Calling all engineers

[jtmedli]

There must be people that get A's and high B's, but if an engineer only appears to understand only 72% of what he or she is supposed to have been taught, is he (or she) really that useful in comparison to us mere mortals? I understand it's a curve, yes, just the mentality that is odd to me.

No one else in this thread wants to say it so I will: Engineering is HARDER THAN OTHER MAJORS. The courses are designed to be a '5-year kick in the nuts' crammed into 4 years and classes require dedication and a lot of sacrifice from your social life. I had courses where we only 3 tests (including the exam) and that was our final grade because the Prof. didn't have time to give you 'bonus points' or 'kiddie projects' or extra tests for easy grades. You got 2 months of the class time on each test with little-to-no review. The C-avg thing is pretty standard because of this situation. I graduated with a 2.9 and I can count on one hand the friends I had with higher GPAs. What's really hellacious is the professors who make the class so hard that everyone is failing by the end of it and then just hand out grades however they see fit.

One of my professors said "Engineering is not about GPAs or grades so much as it is about seeing who won't quit." So yeah, if you can bust out a 72% on the average engineering exam (the ones where 6 pages of cheat sheets for formulas still isn't enough) then you're doing pretty good.

 

[jtmedli]

Yeah they are in some respects mainly concerning caps and inductors, however, when you put them into a circuit as you said and your teacher doesn't prepare you for it becomes exponentially harder. Our first introduction to imaginary caps and inductors was 2 class periods prior to the final. The problem wasn't the caps and inductors he had some sources dependant/independant imaginary and non imaginary, some caps, resistors, and inductors were and were not as well along with several other problems in the circuit. Basically it was a soup sandwich.

I know exactly what you're referring to here ( I'm an EE ). They're not as hard as you want them to be. In circuits, dealing with AC sources/caps/inductors/etc..., you'll find that it's much easier to work in the imaginary plane compared to representing things with COS/SIN functions and trying to integrate/derivate your way through kirchoffs laws and whatnot. The imaginary plane is your friend and will continue to be so when you get into EMAG and SIGNALS classes.

None the lesser, your professor should have taught you the material and given some homework examples or something. It's sort of the name of the game though so welcome to the club!!!

 

[twobecrazy]

Sounds like you had a crappy prof. We had imaginary stuff introduced in the first 3 weeks.

Yeah I think he was crappy along with everyone else in that class! I'm just hoping I never have another class with him.

 

[twobecrazy]

I know exactly what you're referring to here ( I'm an EE ). They're not as hard as you want them to be. In circuits, dealing with AC sources/caps/inductors/etc..., you'll find that it's much easier to work in the imaginary plane compared to representing things with COS/SIN functions and trying to integrate/derivate your way through kirchoffs laws and whatnot. The imaginary plane is your friend and will continue to be so when you get into EMAG and SIGNALS classes.

None the lesser, your professor should have taught you the material and given some homework examples or something. It's sort of the name of the game though so welcome to the club!!!

I concur. I'm in Sigs now and EMAG next semester only if I don't get selected though. It will be the best and worst day of my life if I get selected because I will be able to do something that I have always wanted to do but then again all this hard work I have done to this point will not be rewarded with the degree I was pursuing. However, I will have a degree which is a good enough reward in my opinion. The best scenario is I will just have to continue working on engineering while in the Navy. Worst case is I continue to go for an engineering major after being a non-select.

 

[BACONATOR]

Yeah they are in some respects mainly concerning caps and inductors, however, when you put them into a circuit as you said and your teacher doesn't prepare you for it becomes exponentially harder. Our first introduction to imaginary caps and inductors was 2 class periods prior to the final. The problem wasn't the caps and inductors he had some sources dependant/independant imaginary and non imaginary, some caps, resistors, and inductors were and were not as well along with several other problems in the circuit. Basically it was a soup sandwich. I felt like a controlled drowning victim. Caps and inductors are not always going to be imaginary in your solution because it depends on the problem you are working on. You are right with imaginary numbers being fair game for anything as I have experienced that numerous times which seems to always complicate the problems further for me because it seems that they are few and far between so lack of practice is the true problem.

FUCK ELECTRICITY. That's all I have to say about it. I remember enjoying solving attitude dynamics and control problems for spacecraft on matlab using matrix calculus and being rather proud of myself when it all worked out after a couple hundred lines of code, multiple programs and hand-written embedded functions.

But linear circuits, digital circuits and the rest of the shit EE courses we had to take were a fucking mystery. (For those non-EE, those two courses are the easiest of EE courses)

 

[jtmedli]

FUCK ELECTRICITY. That's all I have to say about it. I remember enjoying solving attitude dynamics and control problems for spacecraft on matlab using matrix calculus and being rather proud of myself when it all worked out after a couple hundred lines of code, multiple programs and hand-written embedded functions.

But linear circuits, digital circuits and the rest of the shit EE courses we had to take were a fucking mystery. (For those non-EE, those two courses are the easiest of EE courses)

Oh come on Otto...electricity is your friend and you know it!!!