Skewed Perspective
 

I've thought long and hard about how I should word this thread without Offending anybody, so here I go.

I am a three year veteran of Team 151, the Wildcards. During my time on the team I learned more than I could have possibly Imagined. However I am afraid that FIRST gave me a skewed perspective of Engineering. I am not saying that the six weeks of build time was not the best time of my life, because it was. I'm talking about how I, myself was exposed to the world of engineering. I interpreted it as a fun, but Stressful, Hard working, but big rewarding program. However after three years of FIRST, I though Engineering was what I wanted to do with my life, even with my lack of math skills. I am now in my First Semester of College at Wentworth Institute of Technology, and have been have serious doubts about even graduating with an Associates. I've made the decision to not return next semester, and pursue something that is more along my alley, Video Production. I digress, My question to all of you is this:


Does FIRST give a skewed perspective of Engineering?


I am requesting a civil argument about this because I'm sure there are people on Both sides. Thank you for reading and commence the argument.

Well, I think you answered your own question. Engineering is a huge math course, and if you can't do math, you won't succeed at it, no matter how fun it is. It's like if I go to work as a surgeon if I don't know the human body.

Good Point. I feel similar. FIRST is not just about robots. It is about animation, programming, organizing, writing, and tons of other things. Overall I think that the choice is yours, if you want to succeed FIRST will help in your pursuit.

-Greg The Great

Re: Skewed Perspective
 

An opinion from the other side of the fence:
I am in my 23rd year as an electrical engineer with a BSEE and MSEE. I strongly believe the FIRST program from experience is very REALISTIC. What you experience in the six weeks is what I experience at work everyday.
It is fun, stressful, requires hard work, but rewarding. I feel the problem most people have is in engineering school skews your perspective of real LIFE. I face the same problem when I was going to school also.
Sorry college has skewed your perspective of Engineering. I hope you rethink the situation.
:(

Aaron,

As others said, you kind of answered your own question.

However, I also want to make sure you know one thing - what you are going through is part of the experience of college, and one of the great parts. College allows you the opportunity to figure out what major or fields interest you more, and the stats will show you that MANY, MANY, MANY people change their majors two, three or more times before the finally graduate. So don't think you are the only one who changes majors or that there is anything wrong with that. It's a glass is half full situation, not empty.

Also, regardless of what field you pursue, FIRST did not only provide you with engineering skills. The experience you gained in areas like teamwork, stress management, time management, brainstorming, sharing ideas, respecting ideas and differences, problem solving, and basic project management - all of this experience has better prepared you to succeed in whatever field you pursue, including Video Production.

Again..glass....half full. Enjoy your college years, work hard, and be grateful you've been exposed to enough various fields that you can realize you prefer some or others.

It sounds like you put thought into whatever decisions you make, so you should do very well. Best of luck.

Re: Re: Skewed Perspective
 

I am going to have to agree here. I ran into the same thing with computers. I had already been working as a programmer for 4 years [started at 15]before I started college as a CS major. Many kids were CS majors to become programmers after college. With 4 yrs under my belt I figured I could ace college. But what i found out was that college did not reflect what programming was like in real life, and in fact unless a person really wants to be a "computer scientist" I think 90% of most CS majors would be better off as Computer Information systems majors. Unless you'll be designing systems that require a heavy knowledge of math, most application software development will not require any more math then you probably learned in 9th grade :) and the CIS program is alot more well rounded in programming,networking,etc.

but back on topic,lol

Unfort. EE or any engineering is very heavy in math though very useful in the field. I would not let college damper your feelings on engineering in general becuase I feel FIRST reflects the "real life" expierences of engineering. FIRST is nice in that way becuase it allows you the hands on w/o having to take many of the math and other tedious classes for engineering students in college. My advice to you is not to let college get you down. You already know you love engineering, if math is one of your harder classes then try taking less classes with it, or maybe summer classes, or take an extra year for college. But don't give up, 4 years is very little to ask for a career you'll love for the next 40 years of your life :)

As of now, I know my interests don't lie in an engineering field, except possibly computers. I just can't see myself doing those kinds of things everyday for the rest of my career, but some 3D Animation, Graphical Design, maybe a little Inventor work on the side... life would be good. I'm seriously looking into what Purdue calls "Computer Graphics Technology." Hopefully this will suit my interests. And don't worry Aaron, you'll get through this :) it's just college :cool:

Purdue - Engineering
 

I'm at Purdue right now as a freshman and I thought that Engineering at Purdue would be the thing for me, until I wasnt accepted. I had heard previously that it was a tough course, but fun at the same time. When I arrived on campus they told us during our orientations that this freshman class at Purdue was the "smartest" class ever accepted and the bar was raised for everything. Now that I look back on it near the end of my 1st semester I'm kinda glad I didnt get accepted into it. From what my friend tells me it's engineering "boot camp" and the drop out rate is incredible. One thing I did discover is a thing called Mechanical Engineer Technology. From what it sounds like it should be a lot of fun, because it's a more hands on approach to engineering.

