It feels like M.E. undergrad degree is a JOKE

[Curl]

I'm getting pretty annoyed at this point, I don't know if my department is a special case or if this is universal but the M.E. undergrad degree is a joke.
I'm pretty much done with undergrad M.E. courses, I just need to take 1 or 2 more ME electives and 2 more non-ME electives and I'm out. Looking back at the core classes, I don't see how it was worth showing up to class, let alone pay the tuition:


- Mechanics of Materials
A joke of a class, all you do is plug numbers into formulas (which are just datafits). Completely mindless.

- Engineering "thermodynamics"
I call this class turdmo-dynamics because it is a disgrace to the beautiful science of thermodynamics and the name should not be associated with this. All you do in this course is look up tables and memorize how to do specific types problems (which are all the same except for the numbers). They don't even teach you what entropy is, meaning that kids coming out of this class don't know what Temperature means (since it is defined in terms of entropy). Very sad indeed.

- Heat Transfer
Laplace's equation on R^2. Solutions to some oversimplified problems and some nondimensonal groups.

- Fluid dynamics
Energy is conserved equation (aka bernoulli's eq)
Reynold's number
Moody chart which is seldom better than 50% error.
Viscosity (which they don't explain but rather state it as "experimental fact")
Lousy derivation of Navier Stokes with 2 simple solutions.
Data fits and nondimensional groups which don't help you understand anything.
Oh and supersonic flow, which was cool, except the derivations were very lousy if at all present.

- System Dynamics
2/3 of a year spent on linear (often homogeneous) system of ODEs with constant coefficients.
Some Laplace and Fourier transforms without any explanations/derivations/proofs. Basically memorize the process and do it on exam/HW.

-Manufacturing Processes
One of the most boring classes ever, all qualtiative babbling on things that are either common sense or too simplified to be useful. All exams were short answer, basically a test to see if you were awake and memorized the vocab ("engineering terms" as they call it).

- Engineering Design
lol this class reminds me of 7th grade, completely useless and everything is either common sense or just dry talk. I get bored to tears after the first 20 min and start doodling or reading a math book.

- Formula SAE
Build a racecar? How about buy a racecar. This club is a joke, all they do is buy things and wrench them together, save for the monocoque which they actually lay out with CF. Other than that everything is bought or sent off to be made elsewhere. Oh and believe it or not, a steel plate bracket is a year-long project for some members.

- Undergrad "research"
I don't understand why the word "research" is in there. All you get to do is push some buttons, epoxy some junk, and make plots. And everything being "researched" has already been done with 99.999% similarity and is most of the time completely useless.

I know for sure some want to come in here and be mad because you feel I "dissed" your field, but the honest truth is that this is sort of depressing and it makes me feel like I wasted 3 years of my life (and money too). Does anyone feel the same way or gone through the same thing. Any thoughts appreciated.

 

[xxChrisxx]

Too long a rant to read properly but sounds like engineering to me.

The profession probably isn't for you.

 

[Archi]

I guess maybe you have wasted your life then. It's your field, if you don't like it then waste your life some more and get another degree. Frankly I'm not sure what you want, I had started toward physics/applied math, switched to pure math and still don't find anything very hard. Working on proofs versus plug&chug may be magically different for some, but I find both to be rather straight forward. Short answer, you could get another degree and rant about it, you could go to grad school and cry you didn't learn more, you could get a job and say its depressing and stupid, you could go live out in the woods and reject society. Let me know how it turns out.

 

[xxChrisxx]

Ok Curl, in the cold light of day here is some proper advice.

You seem really upset that engineering is not theoretical physics. Engineering applies scientific concepts to solve practical problems. As such every subject area above is a means, not an end.

Judging from your posts online you have an abrasive personality and severe ego, which means you probably aren't suited to working in a team of people.

Rather than let what you've done go to waste, I'd look to see how you can turn your engineering degree into something more physics related. Something where you can sit on your own and solve problems all day.

 

[shashankac655]

Education is a wonderful idea but it should remembered from time to time that nothing worth knowing can be thought.
-Oscar Wild

 

[cyborgyash]

Curl, i know these subjects, especially Fluid Mechanics, and some previous subjects you keep on resolving a components in the whole book. But, still they are interesting.
I always respected Mechanical Engineering and will continue to do so. Its not just simple Mechanical Engineering but rather i call it as "Royal Mechanical Engineering". ^_^

 

[AlephZero]

I know for sure some want to come in here and be mad because you feel I "dissed" your field, but the honest truth is that this is sort of depressing and it makes me feel like I wasted 3 years of my life (and money too).

No, you haven't "dissed" the field. You may have dissed your college, or dissed yourself.

Somebody once said that homo sapiens has a basic design flaw: They can all learn stuff, but many of them can't be taught. Think about that...

 

[brewnog]

Posting your rant on an internet forum is probably loads more productive than actually addressing any of the issues you raise; well done!

