Skewed Perspective

FIRST General Forum
1

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.

2

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.

3

*Originally posted by JosephM *
**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

4

*Originally posted by Aaron Lussier *
**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. **

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.
:frowning:

5

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.

6

*Originally posted by Rich Wong *
**An opinion from the other side of the fence:
I am in my 23rd year as an electrical engineer with a BSEE and MSEE. The FIRST program from my experiences 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 is College 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.
:frowning: **

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 :slight_smile: 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 :slight_smile:

7

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 :slight_smile: it’s just college :cool:

8

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.

9

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.

10

*Originally posted by KenWittlief *
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.

We don’t? :yikes:

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

11

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.

12

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.

13

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?

14

Simply put, FIRST is what you make of it.

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

15

*Originally posted by EStokely *
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.

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

16

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

17

*Originally posted by Ken Patton *
**
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).

Ken
Mechanical Engineer since 1985 **

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! :wink:

18

*Originally posted by Ken Patton *
**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).
**

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…

19

*Originally posted by Clark Gilbert *
**I’m at Purdue right now as a freshman and I thought that Engineering at Purdue would be the thing for me, until I wasn’t 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 didn’t 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. **

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.

20

Lastly. I hope engineering programs are rigorous and hard. I feel the same way about pre-med, pre-law…etc…

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.

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.

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.

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.

I am still very confused about the differnce between a degree in engineering technology and just plain engineering.