[sdiy] Help for a budding young engineer...

[David G. Dixon]

> In my experience, getting a degree is a unique challenge of it's own and
> does not necessarily have any relevance to the real world. This of
> course depends largely on faculty. Without know what school he is to
> attend (and a URL for the schedule/calendar) it would be hard to
> recommend direction.  However, ANY hands-on experience with electronics
> and programming (and math, music, etc.) will be an asset.  Most
> engineering students don't know what a resistor looks like.  Open stuff
> up. Fix stuff. Break stuff. Build kits. Buy a soldering iron. Try some
> Arduiono or a real microcontroller project. learn a programming
> language, even if it's a web one. It's all about exposure to real
> things. That will make the abstract world of the EE degree digestible.

As an engineering professor, I agree 100%.

EE is not my field (I'm a chemical engineer by training, my PhD is in
metallurgical engineering, and I teach in a materials engineering department
-- electronics is just a hobby).  However, I've lurked around the EE
department a bit for the last couple of years, and I'm always struck by how
little interest most of the students seem to have for actually designing or
building anything (and, unfortunately, this attitude is not confined to EE).

I think that if young Nephew adopts an attitude of openness and keen
interest in just about any aspect of the field, he will end up miles ahead
of most engineering students.  Too many students plod through their
engineering degrees with no real enthusiasm for the subject matter.  As a
professor, it is very hard for me to recommend these types for future
employment (and, in my humble experience, professors do play a dominant role
in landing students their first real jobs).

Bottom line: keeners get the keys to the castle.