Purdue kind of gave me the impression that actual "engineering" was for me, but now I think this aspect of "engineering" is right for me.

I think you have missed the basic purpose of FIRST. Taking science and math classes in highschool is often a very dry experience - you are learning a ton a theory and knowledge, but you get very little exposure to real application

in many colleges this carries on into your first year or two - you still take lots of math, and physics, chemistry, but you dont get to start taking the real intereseting engineering courses yet.

the purpose of FIRST is to show you what comes after that - the light at the end of the tunnel. the FIRST program is very much like real engineering. We dont show up as mentors for FIRST teams with painted on smiles, and have lots of fun, then go back to our real engineering jobs where they lock us in a dungeon and make us do calculus all day.

Engineering at its most basic level is people changing the world. Engineers solve problems. Engineers take physics and science where it is, and apply it to real life problems to create new and better solutions.

To do that, and do it effectively, you need a knowledge base of where physics and science are today. You need a base of mathematics, so you dont waste your time using trial and error to design new systems.

The knowledge you gain in college is the tool you use for the rest of your life. Lots of people can look at a problem and come up with clever solutions - but to implement those solutions, to design and produce working systems, you need that background. Otherwise you have to create everything from scratch!

When you are in college you are still in that tunnel. If you liked what you saw engineers doing with their lives when you were on a FIRST team, then stick it out and you will get there.

And at the same time, if you think you really want to do something else, pursue some other field, there is nothing wrong with that. To be happy in life you need a job doing something you enjoy every day, or you will be miserable for the rest of your life.

We don't? :yikes:

Just kidding. Having been on both sides of the FIRST experience, I couldn't agree more with what Ken said.

Well the conversation has been civil so we have managed that.

Without attempting to aggravate anyone I have a few comments to make.
first I'll address the posed question. I believe FIRST exposes students to engineering, in a positive way. It shows the fun side. The creative side.

Second. Just because a career looks fun or interesting doesn't mean you will be able to do it. There is a commercial on TV right now that is for one of those mail-order art schools. If you take their test they will determine if you have the "interest and desire" to be an artist. At some point you need the proper skills.

Lastly. I hope engineering programs are rigorous and hard. I feel the same way about pre-med, pre-law...etc...
Why? because I want really good engineers and doctors and lawyers...
I would be hard pressed to accept an argument that a prospective engineer who couldn't handle college has managed to teach themselves enough to fix/design my widget machine.
That said...programming may be an exception. There is a difference between engineering a system from the ground up and writing applications.

In any event I hope you find the direction you are seeking. I have always gone with what interests me. So far its worked.

Ive been an engineer since 1984, and Im tempted to tell you about the jobs Ive had, the programs Ive worked on, the systems that my engineering teams created, but it would take me all night to even begin.

Briefly, Ive worked for Rockwell International, HRB Singer, and GE Aerospace on military programs - systems that went into the F14, F18 and the A10 (the Warthog) - we created systems that saved pilots lives, enabled them to do their jobs better and more accurately.

Then I switched over into the commercial sector, and worked for Rochester Instruments Systems, Sayette Technology, AB Dick ITEK, and I now work at Xerox. Ive worked on systems that monitor power utility substations so technicians can figure out exactly what happened when the grid goes down, Ive worked on LCD display projectors that you can plug into your VCR or PC and watch Star Trek on your living room wall 8 feet wide, or play video games bigger than life - and Ive worked with image processing systems for scanners and graphic arts printers.

I dont think I can tell you how much enjoyment you get when you take a $100,000,000 program from its initial concept, all the way to a sucessful production, or walking through a factory and seeing hundreds of people employed manufacturing a system that you helped design.

To put it in the frame of reference of a FIRST team, the stuff we do on FIRST is small potatos - the kit of parts they give us is scraping edge technology

work on a big project and you get to work with state of the art equipment and technology, and literally do things that have never been done before.

Is FIRST a scam? does it give students a skewed perspective, unrealistic expectations of what its really like to be an engineer?

Not by a long shot! FIRST is the real thing, its like engineering kindergarden, but its the real stuff.