 

[gulfcoastfella]

You shouldn't think of an undergraduate engineering degree as the background necessary to build the first warp drive. I've heard a lot of people agree that most undergraduate education is meant to weed out those who don't really want to be in the subject. As for the difficulty of your undergraduate experience, get a respectable job and then come back and tell us what a breeze engineering is. If the job is too easy, then you're probably scared of a real challenge. If the job is too hard, then you might have found an actual engineering position, in which case you won't have time to reflect on how easy things are.

 

[Curl]

So what's the point of paying for college if all you do is learn simple things that can be learned from a book?

I picked M.E. because I want to design engines, and all the engines I designed were junk because I was uneducated. So I decided I need to study fluid dynamics, combustion dynamics, thermodynamics, kinematics/dynamics of rigid bodies, and material properties in order to make my designs better. That's why I went for ME in the first place. Guess what? I didn't learn any of that in the department: everything useful that I learned were from physics courses or from books.

 

[boneh3ad]

Sounds like you either missed the point of your degree entirely or simply didn't retain the knowledge you were given. No undergraduate engineering degree is going to give you the expertise to design an engine from scratch on your own. There will be quite a bit of additional learning and hands-on experience needed for that, and even then it wouldn't be easy. The point of an undergraduate engineering degree is to give you the tools to head in that direction and to instill the correct problem-solving approach in you so that when new, bigger problems arise, you know how to tackle them.

Calm down and quite whining to us about it. Instead, do something about it.

 

[edgepflow]

Moody chart which is seldom better than 50% error.

For piping systems with pipe, fittings, valves, size changes, entrance and exit effects, and so on, I have matched the calculated and measured flow rate to within 10% for several different arrangements. For the calculation, I used "curve fits" to the Moody chart and resistance coeffcients from Crane Technical Paper 410.

 

[gulfcoastfella]

The point of an undergraduate engineering degree is to give you the tools to head in that direction and to instill the correct problem-solving approach in you so that when new, bigger problems arise, you know how to tackle them.

I think that's the important part: when new graduates are told that leaving school isn't the end of their education, but the beginning, it's absolutely true. If your most valuable education happens after you leave school, then you can't expect an undergrad education to get you to your goal. You're still at the beginning.

So what's the point of paying for college if all you do is learn simple things that can be learned from a book?

That stuff is the foundation. You need it to get where you're going, but it won't get you there on it's own. This isn't an ME example, but consider the foundation of a house: you MUST have a foundation to build, but a foundation alone won't give you what the house will. Your undergrad is the foundation; now that you've got that done, it's time to start building the main item, your career. And that will last as long as you decide to keep at it.

 

[Archi]

I don't get what your talking about, but I may be a little slow. I don't magically gain knowledge by being enrolled in physics courses, but by reading my physics textbooks and attending lecture, and asking questions. While some of my physics classes have a lab attached, their aren't nearly as many labs that physics majors (at least at my school - undergrad level UNM) have to take compared with the number of labs that EE or ME majors are required to take. During those labs your getting hands on experience (what you don't get from reading a book), so your argument to me seems to reduce to kind of a weird statement like: "in physics I learn by reading books, in engineering I don't learn, cause the extra hands on experience doesn't help me and I don't read the books, cause I don't need to be in college to read books." Like someone mentioned above, it sounds like you just did not retain what you learned and don't want to review it or that you didn't learn much in the first place which could be proportional to the grades you received in your classes, but the problem certainly at least as you describe it, seem entirely independent of the major itself.

 

[russ_watters]

So what's the point of paying for college if all you do is learn simple things that can be learned from a book?

If you're really that smart that you could have learned that on your own, congrats. But here's the problem: nobody will believe that. So you need the degree as proof that at the very least, you are smart enough to earn a degree. Then once you get your first job, you can dazzle everyone with your brilliance. Just don't act like an arrogant tool, otherwise no one will hire you/want to work with you.

If you can't fix your attitude, you will have a tough time with your first few years of work. There is another thread going where a new engineer is unhappy that he's doing glorified data entry right now. He has to suck it up: that's how you get started. You do the grunt work while an experienced engineer teaches you how to use the model you are building.

 

[mender]

I can sympathize, my aborted music degree appeared much the same, a waste of my time and money. I took Statics and Dynamics as well and though I enjoyed some of it, found it repetitious as well. In both cases, I also was bored and wanting to get to the good stuff right away.

To the good stuff right away, I went out into the real world and did the jobs instead of training for them. Unfortunately, while I did get jobs in the areas of my interests, I found that my opportunities for advancement were quite limited. Without the letters behind my name, I soon found that no matter how well I did the job, I would never get beyond being a drone. If you think spending four years in college is aggravating, try a lifetime of cleaning up other peoples' messes and doing their work for them while they get promoted because of your abilities!

