Hopeless engineering graduates fail grade school electrical problem

[timothyaag]

I dunno, I hate uni too, it's a total government scam-job (self-education is heaps better)... but really, you guys make out like "anyone" can sign up for an engineering course? Isn't there any screening anymore? Do uni's just take anybody nowadays?

When I was at uni, ~30 years ago (uni was free back then lol), engineering insisted on the highest high-school test results... business studies took the dumbest bottom dregs lol... (Teaching was 2nd bottom - horrendous, but explains a lot).

Doesn't everyone know the "good student" type? Aces everything academically, but utterly hopeless at applying simple concepts in real life? I can't say whether that's a lack of confidence thing or actually any sign of their intelligence though.

[CatalinaWOW]

I've always had the belief that to recognised as a valuable engineer, you must be able to solve problems *before* they happen, rather than after they occur!

An extremely valuable engineer solves all the problems before they occur.
A valuable engineer solves the vast majority of problems before they occur, and solves the remainder quickly after they occur.
A useful engineer solves most of the problems before they occur, and solves most of the remainder quickly.

Unfortunately we still aren't down to the average engineer.

[Zero999]

I took in an AA cell, LED and piece of wire to a customer of mine this week where I've been doing some work recently, and gave it as a puzzle to about a dozen guys in their IT department. Only one person knew that the LED was polarised, but couldn't remember how to tell. Mostly they were all thinking too hard, I kept having to tell them that there was no trick, but the LED would only work one way around.

I'd be surprised if an LED would light at all when run off an AA cell, given V_F of a visible LED is normally higher than 1.5V, even at very low currents.. Perhaps a deep red LED, with a low V_F will run off fresh alkaline battery for a short length of time?

If I were set that task I'd question it before even trying. I'd ask for two AA cells and a resistor or small transformer, resistor and transistor, to make a Joule thief circuit.

[John B]

They almost inevitably asked people who were able to answer the problem, however the point of the video is to tell a story, to tell a parable. They took what footage they needed to say what they wanted to. I dislike this approach as I find it dishonest and manipulative, and doubt the students know and agree 100% to what they are being portrayed as. Surely they would have had to sign a release form though?

[xrunner]

Why should they show the students that can answer the question - it's entirely expected that a graduate from an engineering school can answer the question. The point is the ones that should, that cannot.  That's like making a video of drivers that are asked what to do when a stoplight turns red. Almost all know what to do - the scary part is the few that can't answer the question. Those are the ones you show in the video.

What each of them should have done, if not familiar with the problem or components, would have been to diagram the problem and ask for the specifications of the parts. That's what they should have done, but I suppose that would have been too embarrassing for them ... or perhaps they didn't learn that either.

[R005T3r]

oh university students not being competent ? what a surprise. I need not remind you of the albeit many of the few people I have dealt with that can't use their brains in conjunction with what they are taught. The most amazing was the guy that claimed he could not use all 10 bits of an ADC in a uC while whinging about the resolution.

Unfortunately having the engineering degree does not imply you are a good engineer...

[Simon]

oh university students not being competent ? what a surprise. I need not remind you of the albeit many of the few people I have dealt with that can't use their brains in conjunction with what they are taught. The most amazing was the guy that claimed he could not use all 10 bits of an ADC in a uC while whinging about the resolution.

But you can't use all N bits of an ADC due to the noise floor?

Yes that is true. However he never pointed this out. It was an obstinate I can only use 8 bits as in I can only have an 8-bit variable. It's almost like the guy had no idea that 16 bits exist in 8-bit microcontrollers. His general circuit design was also an absolute disaster and in fact the moment the customer mis-connected a wire they blew it to smithereens.

In response to somebody mentioning previously that all self-taught people seem to shit all over academics this is because there are a lot of academics out there who think they know what they are doing and they don't. The problem in our society is that if you go to school and get a qualification i.e. you prove once that you could solve a particular problem given to you in an exam you are given a certificate which then entitles you to things that it is quite possible you are not capable of doing. I am a classic example. I don't have the greatest electrical education I know that but without me my employer would be pretty stuffed and to be honest they don't actually understand half of what I have done for them yet I am paid less than what apprenticeship jobs are advertised for. But in order to be an apprentice I would need at least a HNC this is what I am currently studying and hopefully a HND. But there are an awful lot of people that possess these qualifications and obtained them simply by memorising material and be good at maths. They couldn't make you a circuit to save their lives yet they will get the job in preference to somebody who does know what they are doing but does not have this special piece of paper. This is why non-academics distrust academics, this is why in some countries you can buy qualifications because if you have letters after your name you are respected and this is why some institutions give out honorary qualifications. You only have to look at how we consider qualifications to understand that they are a complete and utter farce. Yes it is extremely essential to study the subject you propose to be an expert in and formal education can be a good idea which I can tell you because I am studying. Yes I can say that what I am studying is good foundation. But just because a guy is good at maths and can solve an electrical network for you does not mean to say he will make a good design engineer.