College is hard, it's not High School by any means. I learned this, and am still learning this fact the hard way. If you switched majors from engineering, college would still be hard. That's why not everyone does it.

Also, keep a few things in mind. First, going to college to be an engineer is not the same thing as being an engineer. Second, FIRST is designed to make engineering fun. If they made it hard do you think anyone would do it?

Simply put, FIRST is what you make of it.

It can further you in any way you choose... so choose wisely.

I don't mean this as an attack, but it's obvious from your post that you do a lot of work in the 'real' world and do not have much of an idea how much work goes into a software project. It sounds like you're trivializing Computer Science & Comptuer Engineering and removing them from the realm of engineering, quite a common reaction from those who don't know much about software projects.

Software systems are every bit as complex as mechanical systems and require as much knowledge & skill to engineer as any mechanical system. Think about how complex some of the giant software systems are. Cellular networks (had to use it) for example are made up of a dozen or more boxes (computers) passing messages back & forth. Each box is running dozens of processes (applications), most of which are talking to each other. Each application consists of hundreds of functions that have to perform tasks based on inputs from the other functions. Sound like a complex system that must be carefully & skillfully engineered from the ground up, or is it just a bunch of applications?

Sorry to take the thread off-topic, but I must always respond to people when they trivialize software engineering.

Now back to the original question. FIRST gives a great perspective of engineering: unrealistic deadlines, not enough resources, problems that can be solved in countless ways with the freedom to choose the best method, tremendous competition from your peers, plus a lot more I can't think of now. FIRST is an entire engineering project shrunk into 6 short, stressful, tiring, and rewarding weeks.

Mike

listen to these guys
 

I totally agree with Ken W.'s comments about what goes on in your first couple years of engineering school. You are learning the foundation, the theories behind the applications. Those concepts are very important because there will be many times in an engineering career where you go back to those fundamentals.

It is difficult, and competitive. But why would you expect anything less? Hopefully FIRST is giving the students an idea of what things are possible AFTER you get your engineering degree (not so much WHILE you are getting it).

Ken W. described the impact he has had on some truly impressive engineering programs. I would guess that most of the engineers involved in FIRST are proud of their accomplishments and their positive impact on society. So from where we are sitting (enjoying the rewards of an engineering education) its very easy to conclude that going to engineering school is worth the effort.

The great thing about FIRST is that students get to experience some of this while they are in high school and they can easily change the educational path they are on. I often tell people that I don't care if students involved in FIRST become engineers - we are just giving them the opportunity to decide for themselves (and I think enough of them will see the bright light at the end of the tunnel and go for it).

Good luck, Aaron - I think your careful thought about what you really want to do will serve you well, regardless of what career path you choose.

Ken
Mechanical Engineer since 1985

Re: listen to these guys
 

Well said Ken, many of the students that cross my path have gone into medicine, pre-med, law, law enforcement, trade schools, computer science, construction, art, auto-mechanic and even engineering.
And they all (mostly) felt that the FIRST experience was hard work but priceless and it allowed them to examine many new opportunities they didn't know about.

PS- This thread/postings is one of the best I've seen, I don't know there was so many old timer.... oh I meant Senior FIRSTers! ;)

Re: listen to these guys
 

This is so true. I almost dropped out of Engineering school myself after my second year. What kept me in was having been a summer intern between my first and second years. I knew I could handle and liked the work, it was school I wasn't sure about. But once we got past theory and into applications I enjoyed it more and started doing better in my classes.

However maybe we could, as a program, do a better job of helping students see this difference ahead of time. In any endeavor, (work, FIRST, marriage, school, long outdoor trips) it helps to know that while there will be difficult times, they are temporary. It helps to know that what you really need to do is hang on and gut it out in the short term, and the result will be a long term gain. Forewarned is Forearmed

Aarron, what you are going through is perfectly normal. Your advantage is that you have had a taste of what life can be like after you make it through the tough part. The real question is do you want what you have tasted bad enough to struggle through and get there? If yes, then press on If not, then think very carefully about what you DO want and pursue that.

Finally, if you get too bogged down with something you don't understand in your classwork, then post a question here and we will try and explain it. I remember I was having trouble with some things in Physics, I wasn't understanding how some problems were solved. I explained my frustration to a fellow student who was a year or so ahead of me. It turned out the Physics class was using mathematical techniques we hadn't been taught yet. In fifteen minutes another this resolved a problem I had been struggling with a whole quarter. We can do that here too.

There is nothing in FIRST that says mentoring has to stop when you graduate...

