engineering graduate school question

On Jun 19, 12:38?pm, "Joel Kolstad" <JKolstad71HatesS...@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> "Bret Ludwig" <bretld...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> news:1182216882.444668.298530@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Amateur Radio killed itself off by allowing appliance operators to go
> > wild.
>
> I have my amateur radio license and all, but at the end of the day, what does
> it get you?  The ability to go out and legally  transmit on a bunch of
> frequencies that you otherwise couldn't.

>From the late 80's until just a few years ago, I was the point-man for
RF Radio Interference issue abatement for an ever-changing number of
tower sites (and company names) (from as little as 12, to as many as
8,000 towers.  And all types: cellular, paging, AM/FM/TV, rotatable
log periodics, C-band uplink, etc...)

At the time, I refused to get my Amateur license.  (Even at the
encouragement of my radio friends, who could never quite understand my
aversion to it.)

What turned me off most were the countless "back-to-back Mitrek mobile
repeaters", and the ensuing interference complaints & extra workload
that would often generate.  And having met many a HAM, I just didn't
feel like I ever fit into that crowd.

Now that I'm a bit older, and more importatnly not doing interference
work anymore (unless someone pays me big bucks!), I've warmed up a
little.  HAMS are definitely a social bunch, but I'm not sure as a
whole, they are advancing the art anymore..??  I think THAT is the
"decline" we're all trying to put our fingers on.  A lot of HAMS just
buy gear off the shelf.
And finite element analysis (which exceeds most amateur's
comprehension) took over the rest.

That's a far cry from "Honey, can you bring home some milk?"

-mpm

"Mark Walsh" <mwalsh@rogue-engr.com> wrote in message 
news:467821fb$0$505$815e3792@news.qwest.net...
> I've hired engineers fresh from school at both the BSEE and MSEE level who 
> seemed to think that they should get partial credit for getting a project 
> mostly done to spec.

This is the same ways most companies operate today, so it's not too 
surprising.  Indeed, it's quite standard business practice that, yeah, 
engineering and marketing come up with a set of specs and deadlines, and its 
understood that engineering will make its best effort to deliver what's agreed 
upon by the deadline, but that doesn't always happen.  Maybe I've been working 
in the wrong companies, but I can think of *very few* occasions where project 
schedules as *originally* set were ever actually met.  What usually happens is 
that features are dropped as deadlines approach, and if something *has* to be 
shipped, if the extra features were based on software, they're promised as a 
downloadable field upgrade.

I'm not suggesting this is necessarily how things should be, just that in the 
commercial world very few schedules and specs are truly set in stone and 
significant "partial credit" is received for getting projects "mostly" done to 
spec.

Look at Microsoft: a lot of what they originally promised for Windows Vista 
isn't there yet, since they ran out of time to implement it... but they 
shipped anyway.

A pragmatic approach with your engineers is to sit down and make it clear what 
features of a widget are absolutely necessary, which are quite desirable but 
can be skipped if push comes to shove, and which really are just icing on the 
cake.  An engineering manager who suggests that all features of a widget are 
equally important and all are absolutely necessary is not one that most 
engineers will respect.

---Joel

"mpm" <mpmillard@aol.com> wrote in message 
news:1182278831.425472.122400@q69g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
> Now that I'm a bit older, and more importatnly not doing interference
> work anymore (unless someone pays me big bucks!), I've warmed up a
> little.

I primarily "joined up" so that I would have somewhere to test out higher 
power transmitters legally.  I'm not at all a social person, although I do 
enjoy some of the seminars you see at the hamfests and of course just 
"shopping" for parts.  Hams are generally quite pragmatic, so you can pick up 
a lot more, say,  industry-applicable antenna information at their seminars 
than you would from, e.g., Krauss's excellent book.

> HAMS are definitely a social bunch, but I'm not sure as a
> whole, they are advancing the art anymore..??

No, they aren't that much, and it's understandable when you look at just how 
complicated the "competition" (cell phones!) are.  There *are* hams out there 
doing quite sophisticated work -- folks running EM simulators for antenna 
design, folks creating pretty fancy modulation techniques with FEC using DSP, 
the digital voice guys, etc. -- but it is a tiny proportion of the ham 
community.

Have you ever had the chance to go to Dayton (the annual national conference)? 
It's very much worth it, since one trip gives you a lot of insight into how 
amateur radio encompasses everything from, "I used to be a CB'er, but the FCC 
confiscated my linear and my buddy told me I'd be legit if I passed this here 
35 question multiple-choice test!" to "Yeah, we're implementing some turbo 
codes on top of our OFDM and looking at processing with a few dedicated 32 bit 
DSPs or might move to FPGAs if they run out of steam..."

