On Jun 19, 6:32 am, "Joel Kolstad" <JKolstad71HatesS...@yahoo.com> wrote:> "cpope" <cep...@nc.rr.com> wrote in message > > news:467704e5$0$16562$4c368faf@roadrunner.com... > > > *and (for most schools) you can handle a large independent project, e.g. a > > thesis > > That sounds more like the "non-thesis project" option to me... My experience > was that the "thesis" option was, "work on the professor's current pet > projector that he's been working on for some years prior and will continue to > work on after you leave." Nothing wrong with that, but I'd stress that it's > *very important* to make sure the professor is working on something *you > actually give a damn about!* > > > However, these days you shouldn't have to choose. Many schools have night > > time MS programs and you can probably get your employer to pay for it. Not > > really the same experience as being on campus, full time, with a research > > team but valuable none the less. > > I suspect that it'd be very hard to find a school offering an > off-campus/night-school MSEE in IC or RF design, as these typically require > the use of large labs outfitted with lots of fancy equipment few people could > realistically duplicate at home. For MSEEs that are more "computer science" > oriented, I'm sure it works fine. > > I was a little disappointed that there were various HP employees in some of > the classes I took who were there only because HP required them to get a > degree to advance in title and hence salary. From an employee's point of > view... ok, fine, I can understand why they do it (no worse than going into EE > in the first place primarily because the pay if good and you find the work > "tolerable")... but from a corporate point of view, I'm amazed that HP > condones such activities. > > ---JoelIn Addition to Joel: If you feel that your purposed project or expected professor is doing something really extra then just go for that. ali
engineering graduate school question
Started by ●June 18, 2007
Reply by ●June 19, 20072007-06-19
Reply by ●June 19, 20072007-06-19
(repost attempt, first post failed) Salmon Egg wrote: <snip> > Modern electronics and radio is not really feasible or > economical for home construction. I can get an FM stereo radio with > earphones at the 99� store. You cannot buy the parts for a transceiver for > what it costs for a much better piece of equipment commercially. > FWIW, please try my homebrew HF receiver (online/interactive) at http://www.cybertheque.org/homebrew/rcvr I hope to have measurements of its characteristics available on the site soon also. Regards, Michael
Reply by ●June 19, 20072007-06-19
msg wrote:> Salmon Egg wrote: > > <snip> >> In my day, I am retired now, amateur radio was a passion for many a >> potential EE. >> That seems to be replaced by computers now and ham radio is dying. > > How on earth did the rec.radio.amateur hierarchy descend into such idiocy > (except for the homebrew ng)? I hadn't looked there for many years and am > aghast at what I see. This situation is certainly reflected on other > online amatuer radio venues on the Internet as well. > > In the US, one could argue that FCC policy that has downgraded licensing > requirements since the late 1970s has played a significant role in > deficits of character, but what explains the online bad conduct of > amateurs from elsewhere? > > Do you see any hope of restoring an engineering orientation to the > amateur radio services and if so by what instrumentality? > > Regards, > > MichaelI agree with the other posts. If we can't interest students in Ham Radio early, it's going down the drain. If anyone wants to speak to someone new now, they can get on a chat room... We are becoming a consumer nation, producing less and less as time goes on. Technical jobs, even some computer jobs are being off-shored, removing the desire for new students in colleges to pick non-technical fields. Math and Science/Physics is being dumbed down in early schools, and many schools can't afford to pay the better teachers. In part due to the need to allow Hispanic students to compete. Some schools, I've heard, even require Spanish education for prospective teachers! The PC (Politically Correct) slant is affecting the Universities most of all. My son was going for a Math degree but was turned off with the requirement of 30 semester hours of multicultural core classes, and dropped out with only two Math classes to go! Literature replaced American Literature, with only 3 of the required books being written by authors in the US!). A BSEE at several Universities now requires 20%-50% more hours of Liberal Arts than 30 years ago, probably due to the low number of tenured Math/Sciences professors when graduation requirements are voted on... A class in Black Studies was a required course in both my boy's High School too. I would expect that to change if the current Amnesty Bill passes, as the largest minority would be Hispanic then. (Well, after the over 55 who don't count -- we're too old to get "real" jobs when we're let go due to downsizing and outsourcing.) Gary KB9CG
