General > General Technical Chat
An observation on homework problems
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rhb:
@coppice

I think that is sound.  In the case I cited at the beginning, the class hotshot from my Cal I class and I were not looking at the problem properly.  We had gotten too good at applying certain methods and failed to step back and rexamine the problem.  Once the TA pointed out how to approach it we were off and running.

In that case, the 4 hours each of us had spent beating on the problem didn't teach us anything about solving that problem.  It should have taught us that sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to step back, do something else and then take another try.  We were a little too good at it for our own good and not yet mature enough to back off.

Later in life I had many instances where I was trying to find an error in a program for several hours without success, looked up and saw it was close to time to go home.  As I was a contractor I came and went when I pleased.  So I did not sit around until 8 hours had passed. 

About 5 minutes from the office there was an overpass where US 59 connects to beltway 8.  I came to refer to the crest of that overpass as "the point of epiphany" because of the number of times that when I reached that point I realized what the problem was.  I'd go in the next morning and fix it in a few minutes.

@Mr. Scram

It the current college students are better communicators I'd like to know on what basis that is.  I don't see even basic command of English. We are living through a repeat of the Tower of Babel story.

There is certainly a lot more material that must be mastered to be competent in today's world.  I don't think a BS in EE today is anything but a technician's degree.  Geology, even 80 years ago required an MS for professional status.  In geology you had to look at a lot of geology.  The problem today for engineering is you have to master about 30-35 semester hours of mathematics.  I would not suggest anyone go into engineering today as a profession without getting an MS. I think that the students would be far better served by having time to actually learn the mathematics well rather than pressing through it as quickly as possible. 

The plain fact of the matter is that after you graduate from school, even with an MS or PhD, you really don't know very much.  You've been exposed to a large range of ideas, hopefully have acquired some skills, but knowledge, the ability to use information to solve problems, really doesn't come until you have done it for several years on a daily basis.
tornados:
Wow! Good job! I got 80, and I was very proud of myself
paulca:
If I had to do my day job without being able to google stuff.... it would take 10-100 times longer to get anything done.

What I learnt at Uni is still partly valid, but significantly out of date.  On a day by day basis I have to deal with problems that weren't even defined a month ago using technology that didn't exist a year ago. 

The real painful ones are the ones so new, or so industry bespoke that you can't google them.  Sometimes they don't even have proper documentation and your only course of action is to read the code.

This is to say that you can't learn everything in advance, what you need to have is a good problem solving strategy and be expecting to learn new things each and every day.

The really painful part in my trade is that resource managers take this a few steps too far.  It's is extremely unpleasant to be assigned to a project as a consultant, the customer being charge $1000+ a day for your expertise when... in all reality, you didn't even know what technology existed until your manager told you what your next project would be.
paulca:
Oh and a small story.

In the penultimate year of high school my attendance was around 15% and my presence in the "Technology" class was, literally 2 classes in that year.  I showed up to the end of year exam and when marked it was 84%.  The class went nuts and cried foul.  How could I get 85% when I was never in school and had only attended 2 classes out about maybe 35?  They demanded my paper be remarked.  So... they remarked it, a different teacher gave me 86%.  I didn't do a shred of homework or even a shred of class work.  The material was just plainly obvious to me.

It was around the time I kinda realised where my career should be pointed.
tggzzz:

--- Quote from: paulca on August 13, 2020, 11:11:31 am ---If I had to do my day job without being able to google stuff.... it would take 10-100 times longer to get anything done.

What I learnt at Uni is still partly valid, but significantly out of date.  On a day by day basis I have to deal with problems that weren't even defined a month ago using technology that didn't exist a year ago. 

--- End quote ---

Yebbut, there is little real fundamental change; it is mostly variations on a theme with some semantic sugar and a colour change.

Software language examples: C# is Java, Delphi is Pascal, Go's channels are from Hoare's CSP, Objective-C is Smalltalk.

Hardware examples: the myriad different MCUs, all programmed in C.


--- Quote ---The real painful ones are the ones so new, or so industry bespoke that you can't google them.  Sometimes they don't even have proper documentation and your only course of action is to read the code.

--- End quote ---

Those are the fun ones. There you have to think of the fundamentals, and apply techniques first used in other domains.

Example: to reduce noise I needed a narrowband filter, so I used a technique described 20 years earlier to make a filter with a Q of 4000 using 10% components.

Fast forward 30 years, and always wanted to revisit that N-path filter to do something new. I was most irked to find Tayloe had already got there with his mixer :(


--- Quote ---This is to say that you can't learn everything in advance, what you need to have is a good problem solving strategy and be expecting to learn new things each and every day.

--- End quote ---

Precisely.


--- Quote ---The really painful part in my trade is that resource managers take this a few steps too far.  It's is extremely unpleasant to be assigned to a project as a consultant, the customer being charge $1000+ a day for your expertise when... in all reality, you didn't even know what technology existed until your manager told you what your next project would be.

--- End quote ---

Not so precisely :) . The customer is paying for your expertise in bringing previous experience to bear. Part of that experience is knowing how to rapidly become the local expert in the tech and the customer's problem domain. (Plus being able to spot the customer has asked for an inappropriate solution because they asked the wrong question.)

Remember the old joke about the technician that repaired a car by hitting it with a hammer[1]. The customer objected to the £10 invoice for one thwack. The technician agreed it was wrong, and changed it to "Thwack: £1. Knowing where and how hard to thwack: £9".

[1] I've done just that, to a starter motor :)
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