[sdiy] Who Needs a Degree?

[Grant Richter]

I would like to thank both Karl Dalen and Paul Schreiber for their  
well reasoned, well written and mature essays covering a number of  
topics related to the college experience.

I think there are a few things most respondents would agree on.

1. Having an engineering degree does automatically ENABLE you to do  
talented engineering design.

2. NOT having an engineering degree does not automatically PREVENT  
you from doing talented engineering design.

3. The more experience you have doing "technical stuff", the better  
off you will be.

A couple of specific responses:

 From Karl:

> 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.

He worked on a similar project 9 years ago, had a similar bug and  
remembered it.

 From Paul:

> - able to easily any quickly jump from problem to problem without  
> panicing that the specific knowledge is not yet acquired. Many  
> techs excel in a *limited and specific* area of electronics, but  
> cannot easily & seamlessly jump from DSP to RF to FPGA to pc board  
> layout to wiring to firmware.

Without quibbling, HR would generally classify experienced multi- 
tasking as a "project management" skill not specifically engineering  
related.

I had my first electronics job in 1978 doing Motorola 6800 based  
numerical machine controls.

I know at that time the technicians were there to save the engineers  
ass, by finding the engineers mistakes and finding work-arounds to  
keep on prototyping while the mistakes were corrected in drafting.
I know at the time the engineers were there to provide jobs for  
technicians. In biology they would be called "obligate symbiotes".

I never did figure out what "Management" was for, except to  
reprioritize the projects every day, "Good Morning, Today everyone  
run as fast as you can to the West, thank you." "Good Morning, Today  
everyone run as fast as you can to the North, thank you."

I do know that management cooked up the "technician" / "engineer"  
distinction to keep the two groups at war, which kept them from  
realizing that they had 100% of the valuable skills and had they co- 
operated, could have dumped the fat cats in the suits in the blink of  
an eye.