[Sal Ammoniac]

Doesn't everyone know the "good student" type? Aces everything academically, but utterly hopeless at applying simple concepts in real life? I can't say whether that's a confidence thing or actually any sign of their intelligence though.

In real life I've sometimes found that an engineer's worth professionally is inversely proportional to their GPA at university. The ones with really high GPAs tend to study to ace the test and not to really learn the material. The good ones study to learn the material, and while this often also results in good test scores, it doesn't necessarily correlate. Another factor might be cheating. In the Internet Age it's really easy to cheat your way to high grades, yet know nothing about the subject.

[rrinker]

 A perfect example of Simon's last post is Bob R from Batteroo. So sure his PhD made him right, and someone like Dave and the rest of the world using actual math and science couldn't POSSIBLY be right, or know what they were talking about because he, mighty Bob R, was a PhD! His fantastical invention was not to be understood by mere mortals.
 And we see where that has led....

[tszaboo]

Doesn't everyone know the "good student" type? Aces everything academically, but utterly hopeless at applying simple concepts in real life? I can't say whether that's a confidence thing or actually any sign of their intelligence though.

In real life I've sometimes found that an engineer's worth professionally is inversely proportional to their GPA at university. The ones with really high GPAs tend to study to ace the test and not to really learn the material. The good ones study to learn the material, and while this often also results in good test scores, it doesn't necessarily correlate. Another factor might be cheating. In the Internet Age it's really easy to cheat your way to high grades, yet know nothing about the subject.

No, cheating is actually solving a problem. I dont have a degree, and I dont want to put up with all the crap there is with those you-will-fail-4-times courses. If an engineer managed to cheat a passing grade, I think he can keep it.
Also, putting as little effort to a problem as possible (some people call this being lazy) is also a very good engineer's trait.

[Simon]

Doesn't everyone know the "good student" type? Aces everything academically, but utterly hopeless at applying simple concepts in real life? I can't say whether that's a confidence thing or actually any sign of their intelligence though.

In real life I've sometimes found that an engineer's worth professionally is inversely proportional to their GPA at university. The ones with really high GPAs tend to study to ace the test and not to really learn the material. The good ones study to learn the material, and while this often also results in good test scores, it doesn't necessarily correlate. Another factor might be cheating. In the Internet Age it's really easy to cheat your way to high grades, yet know nothing about the subject.

No, cheating is actually solving a problem. I dont have a degree, and I dont want to put up with all the crap there is with those you-will-fail-4-times courses. If an engineer managed to cheat a passing grade, I think he can keep it.
Also, putting as little effort to a problem as possible (some people call this being lazy) is also a very good engineer's trait.

I sense some Captain Kirk but that was a film.

[IanB]

No, cheating is actually solving a problem.

But it doesn't solve the problem of educating yourself. If you cheat on a test, you are merely cheating yourself.

[Berni]

No, cheating is actually solving a problem. I dont have a degree, and I dont want to put up with all the crap there is with those you-will-fail-4-times courses. If an engineer managed to cheat a passing grade, I think he can keep it.
Also, putting as little effort to a problem as possible (some people call this being lazy) is also a very good engineer's trait.

I would agree with that on cheating.

The presented problem is filling out a piece of paper with answers in a way that results in the highest possible score. So if two people get the same score on a test but one of them spent 1/4 the time because he cheated, that would make that guy was more effective at solving the problem, because he used less resources to accomplish the task with identical performance.

At the faculty that i went to, the way some lecturers got around this is letting everyone bring one A4 sheet with them. I really liked that due to myself being bad at memorizing things, nor having the patience for it. So where i was not allowed to have that A4 sheet i would find ways to bring in notes (Usually on a graphing calculator as this is engineering so i had one a lot of the time). But thing is in everyday problem solving you have access to literature, but if you don't understand the concept you are not going to get a solution even if you have all the literature in the world at your disposal. So to successfully cheat in engineering classes you usually still need to at least understand the concept behind the subject. This understanding sticks with you for many years, the very specific equation for calculating the specific thing on the test you forget after weeks (But you can google it up anytime).

But as much as i would like to blame the education system for educating useless engineers, the thing is that one is "born" to be an engineer, not educated to be one by a institution. The good engineers are raised to be curious about how things work from a young age, always driven to solve problems. You can educate someone as much as you want but if they don't have a desire for problem solving its not going to help very much. Sure you might get an "engineer" who knows exactly how charges move inside a transistor to make it work the way it does by hammering it in to there head, but they will not have the thought process in place to associate the properties of a component with it being applicable in solving a presented problem.