The alternative was to go into business for myself, which I did and have been doing whatever I please with no more limits on my advancement (I'm the president!). I get to work any and all hours of every and all days that I want.

If you want to get into the field and move up the ladder, jump through the hoops first and get your degree. If it is that easy for you (and it certainly could be), keep your interest alive by supplementing your education and expand your knowledge with your own personalized education plan. No rules saying you can't do research on your own time, and when you do get out there you'll be more up to date than most.

Hang in there and finish your degree; I didn't and that's high on my list of regrets.

 

[Lagpanther]

I totally agree with the fact that the Mechanical Engineering degree is now a joke. Although I have much respect for the many different subjects involved in learning Mechanical Engineering, things are just crashing down at the moment.

We also have an Engineering Design class which basically involves doing stuff we did in kindergarten. Last year we had to make a catapult to launch an egg, this year we are making suits out of tape and plastic to make people feel as if they are 60.

Things are coming to the point now where I can no longer tell my friends what I do at uni, the last time I sent an example of the **** we do in class to my friends, they laughed their asses off at how retarded we all were.

I'm getting the feeling that there's a big black hole in my mind, I feel as if there is so much I should know but in reality I don't have much of a clue about anything.

The starting post by Curl although quite truthful and honest doesn't present much of a solution to the dilemma of feeling as if you accidentally got shipped to a mental hospital. So far all I've been able to do is try to study on my own all the stuff I've missed out. But I'm rapidly getting exhausted cause there is just so much **** out there to know, combined with that all my time is being taken up by these ******** classes.

 

[RandomGuy88]

I totally agree with the fact that the Mechanical Engineering degree is now a joke. Although I have much respect for the many different subjects involved in learning Mechanical Engineering, things are just crashing down at the moment.

We also have an Engineering Design class which basically involves doing stuff we did in kindergarten. Last year we had to make a catapult to launch an egg, this year we are making suits out of tape and plastic to make people feel as if they are 60.

Things are coming to the point now where I can no longer tell my friends what I do at uni, the last time I sent an example of the **** we do in class to my friends, they laughed their asses off at how retarded we all were.

I'm getting the feeling that there's a big black hole in my mind, I feel as if there is so much I should know but in reality I don't have much of a clue about anything.

The starting post by Curl although quite truthful and honest doesn't present much of a solution to the dilemma of feeling as if you accidentally got shipped to a mental hospital. So far all I've been able to do is try to study on my own all the stuff I've missed out. But I'm rapidly getting exhausted cause there is just so much **** out there to know, combined with that all my time is being taken up by these ******** classes.

It sounds like you and the OP just went to crappy schools. I did my undergrad in ME and I feel like I learned plenty from my course work. Granted I learned a lot from working in labs and internships but I wouldn't have had the foundation to do that without my course work. Now I am getting my PhD in aerospace engineering and I am doing quite well at grad school. So the ME degree is not a joke in general, maybe just at your school.

 

[Curl]

It sounds like you and the OP just went to crappy schools. I did my undergrad in ME and I feel like I learned plenty from my course work. Granted I learned a lot from working in labs and internships but I wouldn't have had the foundation to do that without my course work. Now I am getting my PhD in aerospace engineering and I am doing quite well at grad school. So the ME degree is not a joke in general, maybe just at your school.

Well my "piece of crap" school got $2 billion endowment and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Washington#Rankings". Listen, it's got everything to do with the department.

Why is it that physics and math courses are 1000 times more rigorous than the ME courses? In physics or math they're not scared to give you a problem where you have to think a little bit (OMG! think?). I took Stat.Mech/Thermo from Physics in the same quarter as Turdmodynamics from ME; when I walked from my physics class to the engineering class it felt like I was walking from college to kindergarten. One problem from the Physics homework was harder (and more enjoyable) than the whole "thermo" course from ME. And they were all different problems that required different types of thinking: in ME all problems are exact copies of the examples in the book (how dumb is that?).

How are you supposed to "solve real problems" if the only things they teach kids to do is memorize how to plug numbers into a few equations? Give anyone in ME an original, abstract problem to solve and they won't be able to do it.

 

[RandomGuy88]

Well my "piece of crap" school got $2 billion endowment and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Washington#Rankings". Listen, it's got everything to do with the department.

Why is it that physics and math courses are 1000 times more rigorous than the ME courses? In physics or math they're not scared to give you a problem where you have to think a little bit (OMG! think?). I took Stat.Mech/Thermo from Physics in the same quarter as Turdmodynamics from ME; when I walked from my physics class to the engineering class it felt like I was walking from college to kindergarten. One problem from the Physics homework was harder (and more enjoyable) than the whole "thermo" course from ME. And they were all different problems that required different types of thinking: in ME all problems are exact copies of the examples in the book (how dumb is that?).

How are you supposed to "solve real problems" if the only things they teach kids to do is memorize how to plug numbers into a few equations? Give anyone in ME an original, abstract problem to solve and they won't be able to do it.

