[sdiy] Who Needs a Degree?

[Paul Schreiber]

>> No, he's not an engineer. He is a highly skilled *technician*. If he 
>> really
>> is that good,
>> he'll have no trouble breezing through a BSEE.
>
> I do recognize this bit of arrogance.

The best engineers I know are a bit arrogant/self-confident. It sort of
"comes with the territory". But you have to try not to become a flaming 
a-hole.

I guess I'm with David about "older" EEs versus a 28yr old EE. I think the 
worse thing to
ever happen to EE was the 64K DRAM (the beginning of the ruination of 
programming and digital design).

I will also say that by FAR the best thing any EE student can ever do is 
alternate semesters
work/study (in the US this is called co-op). This may come as a shock (or 
not) but I was not
that great of an overall EE student (since I came from Chemistry), it took 
me 5 years to get
my BSEE and my GPA was like 2.88/4.00 However, I co-op'd at Tandy R&D 
(wire-wrapped the TRS-80
prototype) and worked 20hrs/week calibrating lab equipment. When I 
interviewed for jobs my last
semester, I had 18 job offers out of 20 interviews (1 was low GPA, 1 was I 
was a white male).

Our class #1 graduate (who was 2 years older than everyone else and smoked 
pot like a madman) with a 4.0/4.0
had like 4 job offers out of 15 interviews. I am convinced it was due to the 
fact I actually *did something*
during my 'off-time' as opposed to lay around and see how much pot I could 
smoke in a 24 hour period. I learned
that the absolute GPA score was secondary (well, not to Bell 
Labs....stuck-up bastards) to doing *anything*
but laying around all summer.

To address Veronica's lament: when Tandy was designing ASICs for the Tandy 
Sensation (world's first
multimedia PC) I was in charge of hiring 2 EEs: 1 for the video ASIC and one 
for the I/O. For the n00bs:
before the Internet there was this thing called a 'fax machine' that people 
sent in a 'resume' from an 'ad' in
a 'trade paper' (EE Times). I *specifically* stated the requirements in the 
ad. Well, in the first few days the
ad ran I got 900 (yes, 900) faxes (we then pulled the ad). I decided to 
filter the resumes as follows:

#1 - did you read the f-ing ad (ie do you even have the *remotest* 
experience level as stated?)
    I went from 900 down to ~ 220

#2 - in *any* job during your tenure, did you (not the company, YOU) design 
and MANUFACTURE
ANYTHING in quantities over 100?
    the 220 then went to about 18

#3 - of the 18 left, did ANYONE actually do the work I needed?

That left 3. that's 3 out of 900. I interviewed all 3, picked the best 2. 
That was around 1987. Today, both
are VP level engineering managers at very large companies.

The message is: do BOTH things well. Tinker and build BUT also get that 
BSEE. You won't be sorry.

Paul S.