Engineering: Intelligence and Skill Required?

[robphy]

Man I'll have a major problem with this when I go to college. I used to stay home in high school during presentation days. I would just do all the written work, get a zero on the presentation part; it would take a huge chunk out of my final grade.

Well... since you now realize that this is a problem, you have a chance to change.
You have to learn to "sell" your ideas to others to gain respect from others... likewise, you should show others respect...and you might just learn something from them as well.

 

[wildman]

Interesting sequence of words here: "genius", "really brilliant", "very smart"...

Ok, genius is too strong of word. I will admit that. But I am not going to back off of really brilliant. The reason one has to be brilliant in theoretical physics is the competition. There are very few well paying jobs and a lot of people trying to get them. It is a bit like professional sports. It is not enough to just be talented or just be hard working or just be lucky. You have to have all three in spades. A person who isn't brilliant just doesn't have a chance. They will simply be run over by the competitors who are brilliant. Who is going to hire a hard working average person when they can hire a hardworking brilliant one?

 

[f95toli]

In order to be a good theoretical physicist you only need to be good at theoretical physics. And the latter does not neccesarily mean that you are "brilliant".

I can think of quite a few examples of scientists that probably fullfil most of the "requirements" for being called brilliant but still are only moderatly succesfull in their respective fields.
I know of one theoretical physicist in particular (I won't tell you his name, but he works on interfaces in solid state physics) who tends to write very long papers (10-20 pages in PRB and similar journals) with lots of complicated math; the results are usually long, complicated formulas and a few graphs. He is undoubtly very good at what he is doing.

Is he succesfull? Not really.

The problem is that he tends to start from a VERY idealized model of the materials (that are in reality very disordered) and since he is only doing analytical calculations he has to make a number of simplifyng assumptions in order to get anywhere. Hence, his results are almost always completely useless since they never agree with real experiments. As far as I know he rarely collaborates with others and has a VERY limited understanding of what can be done experimentally (I suspect mainly because he is not interested)
Also, very few people actually read his papers because they are so complicated that it would takes days to read them carefully. This also means that few people actually refer to his work.

I can also think of a few theoreticians that are probably not as "brilliant" but are neverthless more successful. The key to their success is that they are good at identifying important problems (that are sometimes "easy"), collaborate well with other scientists (including experimentalists, meaning they can often suggest ways to test their new ideas) and are good at communicating their results (and write papers that people actually read).

 

[asd1249jf]

I think IQ, SAT, and GPA are highly uncorrelated...

Exactly my point. Just because you have a high IQ doesn't mean you'll be successful in life. Same reasoning applies here, just because you have a low IQ doesn't mean you can't be an engineer or physicist.

 

[wildman]

I know of one theoretical physicist in particular (I won't tell you his name, but he works on interfaces in solid state physics) who tends to write very long papers (10-20 pages in PRB and similar journals) with lots of complicated math; the results are usually long, complicated formulas and a few graphs. He is undoubtly very good at what he is doing.

Genius simplifies. The lesser mortals complicate.

 

[J77]

People who debate genius will never make the grade.

 

[trinitron]

"I think IQ, SAT, and GPA are highly uncorrelated..."

I think SAT and IQ have been shown to be correlated. e.g.:

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00687.x?cookieSet=1&journalCode=psci

 

[Poop-Loops]

Because they are both tests in which you get higher scores the more you take them.

The SAT tested nothing of my smarts, only my test-taking abilities.

 

[abdo375]

I don't think that being good engineer has anything to do with your IQ level.
Last summer I applied for a summer job at a RnD center here in Egypt and there was this simple IQ entrance exam that I had to take for the interview and let's just say that I manged to score an IQ just above mental retardation, anyhow for some reason they wanted to me to continue with the technical interview and I ended-up getting the Job for the RnD position. and at the end of the two month period my manager (who was head of the RnD Dept at Alcatel) told me that I would make a great engineer one day and that he was impressed with my work. So I think that pretty much proves that high IQ doesn't work.

P.S Although I never knew if he meant that he was impressed by my work based on my IQ level :).

 

[trinitron]

"Because they are both tests in which you get higher scores the more you take them.

The SAT tested nothing of my smarts, only my test-taking abilities."

Yeah, I hear that SAT is also correlated to tennis, because you get better at that each time you practice it too. Oh wait...

 

[muppet]

"Because they are both tests in which you get higher scores the more you take them.

The SAT tested nothing of my smarts, only my test-taking abilities."

