What mathematics software should engineering students use?

[matqkks]

What mathematics software should engineering students use? Is it correct that much of the engineering industry relies on MATLAB, making it the tool many graduates will encounter in professional settings?
How does SageMath compare? It is a free package that supports both numerical and symbolic computation and can be installed on various platforms. Could it become more widely used because it is freely available?

I am an academic who has taught engineering mathematics, and taught the engineering module with Maple. Many students and colleagues have indicated that Maple is not commonly used outside their mathematics courses, so I am exploring possible alternatives.

 

[jrmichler]

My jobs have been mostly analyst, problem solver, mentoring young engineers, and project engineering. I have used MATLAB extensively. I have looked at other packages, but ended not using any of them.

My actual calculations were mostly algebra and trigonometry, with some calculus. I have done a few numerical solutions, but have never done an analytical solution, to differential equations. I used ABAQUS FEA software in graduate school, and SolidWorks FEA on the job. Excel spreadsheets got a lot of use.

My recommendation is that engineering students should be proficient with Excel and MATLAB.

 

[matqkks]

Thanks

 

[FactChecker]

I can't speak for the entire "engineering industry", but I worked in the flight control department of a major aerospace company. My boss once told me that he would not consider hiring anyone who could not use MATLAB.

 

[russ_watters]

As a student you should use whatever software your professors require. I used Matlab in school. And Excel. I still use Excel but haven't used Matlab since college. It's tough to know what you'll use unless you know exactly what field you'll go into.

 

[marcusl]

I work for a large aerospace company and Matlab is almost universally used. Skill in Matlab is a requirement on most engineering job postings here. For reasons of support and security, you won’t find freeware used in industry.

The company has a few Mathematica licenses, but I know of only one engineer who uses it. Maple is not used.

 

[gmax137]

I would say you should count on learning whatever is used where you end up working. Meanwhile, like @russ_watters said, use what your professors expect you to use.

 

[marcusl]

The OP is an instructor asking what SW he should require his students to use.

 

[gmax137]

The OP is an instructor asking what SW he should require his students to use.

Sorry, I missed that somehow.

Where I worked (now retired) we didn't use what I would consider "mathematics" software. Most simple one-time calculations were often done with Excel (or Lotus 123, before the mid 1990s lol). Complicated analyses (e.g., numerical solution of thermal-hydraulics) were typically done with Fortran codes. When I started working (1980) new hires were expected to know at least some Fortran. Nowadays, new hires are expected to learn it on the job. Knowledge of UNIX can be very helpful, but again, most new hires learn by doing. That said, there are many positions that don't require much (or any) real programming.

 

[Astronuc]

What mathematics software should engineering students use? Is it correct that much of the engineering industry relies on MATLAB, making it the tool many graduates will encounter in professional settings?
How does SageMath compare? It is a free package that supports both numerical and symbolic computation and can be installed on various platforms. Could it become more widely used because it is freely available?

What software to learn based on what engineering companies use depends on those engineering companies, as the experience of others shows. I believe many use MATLAB, and Excel for some applications.

I actually used MathCad, which evolved from Maple. I started with MathCad 8, then 9, for personal use at. home and work, but then later on, I jumped to MathCad15 in my last job. MathCad was developed by However, MathSoft was purchased by another company, Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC), and PTC decided to change MathCad to something called PRIME, which was sufficiently different that legacy MathCad problems would not necessarily work. So, the organization migrated away from MathCad, which only older staff used. PTC now offers MathCad Prime, but I have not used it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathcad
https://www.ptc.com/en/products/mathcad
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MATLAB - claims a large user base
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfram_Mathematica

Younger staff were introduced to MatLab, so that software is now used for a lot of engineering work. Some use Mathematica.

Engineers who do drawings use a drafting software, and at the moment, I don't recall the software. At another company, SolidWorks was used for drawings and setting up finite element models for analyses. Some FEA modelers uses ANSYS while others used ABAQUS.

More recently, folks use mutliphysics computational systems, e.g., COMSOL or STAR-CD/CCM+, as well as MatLab, depending on the problem. In the DOE lab system, there is an internally developed system MOOSE, which is a multiphysics computational system. There are standalong Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software, but most multiphysics software now incorporates CFD modules.

Otherwise, folks use Python, C++ and/or Fortran for engineering applications (modeling and simulation)