[Sal Ammoniac]

No, cheating is actually solving a problem.

But it doesn't solve the problem of educating yourself. If you cheat on a test, you are merely cheating yourself.

And it doesn't solve the problem of honesty. I wouldn't knowingly hire an engineer I knew cheated. I would not be able to trust that he wouldn't also do shady things on the job.

[Money4Nothing]

All of the philosophy of "maybe something is wrong with how we learn" of whatever by the video narrator....was all total crap.

There's lots of reasons why a college graduate wouldn't be able to light a bulb with a battery and wire, and it has nothing to do with how people are educated.

[djnz]

While some of us like the narrative that college students are not learning enough these days and there is not enough hands-on stuff and whatever, the video is in no way a faithful representative sample of the state of things, especially at places like MIT.

[Simon]

I think the bias of the video is well acepted.

[bson]

The "light bulb" they were provided with was not a 1.5v one,or certainly, was unlike any bulb for that voltage which I have ever seen.

That's what I thought too - that's a mains G7,E7 or such candelabra bulb, and it's not going to discernibly illuminate with just a tiny battery. But then I wondered maybe a 1.5V battery would result in a faint glow?  Does this count as illuminated?

[timb]

The "light bulb" they were provided with was not a 1.5v one,or certainly, was unlike any bulb for that voltage which I have ever seen.

That's what I thought too - that's a mains G7,E7 or such candelabra bulb, and it's not going to discernibly illuminate with just a tiny battery. But then I wondered maybe a 1.5V battery would result in a faint glow?  Does this count as illuminated?

That reminds me of something that happened when I was in 5th grade (about 11 years old). We were supposed to bring in simple science projects and teach the class how they worked. This other kid decided, at the last minute I guess, he was going to do the "Battery, Switch, Bulb" project to show how electricity worked. He had a 12V lantern battery, a knife switch and a standard 120V mains lamp socket and 100W bulb.

I tried to explain to him that it wasn't going to work, he disagreed. I asked if he'd even tested the setup, he hadn't. I offered to take a bulb out of a flashlight I kept in my backpack and attach wires to it for him, but he refused.

Of course when he got up in front of class, it didn't work. Then the teacher asked me to help the kid troubleshoot it, which I did (and managed to get working with my flashlight bulb).

The worst part is this kid's father was an EE; he worked at a local nuclear power plant no less!

(For my project, I did a two transistor LED flasher, explaining the basics of how it worked, then all the kids stuffed their own protoboards and I taught them all how to solder them. I got an A... :smug:)

[lmester]

But the number of engineering students who had done DIY electronics before they studied it was always small, like a handful at best, even in my days of the late 80's and early 90's. They were easy to spot, they were reading Electronics Australia.
I can't vouch for before that though, but it was likely a bit higher?

I'm about 10 years before you. There were not very many electronics hobbyists. I have a friend that's about 10 years older than me. He saw the same thing when he was in school. It looks like this hasn't changed much at least from the 1960's.

Did the graduates in the video snooze through their physics course? One of my courses was physics.  Physics was a core course. everyone getting a tech degree from my school was required to take physics.  Electricity was one of the topics. When  the professor started talking about electricity, he used a battery, light bulb and switch for a basic demonstration of an electrical circuit. Similar to the circuit needed in the video. He went on from there and finished with a quick blast of mesh analysis. Lucky for me, I'd already had mesh in an electronics class  I got tagged to help other students with electricity. When I was in organic chemistry class, I picked the chem majors brains These core courses do have a purpose. You need to know more than just the specific field that you're being trained for.

I think that the light bulb video shows a problem that's caused partially by how we train people. I don't remember any courses that were intended just to teach problem solving and troubleshooting skills. Yes, you must have some of these skills or you'll never graduate. You do your first nodal analysis problem and get the wrong answer. Did you screw up the basic math? Apply the procedure improperly, etc.  Completely missing were troubleshooting  techniques specifically for electronic circuits.  I was taught why it works but not how to determine why it's not working.

I have a B.S.E.E.T. degree. When choosing a degree, my high school counselor told me that the E.E.T. degree was intended more for service and maintenance work. The E.E. degree for higher level design work. An E.E.T. program that did not have a course specifically for electronics troubleshooting is a big problem. That's what you're expected to do in this job. I don't know if this was just an omission in my school or if it's common for E.E.T. or E.E. programs not to teach electronics troubleshooting.


