[sdiy] Who Needs a Degree?

[David Ingebretsen]

I'll chime in. My day job is as a "Forensic Engineer". I analyze vehicle
dynamics, occupant dynamics/biomechanics, and testify in court regarding the
same. The standard for testimony is essentially "by education, experience,
or self instruction." That said, the courts were very hesitant to let me
apply physics to people and testify about how people move and break til I
got a graduate degree in bioengineering. However, the courts will routinely
let a police officer, with no college or even high school physics, talk
about vehicle dynamics. Frankly, I find it a bit scary. I've heard and read
some very interesting opinions about Newtonian physics by some of these
guys. On the other hand, I employ a deputy sheriff, non-degreed, but who
really gets the basics of momentum and energy.

So, who needs a degree... My personal opinion is that while experience is a
great teacher, there are simply lessons learned in school that aren't
learned elsewhere. There are also lessons learned in "the real world" that
school can't teach you. So, I think it is wise to get all the education,
formal and by experience/self instruction, you can tempered with a lot of
tinkering and self study. While a sheepskin isn't a metric for one's skills
and abilities, it is a testament to the ability to withstand the rigors of a
college environment and a commitment to learn. This has to be tempered,
however, with a willingness to get your hands dirty and extend that
education in practical applications. I'm thankful for a father, (graduate
degree in electrical engineering) who taught me how to solder, turn a
wrench, sweat a pipe, etc. He really taught me the value of an
education/experience combination.

My favorite story is a guy I knew in undergraduate school, sitting in an
"Energy Conversions" class while we were discussing conversion of nuclear
power to other more useful forms. He asked, "Has anyone ever made a nuclear
handgrenade?" Most of us started to chuckle. I was next to him so I nudged
him and asked, "Ralph, how far can you throw?"

Straight "A" student, but he had real trouble putting things into a
practical light.

One of the best lessons I learned in college was how to learn and build on
the foundation knowledge I gained in school. I've been in school a lot. I
have a BS in mechanical engineering, MS in physics, and ME in
bioengineering. I've not regretted one second of the school and it directly
helped me in my professional career and allows me to do the job I do right
now. I could not testify about the things I do without the degrees.

(P.S. Funny you should mention the pedal Harry. I've got a case now with a
Toyota accelerator pedal.)

David



David M. Ingebretsen M.S., M.E.
Collision Forensics & Engineering, Inc.
2469 East Fort Union Blvd. STE 114
Salt Lake City, UT 84121
www.CFandE.com

