Engineers really should know better.

[Mr. Crow]

Not long ago we had a problem with an engineer.

I know alot of engineers, and they all warn me of the engineer training programs from Europe. Before our friends from across the Atlantic burn me at the stake for saying that, I would like to point out that my friend who stressed this the most was from Belgium and came from a family of engineers who trained in either Canada or America. (There are some notable exceptions to this rule depending on the type of engineer and nation, but still...)

Well, this is important because a customer has a head engineer of their plant who is trained in Britian.

As we are testing a motor, he powers it on and a six foot spray of sparks bleches from the motor. Everyone panics and power it down as fast as humanly possible.

So he wanders over to the motor, looks it over, and says in all seriousness.

"Looks good, we'll send it to be installed."

[Bloodsoul]

Well it's not like anything caught fire... right? <.< >.>

[draftermatt]

Despite the fact that I work in engineering and know many of them, I am going to say this.

Most engineers (and architects) are flipping morons. They either only know engineering and nothing about the rest of the world, or have never dealt with anything in the real world of design and funciton and will come up with the dumbest freaking ideas to make things work. Some things that often will never work because it cannot be done that way.

[digilight]

I will agree with this. My former boss (the guy I bought the business from) used to be an electrical engineer before he retired from that profession. We had a copier that ran off of a 220 plug (not all 220 plugs are made the same remember that) the plug we had didn't mate with the plug on the machine. He made a pigtail from a section of line that had been used as the plug for a machine that used to be pluged into that outlet (we had demo'd the machine a year or so earlier and saved some parts for scrap) the pigtail was not very sound. After a year or too it began to short out as the wiring had come loose, and this almost cost us a shitton of money as the company that provides service to the machine wouldn't have covered damage to the machine caused by this. Luckily we fixed the plug more securly (still not the best solution) but the whole time he was bitching and moaning that this could not be the problem and it was fine (I asked my dad, a former electricion and he said that yes it could be a problem).

So this goes to show that engineers, while well trained, can be lacking in common sense.

[MadRocketScientist]

OK now, I am an engineer and I was once a Navy mechanic, so I have it from both worlds. That being said, I think every engineering student should be forced to work in the technical side of their chosen profession before getting their degree (i.e. MEs have to work as a mechanic, EE as an Electrician or Electronics tech, ChemE as a lab tech, etc.). I think this would instill some useful perspective.

[LostMyMind]

probably would be easier just to require all university's to hire professors who actually did a job outside of school in the subject they're supposedly the professor of.

Nothing gets me riled up faster than talking to a CS professor who has no clue how things are done today because he stop "updating" his mental filing cabinet since the 70's.

[draftermatt]

The professor thing is the worse. (Granted some people who do it shouldn't teach simply because they know it too well and get pissed if you don't know/get it).

My co worker has an Engineering Professor who claims he didn't take Calculus and that he can't relate anything to Calc.

WTF??

[tollbaby]

heh this is why I'm training the boyfriend in the arts of common sense and thinking things through. He's just finishing his final year of uni, then he has two years of work to get his professional certification. However, he does a lot of practical work as well (he's been working for the city's engineering department since his second year). The main problem we run into is that he's not terribly good with the planning and the prioritising when he's given a project to work on. That's where I come in, because those are my strengths I'm slowly teaching him to be able to do that stuff for himself and he's getting much better at it.

I also make him think about the long-term effects of any jury-rigging he may attempt, and whether or not another solution might be more ... appropriate (as in, no dear, I don't think it's a good idea to knock a hole in our kitchen wall - maybe we can find ANOTHER way to work around the crappy wiring in the apartment LOL)

[Kilamon]

How many Software Engineers does it take to plug in a lightbulb?






None! That's a hardware problem.

And that right there is all you need to know about engineers.