Yeah, I hear that SAT is also correlated to tennis, because you get better at that each time you practice it too. Oh wait...

Lol... nicely observed
My 2c: someone with a decent brain and a capacity for hard work will outperform someone who is perhaps normally considered more intelligent any day of the week in exams and solving problems. But those with higher IQs tend to be those who develop the deepest understanding of the physics they're playing with the fastest.

 

[RufusDawes]

I still don't know.

I work with a bunch of engineering students. They're all really cluey. I'm basically interested because of the awesome things they can do with math. They seem to know everying.

 

[symbolipoint]

This response insprired by these quotes:

Lol... nicely observed
My 2c: someone with a decent brain and a capacity for hard work will outperform someone who is perhaps normally considered more intelligent any day of the week in exams and solving problems. But those with higher IQs tend to be those who develop the deepest understanding of the physics they're playing with the fastest.

I still don't know.

I work with a bunch of engineering students. They're all really cluey. I'm basically interested because of the awesome things they can do with math. They seem to know everying.

Intelligence is a matter of moderate or strong interest, and energy; the willingness and action to study and learn or acquire something persistantly; and effectively because of this persistance.

Think about that. The people who excell academically seem to have energy and they are very interested in what they are doing. The fact they they may become very "cluey" could be a result of having either studied something more often or longer than most other people, or just finding something easier to learn and use than other people. In either case, they integrate their knowledge and skills.

What happens when someone tries only hard enough to earn credit but no harder? Not as much assurance of excellence; possibly weaker prerequisite knowledge for what comes next.

 

[dontdisturbmycircles]

From my experience in 1st year engineering at a decent Canadian university(University of Calgary), the best students ARE clearly very intelligent. You obviously cannot do well in any technical field if you are not at least moderately intelligent.. I hope that's obvious.

The people that are failing out right now are the ones who underestimated the work load and continued to work jobs and party 3 times a week. I have a personal theory that a lot of these people are in it for the money. They see that prof engineers get paid rates comparable to those of doctors and choose engineering for that reason alone, maybe they were confident with math in HS. Money won't motivate you to pull 40 hours of homework a week, at least not for long. The enjoyment of the material has to be there. The subject matter really is not that difficult, if you did well in high school and really understood what was going on as opposed to symbol pushing, I think you would be fine as long as you are willing to put in the hours. You can't master 5 technical courses doing under 20 hours of homework a week (or at least no one I know can)

 

[muppet]

Intelligence is a matter of moderate or strong interest, and energy; the willingness and action to study and learn or acquire something persistantly; and effectively because of this persistance.

Think about that. The people who excell academically seem to have energy and they are very interested in what they are doing. The fact they they may become very "cluey" could be a result of having either studied something more often or longer than most other people, or just finding something easier to learn and use than other people. In either case, they integrate their knowledge and skills.

What happens when someone tries only hard enough to earn credit but no harder? Not as much assurance of excellence; possibly weaker prerequisite knowledge for what comes next.

I'm not sure about equating intelligence and enthusiasm. Lots of people go to university because they want to get a degree and they want the student experience, rather than because of a desire to use the specific subject matter that they learn there in later life. I'm thinking of one person in particular on my course who has actually come to hate physics, but still *excels* academically because she works really hard, presumably because she knows she's more than capable of getting a first class honours and thinks it might be a good idea!

 

[Werg22]

The entire notion of intelligence is centered around comparing individuals. I think it's best for an individual not to give too much importance to intelligence let alone comparison with others. Who knows? Some possesses genius but are totally unaware of it. Also, it works the other way around, some are idiots but are also unaware of it.

 

[laurelelizabeth]

I've heard that IQ's aren't that accurate

 

[jhicks]

Don't you even think for a minute that any number is any more significant than your personal efforts. Sadly it is a realization that can't be taught - only experienced over time.

 

[leon1127]

"I think IQ, SAT, and GPA are highly uncorrelated..."

I think SAT and IQ have been shown to be correlated. e.g.:

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00687.x?cookieSet=1&journalCode=psci

SAT is a biased measure from its design because it takes the maximum of the score you made in a period of time. I actually wrote a paper about that. As long as you are decent test taker with unlimited money supply, you will get higher marks.

The meaning of "uncorrelated" in my previous post isn't the statistical meaning. There are many outliers in the relations between on all 3 of them. I know too many genius who think they are too clever for SAT, high GPA holders who can do nothing but turn in homework on time and etc.

My point is that the design of GPA and SAT is in such a way that you can archive high marks without high IQ. Of course IQ does help because it is a measure of learning ability after all.

 

[fineline.]

no I don't agree.I am an electrical engineer,working for about 4 years,and have seen many many engineers,almost electrical and computer engineers,a few mechanical engineers too.
what makes some one a good engineer is a good knowledge of abstractions he learned in math and physics,and most important,being curious and patient with his work,project etc he is involved in & try and guess anything he can to make the thing work .In many cases he doesn't need to be very knowledgeable,but being knowledgeable +having a normal IQ(105 to 115 to say) helps him Asking the RIGHT question's, and that's what guiding him to success.Asking right question needs you to be good in analyzing problem to find out where most probably is the fault.Higher IQ helps one to ask better questions so find his path more easily.but having good communication skills and curiosity can compensate for.but generally , no need to over 120 IQ.

 

[SublimeGD]

Have any of you actually taken an IQ test? I think everyone should google IQ tests and read a little about it. It seems like everyone is spouting off comparing IQ tests to SAT tests and other standardized tests... apples and oranges. There is some b.s. to the IQ test, but it has some merit. For example asking "general knowledge" questions like the country with the highest population doesn't measure my definition of intelligence. But there's also sections where you have to solve little puzzles and stuff, which I think is a pretty good indicator of intelligence. If guy A is consistently more proficient at solving little mind puzzles that guy B, then clearly guy A has got something that guy B doesn't. Is it intelligence? Can any of you define intelligence? We use the term all the time but can you really define it?

Also, on Feynman... I watched a video of him talking on youtube a while ago. I remember him saying something along the lines of "I have a limited intelligence, but I channeled it in a very specific way."

 

[muppet]

My parents got me to take the Catell test when I was about 8, so yes. The weird thing about IQ is that what it actually measures is the ratio of a person's mental age to their chronological age, multiplied by 100. So an 8 year old with a an IQ of 150 should be roughly as mentally developed as an average 12 year old; when he's twenty, as the average thirty year old. But what that means when you reach 40, 50 years of age and you're as intelligent as the average 60, 75 year old is beyond me. I think it was actually developed as a measure of how rapidly you would progress as a child, rather than measuring some objective intelllectual 'capacity'.

 

[shawshank]

Go on YouTube and type Feynman on Honors, it's a good interview.

To be honest, I hate anyone who dares call himself more intelligent than any other human being. You can say that you have more interest but not intelligence. everything is a matter of interest. When I was a video game freak on the computer 24/7, I couldn't give a crap about grade 10 science and I ended up getting 68 in that course but now in grade 12 I just come to class and I listen, i don't write too much down but I listen with interest and I'm getting 98% (highest mark in any uni course in our school).

 

[muppet]

Thread death... possibly because everyone who comes on to post ends up YouTubing Feynman?

 

[Phred101.2]

OK is it arrogant for someone who is more intelligent (and maybe has figured this out for themselves, like) to say so to someone else, you think? If it isn't any use, why is it used by so many people to measure whatever it is that gets 'measured'?
I was supposedly a 'bright kid', and I remember getting a high score when I was 7 which got me into a special class, but I also did poorly at math at high school (only scraping through at 15yrs at the end of year, and missing by miles at the end of the next years maths exam). I always did really well at English and languages, English especially I didn't really need to study (which convinced my class teacher I would fail the class miserably, but passed with high marks despite not paying much attention in class).
I have done magazine tests and still do pretty well, but as I'm saying, it doesn't guarantee anything much.

You have to be interested, and that was my problem with an ordinary education, I guess I didn't realize it was so boring until I got one.

 

[xAXISx]

My parents got me to take the Catell test when I was about 8, so yes. The weird thing about IQ is that what it actually measures is the ratio of a person's mental age to their chronological age, multiplied by 100. So an 8 year old with a an IQ of 150 should be roughly as mentally developed as an average 12 year old; when he's twenty, as the average thirty year old. But what that means when you reach 40, 50 years of age and you're as intelligent as the average 60, 75 year old is beyond me. I think it was actually developed as a measure of how rapidly you would progress as a child, rather than measuring some objective intelllectual 'capacity'.

Actually that's not completely true. Original IQ tests that were designed specifically (and only) for children use this method. This IQ test was completely useless for adults, hence why all modern IQ tests are normalized for the average adult population. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ for a good explanation of the topic.