[sdiy] Who Needs a Degree?

Fri May 28 20:47:17 CEST 2010

Well

I was more or less forced into programming in the late 80's when i was 9 by my mom because she thought "it was the future" - 10 years later i was working without any degree as a programmer and was sent around the world. After 3-4 years i got bored and decided to quit, the organization that had hired me tried to tempt me to stay with ridiculously good offers - so i assume i was a good programmer :) I gave up probably the only career opportunity i'll ever have due to a lack of interest in money (and boredom), and it's probably the best choice i've ever made. 

YOU guys taught me enough electronics that i now live on making electronics, i'm poor like a rat but happy as a clam! 

After having worked together with various people with and without degrees it seems to me that the most important thing is to have imagination and curiosity, without that you'll never be a good engineer regardless of your education. It also strikes me that you can learn anything on your own, it's just that the structure of a school makes your learning much more efficient. I'd love to go back to school and get to be a "real" engineer, but i don't have the time - too much engineering to do... :)

Karl

--- Den fre 2010-05-28 skrev thx1138 <thx1138 at earthlink.net>:

> Från: thx1138 <thx1138 at earthlink.net>
> Ämne: Re: [sdiy] Who Needs a Degree?
> Till: "karl dalen" <dalenkarl at yahoo.se>, synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> Datum: fredag 28 maj 2010 19:44
> On 5/28/10 5:59 AM, "karl dalen"
> <dalenkarl at yahoo.se>
> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > 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?
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Synth-diy mailing list
> > Synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> > http://dropmix.xs4all.nl/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy
> Hi Karl,
> 
> Well I find this thread a bit like my history and a few
> others I could name.
> 
> I started building Audio projects back to mid 1960's and
> landed a summer job
> at Fender music working for Harold Rhodes. By my Senior
> year in High School
> I knew how to build a tube pre-amp, power supplies, etc.
> 
> It is funny as I got my Master's in Music Composition first
> then got a BSEE
> mid Masters Program in a Dual Major agenda.
> 
> By then I was working with Tom Oberheim and Dave Rossum.
> Dave got his
> Master's in MicroBiology if I remember correctly at
> CalTech.
> 
> We had been building Synth products in the 1970's and chips
> later on.
> 
> I think my point is that Education helped but a focus on
> Electronics in end
> products was what drove us forward.
> 
> I have yet to see the passion in school to do what we did
> but there again
> programmable logic also opens many new doors we did not
> have.
> 
> I do most of my work in assembler as C compilers were not
> even functional on
> DSP's until much later.
> 
> Working with Wolfgang Palm was interesting as his tech's
> were better than
> many Engineers I have worked with. Difference in German
> education vs US
> education perhaps.
> 
> I wish we had more apprentis positions available. It would
> be fun to teach
> others the craft of fine audio.
> 
> Just my 2 cents.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Terry
> 
> 
> 
> 
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