Anyone want to comment on this? Did your electronics training include any courses for troubleshooting?


I was doing DIY electronics in high school. That made the career choice really easy.

It makes me wonder how some people choose a college degree. I'd think that everyone would try to pick a field that they had some knowledge of and that was interesting to them. In school, many of my peers started out with no knowledge of electronics. In the first class where we built a circuit, the instructor had to start out with a hand out for component identification. This is a resistor. Here is how to read the color code, etc. I consider myself very lucky that I was able to start out with some basic electronics skills. I also knew that I'd enjoy an electronics job. It'd really suck to go through 4 years of college or two years of tech school only to find out that you don't really enjoy doing that type of work.

Finally, I believe that there are some people that just don't "have it" when it comes to troubleshooting skills. If you don't have some basic ability, all of the training in the world won't fix your problem.

I went through several auto mechanics before I found one that could quickly and cheaply repair my car. Some had poor troubleshooting skills. They just threw parts at the problem until they fixed it. I paid for those parts My current mechanic has good troubleshooting skills. I can see this just by his description of how he found the problem with my car and how he repaired it. This guy has no college or tech school training. He is very good at automotive troubleshooting. College training is a plus. It won't get you there without some basic problem solving brain power .

[Berni]

...

Anyone want to comment on this? Did your electronics training include any courses for troubleshooting?


I was doing DIY electronics in high school. That made the career choice really easy.
...

Not really but one teacher tried to teach us how to design stuff at his lab part of the subject. Here is how that went... (Long read but gives good insight)

So this was the final year of my Bachlors in EE (Direction Automation and robotics since i liked it being hands on) as many of you are likely familiar lab time is usually that you have to print out a giant PDF that has a task for each day in the lab along with instructions on how to do it and usually has tables and charts to fill out with measurements and such. So there was the subject called "Sensor Technology II" and on the first day in the lab the teacher walks in with a box of various sensors and asks us to join together in groups of 2. Then each group would grab one sensor from the box and was tasked to make it work. The standard goal was to hook it up to a PC and have it display its data. The only limitation was that it has to be built from components on a PCB. The groups are encouraged to ask for help if they get stuck at any point, no matter how stupid the question.

Equipment for etching PCBs is provided, they can use any PCB design software they like, and they had access to common electronic components, but could ask for pretty much any component within reason. The sensors on offer ware a wide selection of cheap things like photodiodes, thermistors, thermocpuples, strain gauges, digital thermometer ICs, PWM output accelerometers etc.

Soon after questions rained down on how to connect them and the answer they got is to look at the datasheet. Then they did not know how to google a datasheet. Once they ware provided with the datasheet for there sensor it mostly went quiet as they poured over there PDFs. They found example schematics in them and that part went well, but then there would be questions of what voltage power supply it needs. Once it came to the connect it up to a PC part the teacher offered them a USB to UART chip and a PIC microcontroller since that's what he was familiar with. The USB part went well since there is a example schematic in the datasheet, but they had no clue what pins on the MCU to connect to what. Eventually everyone had a schematic. Then getting to the PCB part it went mostly well apart from some people not knowing how to use Eagle (It is confusing software so il give them that). Making and soldering the PCBs went pretty well since pretty much everyone came from a "high school" EE program so everyone knew how to solder, not a very pretty looking soldering job but it worked.

So once they had PCBs they had to program them. This should have also went well since everyone was taught C programing under windows in "high school" some of us ware thought assembler on MCUs too. Then in this very program they ware thought C on MCUs last year. While some of them ware held back by there boards not working as they should and had to fix them, but the ones that did start with programing had no clue whatsoever what to do. A lot of them did not even finish by the last day in the lab since at this point they lost hope and didn't even ask any questions anymore so lab time resulted mostly in wasting time on the internet.

After just about 1/4 of the lab classes went by most students said that from all the lab time they spent they hate this lab the most.

So what did i do at that lab? Well i chose to be in a group with a friend of mine that is also a electronics hobbyist, we chose the PWM output accelerometer  cause it seamed like the coolest of the sensors. Pretty quickly threw together a schematic and PCB in Altium. Wasted a bit more time on programming since we ware hunting a weird bug where the reading would occasionally go crazy if the X and Y acceleration was close together that later turned out to be a hardware problem (runt PWM pulse), the accelerometer just needed a 100nF on the breakout board, the one on the PCB was too far. Since we ware so far ahead we also made a GUI for it in VB.net. So at the end we both said that this is by far the best lab time we ever had in school.

There was also classes involving industrial PLC programming that ended up not terribly successful and pretty disliked by the students due to having to think up a solution rather than follow a bland step by step list of measuring tings and writing them down (I hated those).