I meant your department. It wouldn't be fair to lump the rest of your school into the same pile of crap that your department is clearly in. I was a mech E and I am quite able to solve engineering problems on my own. If you don't feel you learning anything than do something about it. Quit, switch majors, switch schools, get involved in research...

 

[gulfcoastfella]

It really does sound like physics is your cup of tea, and definitely not engineering. Keep in mind too, though, that physicists need talented engineers. Perhaps you could combine your passion for physics and brief background in engineering to solve problems that others might not have insight into. Also, there are plenty of up-and-coming fields where a knowledge of both disciplines would be required, like nanotechnology for example.

Remember, too, that many scientists and engineers step back and forth between the two roles regularly. Many engineers conducting research are really doing science, albeit not the high-horse stuff that garners biographies and headlines, but is no less important. And on the flip side, some scientific advancement is held back by an inability to carry out a particular experiment due to engineering constraints. Remember that it took engineers to design the Hubble Space Telescope, without which modern astronomers/cosmologists/physicists wouldn't have mountains of data. Someone had to design and build every experiment that scientists have ever relied upon. Many of the designers of these experiments can't be exclusively categorized as an engineer or a scientist. Many of these crucial people dwell in this fuzzy area where physics and engineering are the same thing.

 

[ashnek]

Well all i can say is that your career is what you make of it, if you didnt like your undergad or you think it should be harder then just study the harder stuff by yourself or attending to other lectures or copying lecture notes from your physics/math friends w/e point is just change it to where you like it.

I had a pretty bad undergrad, in my country the main university isn't that good and i didint feel like going to other country so i just made my undergrad as i wanted, i used semesters to just tell me what to study as in solid mechanics and stuff and i would study the more "complete" way, it was pretty hard time wise but i enjoyed it and also you have to remember you are studying ME undergrad so always be aware that you have to be able to simple down what you know to answer the test, i remember a professor got angry at me because i used tensor notation in an exam.

Anyway don't let university define your career is what i mean, university is just made to produce someone good enough for the overall industry (some do it better because good undergrads means good base for postgrad and if lucky +$$$) and as you probably know not all ME undergrads want to design or do research, some want to manage or go to production or i don't know look cool, so they do it pretty simple, diversification is in your part. So don't argue about it just solve it and make it happen you ll hear that maaaaaany times and in the end doesn't matter all you know if you don't have that mentality as an engineer. If it was for me ME undergrad would be kinda like medicine, but that's just me

 

[boneh3ad]

I still think that rather than blaming the school or the department that it is more likely that Curl just failed to grasp the bigger picture. It is common that students can solve the problems but not apply the physics to other problems. It is especially common in students who study mainly by repetition of problems without really grasping the basics.

 

[Mech_Engineer]

Wikipedia: Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of people.

I'm tempted to reply to the OP line by line to tell him how he's wrong in all counts, but he's expressing an opinion, so he can feel however he wants. Engineering is the application of analysis and design to solve problems, so yes learning and applying equations is part of that. I found my classes in Heat Transfer, Thermodynamics, and Structural analysis to be very useful and I apply what I learned in those classes all the time...

In the end, you're only going to get out of your education the effort you put in.

 

[Curl]

I still think that rather than blaming the school or the department that it is more likely that Curl just failed to grasp the bigger picture. It is common that students can solve the problems but not apply the physics to other problems. It is especially common in students who study mainly by repetition of problems without really grasping the basics.

Then why do we call these people "engineers"?

Wikipedia: Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of people.

That's what I thought engineering was when I picked it as a major. This might have been true 50 or 100 years ago but now engineering turned into a bonehead-infested abomination. And they had to dumb down all the curriculum or else nobody would pass. It's truly a disgrace.

 

[iaing94]

That's what I thought engineering was when I picked it as a major. This might have been true 50 or 100 years ago but now engineering turned into a bonehead-infested abomination. And they had to dumb down all the curriculum or else nobody would pass. It's truly a disgrace.

A bonehead-infested abomination? Kind of offensive to a forum filled almost exclusively with engineers, or people with a large interest in the subject. Are you calling all engineers "boneheads"?

 

[boneh3ad]

Then why do we call these people "engineers"?

Because they possesses engineering degrees. Just because someone holds a piece of paper does not make them intelligent. That goes for all fields. You will find dumb doctors and businessmen and teachers and every other profession if you open your eyes and look.

That's what I thought engineering was when I picked it as a major. This might have been true 50 or 100 years ago but now engineering turned into a bonehead-infested abomination. And they had to dumb down all the curriculum or else nobody would pass. It's truly a disgrace.

On the contrary, engineering is still filled with brilliant people, you are just looking in the wrong place. There are many jobs that engineers can do, and not all of them require you to be brilliant. There are many, many people who are perfectly content to work in near-anonymity at a big company and live a comfortable life, and there is something to be said for that. For many of them, they don't have to be brilliant, but merely competent at their job. This is how it has always been. Of course the brilliant people will be harder to find. That is just common sense.

