do you even realize how laughable it is to assert that a country with a laughable secondary education system has has the world's best tertiary education system? One cannot build the world's best tertiary education system upon the world's most laughable secondary education system. So, either (a) America's secondary education system is not so laughable as you think or else (b) America's tertiary education system is not so great as you think or maybe even (c) both a and b, above.

 

Ted, what happens is that American university education is not very homogeneous. You can´t compare a degree from MIT with an ABET acredited degree from a minor university.

 

Kalos, one of my professors in America had an undergraduate math degree, and a master´s and a PhD in industrial engineering from Stanford or UCLA (I don´recall exactly). She was as well a PE. She still teaches students how to become engineers. I think she could tech you (and me) a lot of engineering skills even though she didn´t have a conventional background.

 

Yes, but it never ceases to amaze me to hear from these people who think that America has the crappiest high schools but the best colleges and universities. Such people don't stop to think that if America really was graduating a bunch of dummies from crappy high schools, such graduates would not likely be the sort of material from which to forge the best system of colleges and universities in the world. Such people likewise do not stop to realize that if America did indeed really and truly have the best colleges and universities in the world, they would need a pretty good system of high schools to produce the raw materials (students) for that allegedly most excellent system of tertiary education. So ...

 

Do you realize how uninformed it sounds to make your assertions ? The USA university education system has LONG been recognized as the best in the world and is one of the underlying strengths of the USA economy. According to one - non-USA - list, 168 of the world's best 500 universities are in the USA. Or, 8 of the top 10 universities, or 39 of the top 50, or 55 of the top 100. See the following list (or any of many similar lists: http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2005/ARWU2005_Top100.htm

 

I think the confussion arises because America has some of the best universities of the world: Harvard, Yale, MIT, etc.. and some wrongly assume the rest of universities are on par.

 

Obviously, you did not read what I wrote! I said that you do not build the best tertiary education system in the world upon the most laughable secondary education system in the world. I said that the possible conclusions are that either (a) the American system of secondary education system is not so laughable as you think or else (b) the American system of tertiary education is not so good as you think or maybe (c) both. You then arrogantly put words in my mouth and claim that I asserted (b) as a fact! Now, where is the evidence that the US has the most laughable secondary education system in the world? And how does a coiuntry which has the most laughable system of secondary education in the world end up with the most prestigious system of tertiary education in the world? YOU, SIR are the one who needs to back up his male bovine fecal material!

 

What never ceases to amaze me is the number of people who have opinions without bothering to do the research. The fact of the excellence of the USA university system is undisputed and the system is the envy of the world. ~168 of the world's best 500 universities are in the USA. The USA does indeed make up for a terrible secondary system with an excellent university system which starts out teaching high school graduates things they would already know in secondary school elsewhere in the world. In that sense, USA universities are very good at remedial education to establish a baseline around year three.

ps: Yes, there are also bad USA universites - some kept open for affirmative action reasons. And most of the non-accredited "universities" are pathetic.

 

Obviously, you don't understand your initial assertion is incorrect. You can indeed have a pathetic secondary school system and an excellent tertiary system. There is a social price to be paid for such a system, but you're not well-informed enough to enter into rational discussions.

 

Yes - it happens - but not very often - and I would consider a Master's and PhD in Engineering as effectively remedial for the lack of a Bachelor's in Engineering. Many graduate schools allow bridging programs from a Math/Physics background to a graduate Engineering program. It's perfectly acceptable.

 

Re: Re: Re: Five-Year Entry-Level Engineering Degree

You can stop laughing now. ABET has been accrediting biomedical engineering programs for more than 30 years. For proof, check the list at abet.org. Many accredited programs date back to the 1970s; the "Biomedical Engineering" programs at Duke and RPI were initially accredited in 1972.

Did I touch a nerve with the MIT example? Well, how about Stanford -- would you accept Stanford as a top engineering school? They offer non-ABET programs not only in bioengineering, but also in aeronautical engineering, and materials science & engineering.

 

Like whom? Like the person who charges on here asserting that post-baccalaureate medical education with the doctoral title is the only way to train physicians when he shows no knowledge of the fact that most physicians throughout history were trained by apprenticeship? And gives absolutely no discussion of the relative advantages and disadvant6ages of both are? Like the person who charges on here asserting that allopathy is the only valid form of medicine when he gives no evidence of understanding what homeopathy and naturopathy even are, much less why allopathy is supposedly so naturally superior? Like the person who charges on here asserting that America has the most laughable system of secondary education in the world and the most excellent system of tertiary education in the world even though he cannot produce any explanation for how whatever country has the most laughable high schools in the world could possibly produce enough smart people to have the best colleges and universities in the world?

 

Oddly enough, I agree with you on this one. If you want a career in engineering, the ABET route is the easiest and fastest way. I would only recommend the "alternate" routes to someone who was already established in a related technical field (e.g. architecture, engineering geology, surveying) and are seeking the PE as a secondary qualification.

 

Excuse me!

Ted's Assertion #1: Ted notes that Kalos has asserted that America has both the crappiest high schools and the best colleges/universities.
Ted's Assertion #2: Ted asserts that a country with the crappiest high schools likely will not have very good colleges either.
Ted's Assertion #3: Ted asserts that a country with the best colleges/universities probably has some pretty good high schools, too.

 

I think not. The supremacy of the USA system is across the board. You can point to good and bad universities in the USA,but you can also find good and bad universities in Europe.
The issue here is how well the university system - on average - does in preparing students for lives as well-informed citizens and how well it prepares students for participation in the economy. The USA system does very, very well on both counts and is the envy of the world. The USA system pours out large numbers of adequately educated graduates. This excellence is fortunate, because its easy to prove the secondary system in the USA - on average and with many exceptions - is horrible. By any standardized measures, USA secondary students lag the rest of the industrialized world. From a recent study:

"The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) was the most ambitious comparative study ever conducted....By grade 12, U.S. students were performing below the international average in both subjects and were among the lowest of the 21 countries, mostly industrialized, that tested students at this grade level."

But it may not matter because the USA catches up in university...

 

No disagreement there... The key is "[closely] related technical field".

 

Kalos:

I fail to understand why a person cannot obtain engineering knowledge in different ways.

For example if you have a BS in Chemistry, and you have worked in Chemical Plants for years, why you cannot study on your own the content of the ten (or so) courses that make up the ChemE major.

Apparently you are implying that any clerk with a background in basket weaving, can cram through a couple of courses, get four fake certifications, and pass the EIT and PE exams.

But that is not the case, at least not in the real world, as you like to say.

The following are the statistics for the October 2005 examination in California:

EIT Results

Tested 2935

Pass 1030

Pass % 35.09%

Fail 1905

Fail % 64.91%

It is probable that most of the test takers were engineering school graduates

For the PE:

Agricultural Pass % 0%

Civil 34.54%

Chemical 48.57%

Electrical 34.58%

Mechanical 49.13%



From http://www.dca.ca.gov/pels/e_oct05stats.htm

 

Do you have any numbers for comparison purposes? Like what is the total number of universities in the US? In the world? So far, you've proven that the US has 33.6% of the best universities in the world. But, how does that compare to the US' percentage of all the universities in the world?