Reply by ●June 19, 20072007-06-19
larwe wrote:> On Jun 19, 3:26 am, Benj <bjac...@iwaynet.net> wrote: > >> will invariably advance the guy with the MSEE sheepskin over the >> smartest BSEE with all the company training they have to offer. Trust >> me on this! > > This is utter nonsense. You're not actually in the workforce, are you? >True. They will actually promote the guy who wears a suit. I've seen smart people wear a suit every day from graduation, and I've seen idiots do it. I've never seen anyone wear a suit every day and fail to make rapid progress, though. Steve
Reply by ●June 19, 20072007-06-19
In news:137e20k6h1nqpa4@corp.supernews.com timestamped Mon, 18 Jun
2007 15:32:50 -0700, "Joel Kolstad" <JKolstad71HatesSpam@yahoo.com>
posted:
""cpope" <cepope@nc.rr.com> wrote in message
news:467704e5$0$16562$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...
[..]
> However, these days you shouldn't have to choose. Many schools have night
> time MS programs and you can probably get your employer to pay for it. Not
> really the same experience as being on campus, full time, with a research
> team but valuable none the less.
I suspect that it'd be very hard to find a school offering an
off-campus/night-school MSEE in IC or RF design, as these typically require
the use of large labs outfitted with lots of fancy equipment few people could
realistically duplicate at home. For MSEEs that are more "computer science"
oriented, I'm sure it works fine."
I am aware of two broadly similar software engineering primary degrees
from a faculty: one an evening and weekend version of the regular
version. Almost everybody doing the evening and weekend version had a
normal supposedly fulltime job in information technology while doing
their degrees and the consequences of trying to do a degree and a job
tended to be bad: inferior grades; a much higher failure rate; and
many people would end up failing and repeating a year.
I myself am a Ph.D. candidate in electronic engineering and as such,
attending lessons and trying to pass exams is not as major a component
of the degree, but I still had to do some. Though all the lectures
(and, if the assessment was based on a sat exam instead of project work
after the course, the exams) were held during normal working hours, I
would need to conduct my research during the remaining normal working
hours so I would study for the exams during my supposedly spare time
(e.g. when trying to eat dinner). This was technically doable and my
grades were fairly okay but some of the grades could have been better
and grades do not actually matter for this Ph.D.
Anyway, though I technically could cope for a few weeks with doing
research (or a job) and attending lectures and exams and doing
projects and homework for a subject without a sat exam, I realized
that those people doing primary degrees while also working must have
been suffering. Most people who have responded in this thread
supporting working and studying seem to have tried it themselves, but
I would recommend restricting activities to either chiefly working or chiefly
doing a degree for any stint lasting more than a few months. I do not
wish to suggest which of these options is a good one, just that mixing
them together seems to be a bad idea to me.
"I was a little disappointed that there were various HP employees in some of
the classes I took who were there only because HP required them to get a
degree to advance in title and hence salary. [..]
from a corporate point of view, I'm amazed that HP
condones such activities.
---Joel"
Many people attend things because they are forced to and because the
people who force them to attend do not really realize how the
privileges are unappreciated and misused. E.g. people who attend
conferences but do nothing there except read a newspaper instead of
paying attention to the presentations; people whose expenses to attend
conferences actually end up being used to pay for their vacations as
they do not bother to attend the presentations; and people whose
employers pay them to attend C++ standardization meetings who play
computer games during the meetings. I did not make up any of those
examples.