A bonehead-infested abomination? Kind of offensive to a forum filled almost exclusively with engineers, or people with a large interest in the subject. Are you calling all engineers "boneheads"?

Some of us are boneheads, and admittedly so. Being a bonehead doesn't exclude you from being a brilliant engineer though.

 

[s09]

I'm getting pretty annoyed at this point, I don't know if my department is a special case or if this is universal but the M.E. undergrad degree is a joke.
I'm pretty much done with undergrad M.E. courses, I just need to take 1 or 2 more ME electives and 2 more non-ME electives and I'm out. Looking back at the core classes, I don't see how it was worth showing up to class, let alone pay the tuition:


- Mechanics of Materials
A joke of a class, all you do is plug numbers into formulas (which are just datafits). Completely mindless.

- Engineering "thermodynamics"
I call this class turdmo-dynamics because it is a disgrace to the beautiful science of thermodynamics and the name should not be associated with this. All you do in this course is look up tables and memorize how to do specific types problems (which are all the same except for the numbers). They don't even teach you what entropy is, meaning that kids coming out of this class don't know what Temperature means (since it is defined in terms of entropy). Very sad indeed.

- Heat Transfer
Laplace's equation on R^2. Solutions to some oversimplified problems and some nondimensonal groups.

- Fluid dynamics
Energy is conserved equation (aka bernoulli's eq)
Reynold's number
Moody chart which is seldom better than 50% error.
Viscosity (which they don't explain but rather state it as "experimental fact")
Lousy derivation of Navier Stokes with 2 simple solutions.
Data fits and nondimensional groups which don't help you understand anything.
Oh and supersonic flow, which was cool, except the derivations were very lousy if at all present.

- System Dynamics
2/3 of a year spent on linear (often homogeneous) system of ODEs with constant coefficients.
Some Laplace and Fourier transforms without any explanations/derivations/proofs. Basically memorize the process and do it on exam/HW.

-Manufacturing Processes
One of the most boring classes ever, all qualtiative babbling on things that are either common sense or too simplified to be useful. All exams were short answer, basically a test to see if you were awake and memorized the vocab ("engineering terms" as they call it).

- Engineering Design
lol this class reminds me of 7th grade, completely useless and everything is either common sense or just dry talk. I get bored to tears after the first 20 min and start doodling or reading a math book.

- Formula SAE
Build a racecar? How about buy a racecar. This club is a joke, all they do is buy things and wrench them together, save for the monocoque which they actually lay out with CF. Other than that everything is bought or sent off to be made elsewhere. Oh and believe it or not, a steel plate bracket is a year-long project for some members.

- Undergrad "research"
I don't understand why the word "research" is in there. All you get to do is push some buttons, epoxy some junk, and make plots. And everything being "researched" has already been done with 99.999% similarity and is most of the time completely useless.

I know for sure some want to come in here and be mad because you feel I "dissed" your field, but the honest truth is that this is sort of depressing and it makes me feel like I wasted 3 years of my life (and money too). Does anyone feel the same way or gone through the same thing. Any thoughts appreciated.

Sounds like my experience with comp-sci undergrad and grad school. I just did things different, I looked at the field (which I knew I already enjoyed) and picked what I liked (nay, I absolutely LOVE this topic) the most: Artificial Intelligence

I then proceeded to keep what I learned in the back of my head and go with what I really loved.

 

[Travis_King]

I agree. Don't blame the fact that your school has a poor engineering department, and the fact that you did poorly in choosing a challenging and prestigious program, on the field in general.

My school provided challenging curriculum and prepared me for the continued education that is "industry". I use fluid dynamics and heat transfer equations literally every day, and the understanding of the fundamentals of structural design is imperitive to me successfully completing projects. And, my physics course supplemented my mech courses both in kinetics/kinematics (supporting structural dynamics courses) as well as electricity and magnetism (for my electrical design and control courses). And all of this has served me well in industry so far (obviously there are many things that I don't use given my particular field)

I'm sorry you had a bad experience, perhaps graduate school would be a nice experience for you. I would suggest applying to another school's program. The engineering industry offers tons of jobs that will expect the engineer to solve difficult and challenging problems by applying his anaylitical and critical thinking experience. But you have to decide whether you want to be an engineer or a theoretician/researcher.

 

[s09]

Because they possesses engineering degrees. Just because someone holds a piece of paper does not make them intelligent. That goes for all fields. You will find dumb doctors and businessmen and teachers and every other profession if you open your eyes and look.



On the contrary, engineering is still filled with brilliant people, you are just looking in the wrong place. There are many jobs that engineers can do, and not all of them require you to be brilliant. There are many, many people who are perfectly content to work in near-anonymity at a big company and live a comfortable life, and there is something to be said for that. For many of them, they don't have to be brilliant, but merely competent at their job. This is how it has always been. Of course the brilliant people will be harder to find. That is just common sense.



