On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 12:26 PM, William "Chops" Westfield wrote: > > On Apr 15, 2009, at 2:24 PM, Herbert Graf wrote: > >> Similar situation, 4th year, one of the final EE labs (I think it >> was an analog electronics course), a few people came to me, VERY >> smart people, asking which side of a diode was the cathode... > > I dunno. =A0I've heard that it's very rare to have a SW engineering > applicant be able to write out an error-free example of some common > algorithm (say, a binary search.) I am not a software guy but I think these two situations are different. I will accept the 2nd type but not the first type ;-) I was a TA for a 4th year lab in a top tier public US university and I was a bit shocked at the first two labs. But through hard work (mine and their), they finally was able to put up a boost converter using SG3524. Back in my time, we had to solder a 10W audio amplifier in the analog electronic lab (two to three sessions) and a fully-functional functional generator (or an AM/FM radio) with less integrated circuits for the 1 week design course. On the other hand, the time is different now. The kids now have many things to play. 10 or 20 years back, there are not so many things to learn as now. Internet/Games can both be good knowledge base or big distractions. And the new generation students do have wider knowledge domains (even though may be less dept) than my time. -- = Xiaofan http://mcuee.blogspot.com -- = http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist