Eating lead in 2000

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Posted by Joe Johnson.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]


Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.

Posted on 6/1/99 8:05 PM MST


In Reply to: the best of both worlds... posted by Daniel on 6/1/99 4:43 PM MST:



Daniel (and Frank, and many other very talented students),

What began as a complement to you all, ended up insulting you. I apologize for that.

I really do respect your talent and admire your engineering skills.

But...

Believe me, you don't know what you say when you claim that you are an engineer already. You may be doing some of the tasks of an engineer (and quite well by the robots I see), but there is much to learn.

Yeah, I know that learning never stops, but when it comes to engineering, you have hardly begun.

I used to think that my undergrad education gave me nothing other than a stamp on my forehead similar to the stamp on USDA Grade A beef. I have since come to believe that my undergrad education gave me the tools and the understanding I need to be the great engineer I am.

I had the talent and the inclination. I did not have the tools nor the understanding.

Finite element, Diff EQ, Fluid Dynamics, Feedback Control Theory, Linear Systems, Thermo, Heat Transfer, Vibrations, ...

The list of tools is astounding.

Even more important that the tools is the core understanding an undergrad education gave me. Lacking such understanding, whole worlds of important problems are unapproachable and unsolvable. Is not this the role of an engineer as well, to provide insight into the areas of a problem that may proof fruitful while steering clear of blind alleys?

Is a surgeon simply someone who can cut up living meat, remove some bits and sew the mess back up again? Would someone who is able to perform a few simple operations succussfully be a surgeon because they meet one of Webster's definitions of what a surgeon does? I think that there is more to it than that.

So... I am going to go out on a limb here and say that no I don't think it is possible to make a high school student into an engineer in 6 weeks, no matter how inspiring the program is.

I will grant you that 6 years in not enough for some, but 6 weeks is not enough for any.

Joe J.