Some of us are boneheads, and admittedly so. Being a bonehead doesn't exclude you from being a brilliant engineer though.

lol, don't feed the negative vibe. Look, if you really enjoy what you want to do, you will find a way to do it. Currently I'm doing web-design and making web-apps. It's entertaining for my intellect to a point... now, artificial intelligence, give me a week and close me off from society for a while and you'll never see me again .

Life sucks, people suck, I just do my own thing that I really enjoy. I could tell you about the idiocies and unfairness that I endured, but that would take time away from me learning how to better code in Lisp :-) .

 

[s09]

I agree. Don't blame the fact that your school has a poor engineering department, and the fact that you did poorly in choosing a challenging and prestigious program, on the field in general.

My school provided challenging curriculum and prepared me for the continued education that is "industry". I use fluid dynamics and heat transfer equations literally every day, and the understanding of the fundamentals of structural design is imperitive to me successfully completing projects. And, my physics course supplemented my mech courses both in kinetics/kinematics (supporting structural dynamics courses) as well as electricity and magnetism (for my electrical design and control courses). And all of this has served me well in industry so far (obviously there are many things that I don't use given my particular field)

I'm sorry you had a bad experience, perhaps graduate school would be a nice experience for you. I would suggest applying to another school's program. The engineering industry offers tons of jobs that will expect the engineer to solve difficult and challenging problems by applying his anaylitical and critical thinking experience. But you have to decide whether you want to be an engineer or a theoretician/researcher.

To be fair, you're lucky. I'm not whining, but rarely do you get to do what you studied. The key to overcoming this is to find something that you can do in your spare time that you enjoy (or be very aggressive and find the job that you *truly* enjoy ;-) ).

I like computer science and love artificial intelligence. Compilers bore me to death and the school that I graduated from had a crappy AI program, so I bought some books, found stuff online and roll how I want to roll, because I'm awesome that way :-) .

No one will ever drop in your lap what you want or enjoy, got to get it yourself. Reach for the skies and grab the sun bro, even if you got to stand with your bare-feet on a cactus :-) .

 

[gulfcoastfella]

http://youtu.be/YEbztw3pW3A

 

[mtow78]

to be honest, if you think your engineering degree is a joke then I think you're at the wrong university.

I go to UNC-Charlotte (the 49ers, NOT the tar heels) and it is the most underrated school in the nation when it comes to engineering. We compete with Duke and NC-State but our engineering department is small and we all have great relationships with our professors.

I had the chance to pursue engineering at Virginia Tech but UNC-Charlotte's program looked much more appealing.

I hear a lot of whining, probably coming from people that aren't making good grades

 

[stripes13]

mender in my opinion that's the best answer so far towards this cats rant.

 

[Shaun_W]

Give anyone in ME an original, abstract problem to solve and they won't be able to do it.

Give anyone from maths or theoretical physics a real world problem and they won't be able to do it. There is a reason that many engineering firms hire exclusively engineering graduates and not maths or physics ones. This is not me capping on maths and physics; it is just a statement of fact. Maths and physics students might be better at solving abstract problems, which many may find much more enjoyable. But in the real world you don't tend to come across "abstract" problems. Real world problems are very, very rarely about manipulating complex maths and solving equations.

Anyway it doesn't sound like engineering is for you. There is nothing wrong with that. It sounds like you are better suited to solving abstract problems from textbooks than real world problems. Again, there is nothing wrong with that, it's just unfortunate that in this world no-one will pay you to do that.

 

[bugatti79]

I agree...sounds like engineering is not for you. Why not try Quantum Field Theory for yourself...put the 'many worlds theory or copenhagen interpretation' to bed...that will stop you from complaining and keep you quite...I doubt he's listening anymore anyway. :-)

 

[shashankac655]

I don't know what is wrong with some people here ,personally i feel mechanical engineering is great! ,it is one of the oldest and broadest of all engineering branches ,although major developments took place during and after the Industrial revolution ,mechanical enigineering is thousands of years old!. I joined the course very recently,I too go to a college where things are thought properly but i don't care ,i study on my own.

The work of mechanical engineering ranges from the depths of the ocean to outer space !

http://www.mechlook.com/2009/08/history-of-mechanical-engineering/

If your college is not good, try to motivate yourself by knowing more about history of this branch.

 

[Curl]

Give anyone from maths or theoretical physics a real world problem and they won't be able to do it. There is a reason that many engineering firms hire exclusively engineering graduates and not maths or physics ones. This is not me capping on maths and physics; it is just a statement of fact. Maths and physics students might be better at solving abstract problems, which many may find much more enjoyable. But in the real world you don't tend to come across "abstract" problems. Real world problems are very, very rarely about manipulating complex maths and solving equations.

