[sdiy] Can your *really* teach "Engineering"?

[Florian Anwander]

Hi Paul

> Whenever I have been stuck and needed a 'real' engineer - my 
> qualifications are unfortunately in political science - I have found 
> that the ONLY people who were any use to me, were people who had a 
> history of DIY (in any field) before the went to university.
Since 10 years my day job is in a software company. We also do 
apprenticeship for software developpers and unix admins with an official 
degree (I don't know whether this kind of education exists in Australia 
or US). The typical apprentice, which we employ, is around 22 year old, 
has started a university study, but he decided to give up on it. Usually 
the school marks are not the best. So other companies would call him a 
looser.

The definite prerequisite for us on it is: he has to make clear that he 
is doing some kind of hobby DIY. We do not ask for it in the application 
interview. It is necessary, that he is talking of his own impetus about it.
Also it does not matter what he is doing - let it be developping 
VisualBasic programs, running a linux server, building synths, reparing 
old clocks or modding cars; no matter what, but he/she MUST have a deep 
interest and some experience in solving problems on his own.

Florian

PS: did I ever mention, that I am employed as "Software Engineer", but 
my university degree is in political sciences...