Re: Purdue - Engineering
 

Clark,

Great to see some more people at Purdue. When I started at Purdue I thought engineering was the thing, however at that point I had never actually met an engineer and really didn't know what they did but it seemed right. (No FIRST back then as far as I knew '91) However after 6 semesters in EE at Purdue I began to wonder, is this for me, is this what I want to do for the rest of my life. (Purdue is very intensive into the theory, many engineers from Purdue seem destined for research) For those of you who aren't from Purdue it is probably very similar to many Universities in that there is almost nothing remotely connected to Electrical until about your third year, until then you go through Freshman engineering which is the same for all disciplines then advanced math and physics. However I am definitely more of a hands on person, math didn't bother me but it doesn't have much 'fun factor' figuring out the attraction of a single atom to a infinite plane of atoms 1 meter away:eek: My father always told me to make sure I pick a career that I enjoy going to otherwise each day will seem like an eternity. Well what did I do, I started asking around and found the Technology department at Purdue and ended up transferring to EET. Immediately instead of reading about the theory of a transistor, I was designing circuits, learning how they work and how to troubleshoot. Then I was able to get into some MET classes and CNC machine and design. Later I found classes in PLC programming and control systems to be the most interesting and thats how I ended up at GM in the Controls, Robotics, and Welding group. At first I was concerned that the BS in EET would not be held as highly as the EE degree that I was working on, however it turned out nearly opposite. Many of the EET's and MET's are actually very prepared right away for application type engineering where as many of my co-workers with straight EE degrees had no/little experience in hands-on building, programming, debugging. If I could do it again, Purdue now has a program called CIMT (Computer Integrated Manufacturing Technology) which is exactly what I do and would have been perfect. (Control Systems, Robots, Manufacturing all in one).

So is Engineering right for you? It very well might be, however don't become an engineer because your parents want you to, or someone else says it is right for you. If you want to be an engineer talk to the engineers that you get to experience FIRST with, find out if they would do it the same way if they could or what might be a better pick for your special case.

If anyone out there wants any further info from me please drop me an email I would be happy to help.

My calculus teacher was talking to our class about why he does not give out any class participation points.(I am still in high school) He said,"Do you want an engineer to design your car's hydraulics brakes when he only passed the hydraulics course because his notebook was pretty?" Of course I still have no idea which degree I want to get. I will figure that out when I get to college.
I hate that. My physics teacher had to show us how to fudge certain problems because we had not taken calculus yet. Now that I have taken calculus I realized that all those physics formulas make sense from a mathematical perspective.
I am still very confused about the differnce between a degree in engineering technology and just plain engineering.

Engineering technolgy is geared more towards fabrication, assemlbling systems, and testing assemblies.

Electrical engineering is geared towards designing systems - designing end products.

For example, I spend a lot of time designing circuit boards at Xerox - if you take the back cover off a Xerox machine you will see boards in there that I designed (and you will void your warrenty :c)

when those boards are fabricated and assembled in a factory (not ours) they are tested as bare boards, and tested after they are assembled. A person with an engineering technology degree would be the one to design or assembly the componets of those test fixtures, and figure out how to test the board as fully as possible before it is assembled into a machine - its a field of science all unto itself.

An electrical technician (a 2 year degree) would be the person who wires up systems, or debugs parts of it when its not working correctly, or who debugs boards that fail the automated tests.

Warning to any freshman in engineering:

Many schools make the first year (and sometimes second year) fundamental classes extremely hard on purpose to weed out those who are not really there for the right reasons. My first Physics exam at Purdue kicked my butt and depressed the heck out of me because I never saw it coming and thought that I had flunked the test. In fact, a 35% on the test was considered a "C" grade. No one had gotten higher than a 65% on that test. I survived that class and a few others like it (2nd semester chemistry was even worse). After a while you learn to deal with the curve graded system and how to maximize your score on exams by not getting stuck on one hard problem. A straight "A" student in high school can easily become a "B" student in college if they do not adapt properly.

Any way, as others have said, do not judge whether you should stick with engineering based on early college classes, but rather on doing some soul searching and decide if what engineers do in real life turns you on. And of course, pick the engineering fields interest you the most.

Raul

PS - don't mind Mike Soukup. He is a little sensitive about SW engineering cause we tease him and pick on SW when the robot doesn't work. But he is right - it can be very complex.

What was it on??? How are supposed to learn anything by doing that.

I don't really think you're being fair to him. He had several good points, I'm a programmer myself, of both robots and computers, and that's anything but trivial. You try to weed through a bunch of files of source code and track everything, and if it's designed badly it will crash. Software engineering is every bit as much engineering as mechanical.