Anyway it doesn't sound like engineering is for you. There is nothing wrong with that. It sounds like you are better suited to solving abstract problems from textbooks than real world problems. Again, there is nothing wrong with that, it's just unfortunate that in this world no-one will pay you to do that.

"Real world" problems ARE abstract. The only problems engineering kids learn how to solve are those EXACTLY like the ones in the book because they can copy the examples in class or the ones on page XX in the book.
When do you ever, ever, ever in "real world" do you get a problem that's EXACTLY like the one you did in your homework? Never. That's why you must learn to THINK rather than plug&chug into formulas. The degree never teaches you to solve real world problems, all you do is punch numbers in a calculator without ever explaining to you what's going on. Sorry mate, but that's not what engineering is.

 

[Travis_King]

Yea, but do you understand that that is a problem with your school's engineering department?

Besides, the engineering curriculum is designed to teach students the fundamental principles of engineering/mechanics/structures/whatever. If you go to a good school, you will have problems which force you to think; which force you to look elsewhere for information. As an engineer you will never have to derive the bending moment equation for a beam supported and loaded in a hundred different ways, you will have to simplify and design with contingency. Engineering is about optimization and practicality. If your school hasn't taught you that then, again, find a new program.

(edit): by "good" school, I mean a school with a challenging engineering curriculum which prepares the student for industry by teaching him/her how to think like an engineer as well as providing the fundamental principles.

Also, Plug-and-chug is merely a way to measure student's ability to either: (a) Grasp concepts, or (b) study super hard. A good program will have a healthy mix of both plug-and-chug as well as problems which are simple mathematically, but require complex and critical thinking (abstract) to solve. In this way, the program will weed out the people who cannot grasp the concepts, even those that can usually get by with over-studying.

 

[boneh3ad]

It isn't the school. It isn't the department. It's you. The professors an department aren't there to hold your hand and make sure you know more than just plug-and-chug. They present the material and assign problems but it is still your responsibility to learn it and understand it. You are an adult now. Take some responsibility. I learned how to tackle abstract and not-by-the-book problems quite effectively.

The bottom line is stop expecting handouts or for the school to do the work for you. Take some responsibility for your education and if you feel deficient, work to get to where you want to be.

 

[xxChrisxx]

"Real world" problems ARE abstract. The only problems engineering kids learn how to solve are those EXACTLY like the ones in the book because they can copy the examples in class or the ones on page XX in the book.
When do you ever, ever, ever in "real world" do you get a problem that's EXACTLY like the one you did in your homework? Never. That's why you must learn to THINK rather than plug&chug into formulas. The degree never teaches you to solve real world problems, all you do is punch numbers in a calculator without ever explaining to you what's going on. Sorry mate, but that's not what engineering is.

You can teach a person what a brush is, you can even teach them how to paint.
You can't teach someone to be an artist.

 

[Curl]

If it is just the department then why are "engineering" books also dumb just like the classes? For Systems class we used a book by MIT professors:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0132108089/?tag=pfamazon01-20

On page 507 here's what it says: "The derivation of the expressions for computing the coefficients in a Fourier series is beyond the scope of this book, and we simply state without proof..."

ROFL, thanks for making me memorize the result without telling me at least how you got there. In a sophomore level mathematics course they have no problem showing this derivation.
There are more examples of this kind of BS in every book, including heat transfer, materials, thermodynamics... lol in "engineering" thermodynamics books they don't even tell students what entropy is.

I don't have a problem studying on my own, I learned 10000000X more science/math on my own than from these courses, and I'm fine with that. However, I have a problem paying them money when they're not teaching me jack. It's $3700 per quarter this year, and if it wasn't for the scholarships/grants I got I'd rage really bad at this point.
Basically you're paying to get a paper that says you passed some dumb courses. It's about $30,000+ for the degree, that's a dam expensive piece of paper...

 

[iaing94]

I learned 10000000X more science/math on my own than from these courses, and I'm fine with that.

Proof?

Also, feel this is appropriate

 

[AlephZero]

On page 507 here's what it says: "The derivation of the expressions for computing the coefficients in a Fourier series is beyond the scope of this book, and we simply state without proof..."

ROFL, thanks for making me memorize the result without telling me at least how you got there. In a sophomore level mathematics course they have no problem showing this derivation.

ROFL - and what makes you think that IN REAL LIFE anybody uses the elementary formulas in a sophomore level math course to calculate Fourier coefficients?

Over the decades I've seen a few people who thought they "knew everyting already" and tried to invent a "real world" version of Fourier analysis based on that much (or little) knowledge, and ended up with nonsense. More fool them for not accepting there are lots of things that you don't NEED to know every last detail, because they have already been done properly by other people.

Most engineers using signal processing as part of their daily work don't need to know exactly how to calculate Fourier coefficients, any more than most people who use a computer every day don't need to know how to design an multi-core microprocessor chip.

