For Mentors Only: Inspiring Youth

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by Stuart

most of the students your working with are smart . . very smart, they have probly been smarter than their teachers for some time now, and have probly never come across a problem that they could not solve.
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the problem become is that you have 2 very smart very confidant people, argueing about their own personal abilitys.

yes, there it is: ego. One person who keeps tripping over his own ego, or two people whos egos are so big they keep crashing into each other.

Engineering and science is not about being smart. You dont get paid based on your IQ, or how many things you have memorized, or what you can invent on your feet.

You get paid for results. Sometimes the super bright young engineer gets so caught up in recognition and credit for his work, whether or not he will get a bonus or a raise, that they go off the deep end, quit their job in the middle of the project and go where someone will recognize what a 'genuis they are'. The run off to someone who will stroke their ego.

Then who finishes the work that was left behind? Usually its your engineer with an average IQ who comes to work everyday, follows a logical proceedure, and doesnt worry about whos getting all the glory. In other words, the guy without the ego problem. The guy with his eyes on the whole project. The guy who understands than when his task is done there are twenty other people downstream whos tasks are just beginning.

With engineering, the thing is, there is no right answer. There is not even a best answer. There are always many ways to design and build and test a system. In the end it doenst matter whos idea was the most clever or creative. What matters is who got the project done, on time, on budget, with few bugs and errors in the final product.

The end user (the drivers in our case) are not going to know if the code in the RC is brilliantly written, clever and concise, all they will know is "when I push the joystick the robot goes forward...."

and the dead-honest truth is, thats all the end user really cares about.