He was teasing Mike. They are on the same team and no harm was ment.
----------------------------------------------

Here's my take on the issue.

After being involved in FIRST for 3 years I "knew" what I wanted to do. I applied to a few different schools and was accepted into the Engineering programs at places like the Milwaukee School Of Engineering (MSOE), and the University of Evansville. Around mid April of this year, I found out that I wouldn't be able to attend MSOE due to the financial situation and a few other reasons. I ended up going to my last ditched choice, the Purdue School of Technology, but take classes here in my hometown of Kokomo and major in Computer Technology (Computer Engineering Technology), then eventually transfer into the Engineering School at Purdue later. Well I'm glad that I didn't end up at MSOE, otherwise I'd probably hate it. Over time, I've realized that Computer Technology was what was right for me and I'm sitting in a position that I will be able to move to West Lafayette and finish my degree at the main campus of Purdue.

My biggest mistake was that I assumed w/o researching or trying. Fortunately due to the fact that I couldn't afford going to a 32,000+ a year college, I could find out what was right for me w/o wasting money and ruining my GPA. I was lucky that I caught myself before making a mistake in how I am going to spend the rest of my life.


All I can say is exactly what everyone else said before with this exception:

Don't assume what you think is right for you, make sure you know what it right for you.

Sorry guys, stuff like that makes my neurons fire.

I absolutely HATE when I get the "Programming isn't that important" response, I get that stuff fromy my teachers a lot.

Don't mind Raul Olivera. He is a little sensitive about mechanical engineering cause we tease him and pick on mechanical when the robot doesn't work. ;)

Raul deals with software engineers every day, so I'm pretty sure he understands the importance of it. I know exactly what you mean though about it hitting a nerve. I felt the same way when I read the original post that Mike responded to.
What exactly do your teachers say about programming not being important? I'm sure there's more than a few engineers here that would beg to differ...

Re: Skewed Perspective
 

OK I have not been here in a while and I think will go ahead and give my oppion on this. For me FIRST was one of the few things that I did in high school that did prepare me for college. The jump from high school to college was the biggest one I ever had to take. Like many people said I was an outstanding student in high school, then I went to college and it was filled with outstanding students. It took me a whole semester just to figure out to deal with the whole college situation. In high school, I was lucky if even studied for a test the night before. Now in college I start studying for a test the day after the last one is over.

I went threw the exact same thing that Aaron is going threw the first semester of my second year. I had this Calc 3 class that was by far the lowlight of my time at college. I had serious thought of never being able to pass that class, but I stuck with it and threw a lot of hard work and long nights I somehow passed with a C. While I do think it was the worst class I ever took, its was also the best thing for me at that time. I now know that if I passed that class there is no class that I can't pass.

Like Raul said, it is really discouraging getting that test back with a 45% on the top of it, but then you see the grade distribution and realize that a 45% is the 5th highest grade in the class. And the point about weed out classes hits the nail right on the head. They are put in the program for exactly that, to get people that aren't totally interested and willing to put ridiculous amounts of time out of the program.

Back to FIRST. In my sophmore design class I finally realized the value that FIRST had. The class consisted of about 60 students from all of the engineering majors. We were broken up into 3 multiple disciplinary teams and given our asignment. We were told that we need to, design, build, and test a robot to go threw the sewer system and to take video of the inside of the pipes. We were also told we had about 2 months to do it. (sound firmiliar to anyone yet?) As the class progressed I was amazed at how closely it followed FIRST. I always felt one step ahead of everyone else in the class because I had already been threw basically the same situation 3 times.

Needless to say you can guess which teams robot stole the show on demo day. I have FIRST and a lot of hard work from my team to thank for that.

FIRST and everyone involved in it totally changed my outlook on engineering and I know I owe the program a ton for that.

As a FIRST year Engineering Student, I do not have the experience you all have expressed here. See FIRST is my motivation. Engineering is what I want to do. FIRST has given me experiences which I feel set me a part from my"peers." But to me, my real peers to me are those of you within the FIRST community. Also its what gets me through the day. Being a mentor on NUTRONs isn't just cause I love doing this, rather it is also an escape from the vigors of freshman engineering. (Erin, you didn't just read this :p) The classes you have to take your first year are to weed people out. It was the same for high school with the International Baccelaureate Program. The first year was to try to get people who didn't want to do it out. Like here at Northeastern, I think it is our chemstry course now but its probably physics next semester.

Aaron, if anything else, folllow your heart to wherever it leads you. That's another thing FIRST has taught me.