 

[Shaun_W]

"Real world" problems ARE abstract. The only problems engineering kids learn how to solve are those EXACTLY like the ones in the book because they can copy the examples in class or the ones on page XX in the book.
When do you ever, ever, ever in "real world" do you get a problem that's EXACTLY like the one you did in your homework? Never. That's why you must learn to THINK rather than plug&chug into formulas. The degree never teaches you to solve real world problems, all you do is punch numbers in a calculator without ever explaining to you what's going on. Sorry mate, but that's not what engineering is.

I very much disagree with your post, apart from homework problems not being the same as real world problems.

But that's irrelevant. Real world problems are not like engineering textbook problems, but they are much closer to engineering textbook problems than abstract maths and physics textbook problems. And I can tell you this from seeing real world problems.

Now obviously a university cannot give you real world problems to solve in exams because it's just not possible.

But they can give very basic approximations of real world problems. And this does help you learn the theory behind what goes on in solving a real world problem. It is entirely your fault if you try and rote learn problems without properly understanding the theory behind them.

On page 507 here's what it says: "The derivation of the expressions for computing the coefficients in a Fourier series is beyond the scope of this book, and we simply state without proof..."

Because that's what happens in real life. Engineers don't need to know the proofs behind the maths that they use. If someone has already proven it then that's fine. Less time doing the stuff that's already been done and more time on solving real world problems.

Now if you want to learn the abstract theory behind what you are doing then that's fine. But the real world is all about making as much money as possible, and having people derive the expressions for calculating the coefficients in a Fourier Series before actually calculating the expressions themselves is inefficient as its been done many, many times before, and thus does not make as much money as possible.

But if it interests you then you are free to learn how to do it in your own time. I actually used to work with a chap who did just that (an MSc in maths degree in his free time), but it didn't actually help him in his day job.

 

[xxChrisxx]

I very much disagree with your post, apart from homework problems not being the same as real world problems.

Real world problems are not like engineering textbook problems, but they are much closer to engineering textbook problems than abstract maths and physics textbook problems.

Good points in this post.

And further to this, an engineer tries to get the problem as close to a textbook case as possible whilst still being true to life. It's all about knowing or more often feeling if an assumption is valid or not.

 

[mtow78]

first of all, the reason why people hire engineers is because we are capable of learning new concepts quicker and more efficiently than anyone else.

I could take up any type of mechanical engineering job and not have a clue what to do coming into the job, but I guarantee you the company knows that I will be able to grasp the concepts and quickly learn. Engineering is more of an adjective than a major title when describing someone in my opinion.

 

[Travis_King]

ROFL, thanks for making me memorize the result without telling me at least how you got there. In a sophomore level mathematics course they have no problem showing this derivation.

...That is an introductory system dynamics text...How detailed do you want them to get? Engineering is like any other subject, you can learn the basics in an introductory course, and you can learn the material in depth in higher study. The more detailed you get, the more limited your study of the field will be, however. As stated above, you'll never have to derive the calculations. They already exist, and are obviously fairly trivial to understanding the material, so just take them and put a bookmark in the page.

In the "real world" if you have to design a piping system, your company isn't going to want you to derive the equations for 3D turbulent flow in a pipe to calculate exactly the head loss. You'll just look at a book with approximated values already there and make a close estimate. Then you'll fudge that a bit anyway, just to be safe.

As I said, engineering is also about learning what needs to be considered meticulously and what does not. It's about time management. Don't dedicate too much time to increase accuracy beyond the level where it is value added.

 

[iaing94]

If it is just the department then why are "engineering" books also dumb just like the classes? For Systems class we used a book by MIT professors:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0132108089/?tag=pfamazon01-20

On page 507 here's what it says: "The derivation of the expressions for computing the coefficients in a Fourier series is beyond the scope of this book, and we simply state without proof..."

ROFL, thanks for making me memorize the result without telling me at least how you got there. In a sophomore level mathematics course they have no problem showing this derivation.
There are more examples of this kind of BS in every book, including heat transfer, materials, thermodynamics... lol in "engineering" thermodynamics books they don't even tell students what entropy is.

I don't have a problem studying on my own, I learned 10000000X more science/math on my own than from these courses, and I'm fine with that. However, I have a problem paying them money when they're not teaching me jack. It's $3700 per quarter this year, and if it wasn't for the scholarships/grants I got I'd rage really bad at this point.
Basically you're paying to get a paper that says you passed some dumb courses. It's about $30,000+ for the degree, that's a dam expensive piece of paper...

It really sounds like you want to be doing a Maths or Physics degree. Engineers have no need to prove the formulae they use, as long as they work in a practical situation.

 

[Curl]

It really sounds like you want to be doing a Maths or Physics degree. Engineers have no need to prove the formulae they use, as long as they work in a practical situation.

here's a practical situation:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=544619

I'm an engineer, not a theorist and I say it won't work.

lol

say what?