---Joel

On Jun 19, 1:25?pm, larwe <zwsdot...@gmail.com> wrote:
>We have people from the senior engineering level all
> the way up to the executive level who don't even have a BSEE and were
> promoted on a merit/achievement basis.

In general, I completely concur with this experience.
It doesn't take a BSEE (or any?) degree to get ahead in life.
The two wealthiest people I know didn't even go to college! (And "No",
they weren't born with it.)

I also know a Ph.D. psychiatrist who delivers newspapers for a
living.  (I am not making this up!)
And another brilliant MIT grad from the 60's who frankly has trouble
keeping up with Microsoft Word.

I can also tell you that in Electronics / Communciations, it matters
not what you learned or did six months ago in school.
The field changes so fast, the stuff you were working on yesterday is
probably already obsolete.
Those with the aptitude, ambition, and ability to "keep up" are the
ones who will prevail.

But I would take a slight exception on this one point:
I believe manufacturing entities are much more likely to place (undo?)
emphasis on higher education.
I am fairly convinced this boils down primarily to liability
containment issues, etc...
--which for the original poster, you're not going to get to right out
of school anyway, so it's not relevant.

Is any of this helping??

"Simon S Aysdie" <gwhite@ti.com> wrote in message
news:1182275670.796715.304680@n2g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
> On Jun 18, 2:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
> > anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
> > recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
> > question is, is it worth it?
>
> No.  Enroll in Law School.
>

Yeah. just what the world needs: more lawyers!? I'd rather be a broke,
unemployed engineer than a rich lawyer anyday, thanks. -Clark

On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:17:51 -0400, the renowned "cpope"
<cepope@nc.rr.com> wrote:

>
>"Simon S Aysdie" <gwhite@ti.com> wrote in message
>news:1182275670.796715.304680@n2g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>> On Jun 18, 2:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Hello,
>> >
>> > I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
>> > anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
>> > recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
>> > question is, is it worth it?
>>
>> No.  Enroll in Law School.
>>
>
>Yeah. just what the world needs: more lawyers!? I'd rather be a broke,
>unemployed engineer than a rich lawyer anyday, thanks. -Clark

See, that's the sort of thinking that depresses engineering pay. I
don't think there are many who would choose to be a broke, unemployed
lawyer. 


Best regards, 
Spehro Pefhany
-- 
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

On Jun 18, 2:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.

I worked with two engineers whe were pursuing their masters in night
school, one in EE, the other CS (and I won't bother to mention the MBA
candidates).  The work they did for their thesis work was less
challendging than the projects we were running at work, and they took
too long at it, also.

I avoided the graduate school discipline by taking extension courses
that seemed appropriate to my work (C Programming, Neural Networks,
Kalmann Filtering, Fiber-Optic Communications, etc).  I really missed
an opportunity by not taking an early program in Network Architecture
- live and learn.

Jerry Avins wrote:
> Steve Underwood wrote:
>> larwe wrote:
>>> 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.

Whether or not you can get away with all that depends highly on the
firm and position you occupy.  I was lucky, in that I never needed
many clothes.  Or at least that is how I remember it.  (US and
Canada).

-- 
 <http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt>
 <http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/423>
 <http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit043.html>
                        cbfalconer at maineline dot net



-- 
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

larwe wrote:
> "Mark Walsh" <mwa...@rogue-engr.com> wrote:
> 
>>>> will invariably advance the guy with the MSEE sheepskin over the
>>>> smartest BSEE with all the company training they have to offer.
>>
>>> This is utter nonsense. You're not actually in the workforce, are
>>
>> This may be true for companies with large bureaucracies, but
> 
> It's not even true in this case. I should know; I work in a big, big
> multinational with enough bureaucracy to make even a civil servant
> gibber in terror. We have people from the senior engineering level all
> the way up to the executive level who don't even have a BSEE and were
> promoted on a merit/achievement basis.

I know you know better than to strip attributions for material you
actually quote :-)

-- 
 <http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt>
 <http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/423>
 <http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit043.html>
                        cbfalconer at maineline dot net



-- 
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Jun 19, 4:43?pm, Spehro Pefhany <speffS...@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat>
wrote:


> I don't think there are many who would choose to be a broke, unemployed lawyer.


Scooter Libby??


...sorry, could not resist. :)
-mpm