Getting Real Value Out of An Engineering Education
1–10 of 16 posts
Re: Getting Real Value Out of An Engineering Education
#2It's really hard for me to take this article seriously when it opens with the claim that engineering classes are about memorization. That couldn't be further from my experience.
I did undergrad and grad degrees in EE/CS, and with very few exceptions none of the classes I took rewarded rote memorization. Quite the opposite: they were all about learning the fundamentals of the material and then applying those fundamentals to more difficult problems.
In fact, I went out of my way to avoid classes that boiled down to memorization: I wanted to take too many good classes to bother with crappy ones. Perhaps I took it too far: in freshman chemistry they gave us a quiz early in the semester where we were expected to reproduce the first 60 or 80 elements from the periodic table. I computed that the quiz was only worth about 1% of my grade for the term and didn't even show up for class that day.
Re: Getting Real Value Out of An Engineering Education
#3It's really hard for me to take this article seriously when it opens with the claim that engineering classes are about memorization. That couldn't be further from my experience. I did undergrad and grad degrees in EE/CS, and with very few exceptions none of the classes I took rewarded rote memorization. Quite the opposite: they were all about learning the fundamentals of the material and then applying those fundament…
I suppose our experiences differ. I've found the majority of classes to reward most the points on exams that require knowing how to do a specific subset of problems from the course.
Re: Getting Real Value Out of An Engineering Education
#4It's really hard for me to take this article seriously when it opens with the claim that engineering classes are about memorization. That couldn't be further from my experience. I did undergrad and grad degrees in EE/CS, and with very few exceptions none of the classes I took rewarded rote memorization. Quite the opposite: they were all about learning the fundamentals of the material and then applying those fundament…
I am jealous that your university had such good classes. Classes that did more than emphasize solving artificial problems through rote memorization, rather than real ones however simple, were the exception rather than the rule in my computer engineering degree.
Re: Getting Real Value Out of An Engineering Education
#5It's really hard for me to take this article seriously when it opens with the claim that engineering classes are about memorization. That couldn't be further from my experience. I did undergrad and grad degrees in EE/CS, and with very few exceptions none of the classes I took rewarded rote memorization. Quite the opposite: they were all about learning the fundamentals of the material and then applying those fundament…
When I was taking EE/CS courses, I'd consciously try to look for courses with large, open-ended projects (without eschewing theory completely). Although project classes can be run very poorly, the good ones tend to be the exact opposite of memorization/test-regurgitation.
Re: Getting Real Value Out of An Engineering Education
#6It's really hard for me to take this article seriously when it opens with the claim that engineering classes are about memorization. That couldn't be further from my experience. I did undergrad and grad degrees in EE/CS, and with very few exceptions none of the classes I took rewarded rote memorization. Quite the opposite: they were all about learning the fundamentals of the material and then applying those fundament…
I think instead of knowledge memorization (like the periodic table), the author is refering to algotithm memorization, where the exam is testing your ability to reproduce the process of solving the problem. There is some validity to this in that it is possible to do well on an exam by reproducing the process without understanding the materials.
Good examiners can write questions and grade in ways that support deeper understanding than algorithm memorization.
On the other hand however, education is about the process of learning. The advanced techniques used in engineering aren't immedieatly understood by many (any?) students. So the first steps in learning these techniques is mimicing existing work. Not alltogether different than actual engineering practice.
Aside: I do think time spent on student teams is very complementary to taught engineering programs, and spent 5 of 7 years in university doing Solar Car racing.
Re: Getting Real Value Out of An Engineering Education
#7It's really hard for me to take this article seriously when it opens with the claim that engineering classes are about memorization. That couldn't be further from my experience. I did undergrad and grad degrees in EE/CS, and with very few exceptions none of the classes I took rewarded rote memorization. Quite the opposite: they were all about learning the fundamentals of the material and then applying those fundament…
I think instead of knowledge memorization (like the periodic table), the author is refering to algotithm memorization, where the exam is testing your ability to reproduce the process of solving the problem. There is some validity to this in that it is possible to do well on an exam by reproducing the process without understanding the materials. Good examiners can write questions and grade in ways that support deeper…
> the author is refering to algotithm memorization, where the exam is testing your ability to reproduce the process of solving the problem.
and none of the higher-level courses I took in math or CS rewarded that either
Re: Getting Real Value Out of An Engineering Education
#8It's really hard for me to take this article seriously when it opens with the claim that engineering classes are about memorization. That couldn't be further from my experience. I did undergrad and grad degrees in EE/CS, and with very few exceptions none of the classes I took rewarded rote memorization. Quite the opposite: they were all about learning the fundamentals of the material and then applying those fundament…
How did this get pushed up so far? Not much content or explanation here...
Re: Getting Real Value Out of An Engineering Education
#9It's really hard for me to take this article seriously when it opens with the claim that engineering classes are about memorization. That couldn't be further from my experience. I did undergrad and grad degrees in EE/CS, and with very few exceptions none of the classes I took rewarded rote memorization. Quite the opposite: they were all about learning the fundamentals of the material and then applying those fundament…
I think the OP is just young and is trying to throw his hat into the "theory" vs "practical" debate that most of us probably find rather pedestrian at this point; perhaps this is a big discovery for him. I agree with you, of course, that it is overly dismissive of engineering coursework. If you listen to people on HN, college has absolutely no substantive value whatsoever, there are only a few that admit it might have some social value. Interestingly enough, most of those people claim that blogs and courses on Udacity or Coursera are the "real" places to get information (which is odd considering they are fine product but are simply faint, faint copies of university style education).
As well, I find it a bit assuming those who thing we should be focusing on teaching students "real, unsolved problems" when ... they struggle with solving the solved problems. I think there's a place for both but there's this "rally against the establishment" thing that goes on.
Re: Getting Real Value Out of An Engineering Education
#10It's really hard for me to take this article seriously when it opens with the claim that engineering classes are about memorization. That couldn't be further from my experience. I did undergrad and grad degrees in EE/CS, and with very few exceptions none of the classes I took rewarded rote memorization. Quite the opposite: they were all about learning the fundamentals of the material and then applying those fundament…
I am jealous that your university had such good classes. Classes that did more than emphasize solving artificial problems through rote memorization, rather than real ones however simple, were the exception rather than the rule in my computer engineering degree.
I'm with you - most of the units in my course could be passed by simply memorising formula and procedure.
I had a conversation with a final year electrical engineer with a high distinction average who had no idea what a relay was or how it was used, or how you'd power a motor from a microcontroller - something I'd expect high school level electronics students to know. He's great at calculations and exams, follows lab manuals and gets good grades, but (imho) would make a poor practicing engineer.