Sincerely,
Colin Paul Gloster
Reply by ●June 19, 20072007-06-19
"Salmon Egg" <salmonegg@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message news:C29C7795.8088F%salmonegg@sbcglobal.net...> On 6/18/07 3:55 PM, in article pan.2007.06.18.22.55.31.843507@example.net, > "Rich Grise" <rich@example.net> wrote: >> It depends what you want. If you love going to school, then do that. If >> you want to actually do something useful, then get some practical >> experience. > Of the responses I have seen so far, this is the best advice.I have to disagree a little here. If your goal is to be, e.g., an analog IC designer, unless you're Jim Thompson's kid it's very difficult to do these days without the formal education. The problem is that building ICs requires big bucks, which implies big companies, and big companies are notoriously bad about using academic credentials as the first "gatekeepers" to employment. On the other hand, for someone who wants to write software, do some digital design, perhaps some power supply stuff, etc. (i.e., decent chance of getting a job in a smaller company as a "general-purpose useful person), it is reasonable to just learn on the job. Perhaps not the most secure career strategy, but I certainly know several people who've taken this route and it works just fine for them.
Reply by ●June 19, 20072007-06-19
"larwe" <zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1182257764.827189.134090@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...> On Jun 19, 3:26 am, Benj <bjac...@iwaynet.net> wrote: > >> will invariably advance the guy with the MSEE sheepskin over the >> smartest BSEE with all the company training they have to offer. Trust >> me on this! > > This is utter nonsense. You're not actually in the workforce, are you? >This may be true for companies with large bureaucracies, but competence has always trumped credentials every place I have worked. And an MSEE typically fails to add any significant competence outside of the narrow thesis area. We all have strengths and weaknesses in various areas, but I find that the engineers that I hire who are generalists rather than specialists are much more productive. Mark Walsh
Reply by ●June 19, 20072007-06-19
Steve Underwood wrote:> larwe wrote: >> On Jun 19, 3:26 am, Benj <bjac...@iwaynet.net> wrote: >> >>> will invariably advance the guy with the MSEE sheepskin over the >>> smartest BSEE with all the company training they have to offer. Trust >>> me on this! >> >> This is utter nonsense. You're not actually in the workforce, are you? >> > True. They will actually promote the guy who wears a suit. I've seen > smart people wear a suit every day from graduation, and I've seen idiots > do it. I've never seen anyone wear a suit every day and fail to make > rapid progress, though.For 25 tears, I wore jeans and flannel shirts (with a sports jacket for the pockets) most days at work. I wore a suit when I had to attend a meeting with outside people for the first few times, and I kept a necktie in my bottom drawer "just in case". I several times turned down offers to become a manager. For me, the extra pay wasn't worth the hassle, and I would have hated giving up my soldering iron. I was much better off doing what I enjoyed. Jerry -- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Reply by ●June 19, 20072007-06-19
Mark Walsh wrote:> "larwe" <zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote in message > news:1182257764.827189.134090@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com... >> On Jun 19, 3:26 am, Benj <bjac...@iwaynet.net> wrote: >> >>> will invariably advance the guy with the MSEE sheepskin over the >>> smartest BSEE with all the company training they have to offer. Trust >>> me on this! >> This is utter nonsense. You're not actually in the workforce, are you? >> > > This may be true for companies with large bureaucracies, but competence has > always trumped credentials every place I have worked. And an MSEE typically > fails to add any significant competence outside of the narrow thesis area. > > We all have strengths and weaknesses in various areas, but I find that the > engineers that I hire who are generalists rather than specialists are much > more productive.I always asked about car and bicycle maintenance when I interviewed job candidates. I've rarely seen a good engineer who was a poor mechanic. When quizzing new graduates about technical competence, I asked what subjects they felt they knew best and concentrated on that. There's no good comes of sandbagging someone with a topic he's weak in, and if a person's best is poor, I'm ready to accept his word that the rest is poorer. Jerry -- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Reply by ●June 19, 20072007-06-19
Jerry Avins wrote: ...> For 25 tears, I wore jeans ...For 25 *years*, I wore jeans Jerry -- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