801 733-5458 Office
801 842-5451 Cell

dingebre at CFandE.com
dingebre at 3dphysics.net




~~ -----Original Message-----
~~ From: synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl [mailto:synth-diy-
~~ bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl] On Behalf Of Harry Bissell
~~ Sent: Friday, May 28, 2010 10:54 AM
~~ To: karl dalen
~~ Cc: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
~~ Subject: Re: [sdiy] Who Needs a Degree?
~~ 
~~ I do...
~~ 
~~ (I have a non-engineering degree)
~~ 
~~ These days in my market (Michigan USA, one of the more depressed areas of
~~ the USA with 15% unemployment)
~~ you will not even get past HR to show anyone what you ~can~ do.  I was
out
~~ of work for a year, with
~~ many employers taking the opportunity to get displaced PhDs to work for
~~ entry level salaries.
~~ 
~~ The EE degree would get to to the interview....
~~ 
~~ Other than that, I agree totally with Karl.  Its really about what you
can
~~ do, not your educational background.
~~ 
~~ BTW some jobs would need the EE in case they get sued in court. Oh...
your
~~ designer has a BA ? And you let him
~~ design an ACCELERATOR PEDAL ???   :^)
~~ 
~~ Jim Williams (Linear Tech)does not has an engineering degree as far as I
~~ know... is he a lame designer or what ???
~~ 
~~ H^) harry
~~ 
~~ 
~~ 
~~ ----- Original Message -----
~~ From: karl dalen <dalenkarl at yahoo.se>
~~ To: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
~~ Sent: Fri, 28 May 2010 08:59:35 -0400 (EDT)
~~ Subject: [sdiy] Who Needs a Degree?
~~ 
~~ 
~~ Who Needs a Degree?
~~ 
~~ In my experience some engineers are plodders. They just don't get it.
~~ Sure, they can crank some C or design a bit of logic but their creations
~~ are leaden, devoid of style, crude, slow and just not elegant.
~~ 
~~ Then there are the superstars, those few who establish a mind-meld with
~~ the code or electronics. Have you ever worked with one? When the system
~~ doesn't work, mysterious bugs baffle all of our efforts, up comes the
guru
~~ who sniffs, licks his finger and touches a node, and immediately
discovers
~~ the problem. We feel like idiots; he struts off in glory.
~~ 
~~ Who are these guys, anyway? An astonishing number of `em have "unusual"
~~ academic credentials. Take my friend Don. He went off to college at age
~~ 18, for the first time leaving his West Virginia home behind. A
~~ scholarship program lined his pockets with cash, enough to pay for
~~ tuition, room, and board for a full year. Cash - not a safer University
~~ credit of some sort.
~~ 
~~ A semester later he was out, expelled for non-payment of all fees and
~~ total academic failure, with an Animal House GPA of exactly 0.0. The cash
~~ turned into parties, the parties interfered with attending class. His one
~~ chance at a sheepskin collapsed, doomed by the teenage immaturity that
all
~~ of us simply must muddle through.
~~ 
~~ Today he's a successful engineer. He managed to apprentice himself to a
~~ startup, and to parley that job into others where his skills showed
~~ through, and where enlightened bosses valued his design flair despite the
~~ handicap of no degree.
~~ 
~~ Another acquaintance breezed through MIT on a full scholarship.
Graduating
~~ with a feeling that his prestigious scholarship made him oh-so-very
~~ special he started working in aerospace. To his shock and horror the
~~ company put him on the production line for six months, riveting airplanes
~~ together. This outfit put all new engineers in production to teach them
~~ the difference between theory and practicality. He came out of it with a
~~ new appreciation for what works, and for the problems associated with
~~ manufacturing.
~~ 
~~ What an enlightened way to introduce new graduates to the harsh realities
~~ of the physical world!
~~ 
~~ Experience is a critical part of the engineering education, one that's
~~ pretty much impossible to impart in the environment of a university. You
~~ really don't know much about programming till you've completely hosed a
~~ 10,000 line project, and you know little about hardware till you've
~~ designed, built, and somehow troubleshot a complex board. We're still
much
~~ like the blacksmith of old, who started his career as an apprentice, and
~~ who ends it working with apprentices, training them over the truth of a
~~ hot fire. Book learning is very important, but in the end we're paid for
~~ what we can do.
~~ 
~~ In my career I've worked with lots of engineers, most with sheepskins,
but
~~ many without. Both groups have had winners and losers. The non-degreed
~~ folks, though, generally come up a very different path, earning their
~~ "engineering" title only after years as a technician. This career path
has
~~ a tremendous amount of value, as it's tempered in the forge of more
hands-
~~ on experience than most of their BSEE-laden bosses.
~~ 
~~ Technicians are masters of making things. They are expert solderers -
~~ something far too few engineers ever master. A good tech can burn a PAL,
~~ assemble a board, and use a milling machine. The best - those bound for
an
~~ engineering career - are wonderfully adept troubleshooters, masters of
the
~~ scope. Since technicians spend their lives daily working intimately with
~~ circuits, some develop an uncanny understanding of electronic behavior.
~~ 
~~ In college we learn the theory at the expense of practical things. Yet I
~~ recently surveyed several graduate engineers and found none could
~~ integrate a simple function. None remembered much about the transfer
~~ function of a transistor. What happened to all of that hard-learned
~~ theory?
~~ 
~~ Over the years I've hired many engineers with and without their
bachelors,
~~ and have had some wonderful experiences with very smart, very hard
working
~~ people who became engineers by the force of their will. Oddly, some of
the
~~ best firmware folks I've worked with have degrees, but in English!
Perhaps
~~ clear expression of ideas is universal, whether the language is English
or
~~ C.
~~ 
~~ We're in a very young field, where a bit of the anarchy of the wild west
~~ still reigns. More so than in other professions we're judged on our
~~ ability and our performance. If you can crank working designs out at warp
~~ speed, then who cares what your scholastic record shows?
~~ 
~~ 
~~ 
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~~ 
~~ --
~~ Harry Bissell & Nora Abdullah 4eva
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