As a hobbyist who is also a full time student in EE at a large research
institution, I feel I must comment on this :-)

At 08:47 AM 5/13/99 -0600, you wrote:
>That's why my old textbooks are right now only 4 feet away from me.
>
>As both a tech and an engineeer, I see where you're coming from.  But:
>in all my levels of schooling I always placed a high value on the math
>end of education.  In fact, I always tried to stay one level of math
>(calculus, statistics, etc) ahead of the rest of my courses - this aided
>in the comprehension of the other courses (why memorize all those
>equations for an exam when you can derive them on the spot?).  In
>university, my electrical engineering field was communications - not
>because of any great interest, but because it was the most math
>intensive.
>

I really do agree with this. It never hurts to understand the system one
level deeper.

This extra understanding is primarily what college has done for me so far.
The majority of practical electronics that I know is still coming from my
own independent work,but my analysis techniques and grasp of the problems
are enhanced GREATLY by my experience in math and science courses.

I AM,however,disappointed with the way that EE teaches electronics design.
It is my firm belief that the reason why I remember all the stuff that I do
from my classes is because I see applications beyond the
classroom,applications that I can only see because I have run into similar
problems in my own work. At least here at Cornell, I find little emphasis
on real design. Just throwing a little problem at a student is NOT real
design,you have to actually take something from scratch to some level of
working completion WITHOUT the help of an instructor every minute along the
way(although a question here and there is very good and helpful).

Yes, they do encourage a senior design project,etc., but I think that
hands-on work should be a constant all the way along,ESPECIALLY as a tool
for teaching the theory and concepts at the core of the curriculum.

I also agree with what was said before: "it has to be in your blood". I
really don't think somebody can be a good engineer without having a passion
for it,which no education alone can convey.

[SNIP]
>Take that to another level: calculators in elementary school.  I think
>that general concepts must be learned and understood before tools (like
>calculators or MathCad) are used to speed up the application of those
>concepts.

I agree completely. All one needs to do is just run into round-off error on
the calculator,and without a basic understanding of what is going on, they
won't know that the answer is wrong.

>
>--Matt
>
>Didn't Mark Twain once advise: "Try not to let school get in the way of
>your education"?
>


Sean

|
| Sean Breheny
| Amateur Radio Callsign: KA3YXM
| Electrical Engineering Student
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