The joys of being an engineering student

[wifesaysno]

I dont know how many of you are engineering students or RECENT engineering grads but I do know this: the modern engineering curriculum is incredibly useless. My boss had a wonderful comment about it as we were walking back into the office the other day from the bloody hot hanger:
boss-"Ah AC (air conditioning), this is why I got a college education"
me-"So I take it that is the most use you got out of an engineering degree?"
boss-"Pretty much"

My complaint being there is very little emphasis on problem solving. I got into engineering because I wanted to solve problems, not solve problems as in solve for X. I mean things like re-doing the brakes on the Great Lakes 2T-1A biplane. I did not use a single equation in the entire design process nor did I see an opportunity to use any equation from any class...nor did any equation solving exercises in any class help me understand the linkages I needed.

All right, ranting done...back to spending days on this stupid transmission design...because as a future aircraft designer I will be designing so many transmissions on a 3/4 of a million dollar program...

[Xpand]

Well I can't say the same about me... Well I can agree on the fact that we overuse maths, but I'm on a physics engineering course, so I can't really complain about that... But yeah, if you ask me what can I do in the real world with my knowlege learned on this course up to now I can't really tell... I mean, it's good for computer programming (analytic programs, simulation programs, games, etc) but only in rare times I glimpse a way of turning all those numbers into real machines. 

[machineman9]

Well I've just finished college, and hoping to move onto mechanical engineering at university.

I was quite glad when I looked through one of those all-in-one revision guides for the course - The first question was 'can you put these numbers in order?'. The second question was 'can you round these numbers?'. I didn't get onto the third question, but I think I've got a good grasp on the basics 

[wifesaysno]

Well as further proof of the stupidity of modern engineering courses I just spent 9hrs working on the transmission design (after a 7hr work day) changing gear teeth thicknesses by 0.0001mm
Now I would LOVE to meet the machinist that can meet these tolerances. Even more stupid, 3 of the gear pairs have to survive a minimum of 1200hrs and a max of 1200+5%. Last time I checked survivability in a transmission is a good thing....so why not accept 1200+say50%? Well because that would be logical and thus does not belong in the modern engineering curriculum.

[machineman9]

Well as further proof of the stupidity of modern engineering courses I just spent 9hrs working on the transmission design (after a 7hr work day) changing gear teeth thicknesses by 0.0001mm
Now I would LOVE to meet the machinist that can meet these tolerances. Even more stupid, 3 of the gear pairs have to survive a minimum of 1200hrs and a max of 1200+5%. Last time I checked survivability in a transmission is a good thing....so why not accept 1200+say50%? Well because that would be logical and thus does not belong in the modern engineering curriculum.

My brother in law is a mechanical engineer, with probably a good 20 years of experience. He was part of a contract with a company developing a project where their engineers had no clue about what they were doing, and the project leaders were asking for tolerances not yet found by any modern milling machine. Silly people asking for silly things... That's why he was roped in to sort out their mess for them!

[Webb]

[T]he modern engineering curriculum is incredibly useless.

You want useless?

[wifesaysno]

Thanks for the support folks!

I just spent another 14hrs working on this stupid project trying to make the gears fail...Let me say that again:
I spent 14hrs trying to make a transmission FAIL. Not to study why, not to see how to improve it, just for the sake of "not over engineering it".

[Jetranger]

I once Designed a Paper Airplane,, does that count ?

[Mictheslik]

The main issue with those tolerances that I found is when using CAD packages (I use ProE Wildfire) stuff won't assemble unless it fits perfectly. It's ridiculous. I lost quite a few marks for last years design work (designing a microlight from scratch) simply because all the mechanisms I'd created couldn't be moved within the program as they were 0.001mm out!

We do do a lot of problem solving on our course though, the aforementioned design work being a good example. I had to go and create an undercarriage system from scratch that would meet UK airworthiness certification guidelines and then model it in Wildfire.

.mic (Just finished second year of an Aerospace Engineering degree)

[Jayhawk Jake]

Thanks for the support folks!

I just spent another 14hrs working on this stupid project trying to make the gears fail...Let me say that again:
I spent 14hrs trying to make a transmission FAIL. Not to study why, not to see how to improve it, just for the sake of "not over engineering it".

Yes.  That's the point.  Lightness.  To an extreme it's unnecessary, if you are really going to 0.000001 tolerances then you are doing more than you should, but at least you are learning a process.  As I recall you are working an internship, the whole point is to learn as much as you can.

Yes, you won't use much directly from school, but you SHOULD be learning how to find answers and think like an engineer.  That's the most useful skill I learned in school.  I've used 2 equations that I learned in school since I started working a year ago, and both of them I looked up in one of my old textbooks.  That doesn't mean school didn't teach me anything, and school certainly isn't useless.  I guarantee you I couldn't do the same job I'm doing now without college, and even if I could I certainly wouldn't be very good at it.

So what I have to say is deal with it, it's reality.  Take it in stride, don't complain about school because ultimately I guarantee you will look back on it and see the significance.  Maybe not for all your classes (Vector calculus was completely worthless and never will be useful), but with the right attitude you can go far.

Also, 14 hours is nothing.  I spent 3 weeks at my internship trying to get a wind turbine blade to fail at just the right load so we could get the perfect layup that used the least material and weighed as little as possible.