[sdiy] Should GaTech go bananas?

[David Moylan]

I graduated from the State University of New Jersey, aka Rutgers 
University and in all my undergrad there we had very little in the way 
of hands on building.  We were exposed to breadboards, but most of our 
labs were atomic in the sense that one week was spent examining BJTs, 
next FETs, next OpAmps etc.  I can only recall one class where we 
actually had a project that spanned multiple classes and went from the 
design through build phase.  I think the program could have benefited 
immensely by having more hands on experience and more goal oriented 
learning.  That is, give the kids a concrete motivation to learn how 
BJTs work even if it's as simple as "so I can make this LED blink"

Dave Moylan

Tim Parkhurst wrote:

> Having very limited teaching experience (assisted teaching AutoCAD and 
> drafting at a local JC), I can still offer up a few observations:
> 1) Many students choose a certain field not because they love it, but 
> because they think they'll make a lot of money at it. They're not 
> really interested or motivated, and they don't have that "spark" that 
> makes them want to go the extra mile and learn above and beyond what 
> they're exposed to in class.
> 2) EE majors are focusing more and more on simulation software rather 
> than actually building circuits and blowing things up. I've told this 
> story before, but I recently asked a couple of EEs I used to work with 
> if they owned a breadboard or any test gear. One said no, and the 
> other asked "What's a 'breadboard?'" Kinda sad, actually.
>