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Aluminum Record posted:Yeah I don't know what engineering school is like in your country, but this got you a D, max in the US. Most would (and do) fail out. That said, a few semesters will really wreck your perceptions of time...
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Apr 7, 2011 04:59
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jonmitz posted:I assume you mean silicon valley. I'm an engineer here but not a software engineer... What kind of engineering do you do? And how hard is it to score an internship over there if you're not from the area? I've been applying to positions in the silicon valley like crazy but no responses yet.
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Apr 7, 2011 06:23
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Aluminum Record posted:Yeah I don't know what engineering school is like in your country, but this got you a D, max in the US. Most would (and do) fail out. Australia. It'll not be that dissimilar course-wise. Looking at MIT's OCW, most of the course content is the same as what I did. We just socialised between classes during the day - pub for an hour or two over lunch for example. I'm not saying we'd drink every night, but it's certainly not the perception I get from people here where engineers are locked in their dorm rooms every night studying. There was certainly an imbalance between the fields of engineering - elec guys tended to be far quieter, compared to us mech and mining guys. Maybe it's the industry encouraging a culture since most of us wind up in mining related stuff where you work hard for 12 hours then drink hard to unwind. I don't know, honestly. Either way, ask any student here who the heavy drinkers are and it's invariably the engineers.
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Apr 7, 2011 06:57
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Nam Taf posted:Australia. It'll not be that dissimilar course-wise. Looking at MIT's OCW, most of the course content is the same as what I did. We just socialised between classes during the day - pub for an hour or two over lunch for example. I'm not saying we'd drink every night, but it's certainly not the perception I get from people here where engineers are locked in their dorm rooms every night studying. pimpology 101 posted:What kind of engineering do you do? ApathyGifted posted:We had a guy in my class from France who'd already gotten his Bachelor's in Engineering back home. He had to completely redo his degree here because no American companies would accept his education. A B- average means you got C's. There's nothing bragworthy about a C on your record lol. pimpology 101 posted:What kind of engineering do you do? Nam Taf posted:Australia. It'll not be that dissimilar course-wise. Looking at MIT's OCW, most of the course content is the same as what I did. We just socialised between classes during the day - pub for an hour or two over lunch for example. I'm not saying we'd drink every night, but it's certainly not the perception I get from people here where engineers are locked in their dorm rooms every night studying. Jam2 fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Apr 7, 2011 |
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Apr 7, 2011 08:02
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Jam2 posted:A B- average means you got C's. There's nothing bragworthy about a C on your record lol. or he got a B- in every single class. Nothing wrong with the occasional C, Cs get degrees.
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Apr 7, 2011 09:07
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dxt posted:or he got a B- in every single class. Nothing wrong with the occasional C, Cs get degrees. Even so, there's nothing cool about a B-, or even a B.
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Apr 7, 2011 09:20
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Jam2 posted:Considering that the most capable students in the world study like mad and struggle to complete the courses at MIT, it's difficult to believe that one could go through a similarly rigorous curriculum somewhere else and breeze through it. It must have been less demanding than MIT or you're a savant. I'm not saying it was a similarly rigourous curriculum. We likely had less examination of the course material and likely covered it in a bit less depth, but the spread of material was certainly similar. Here is the study plan for Mech & Aerospace - I did Mech & Space which is no longer offered and contained a bit more mech-based stuff rather than elec-based stuff, but they're mostly identical. My point was that we only didn't study, say, the equivalent of 1xx and 2xx courses in the US - we covered the same bulk of content as a US degree would have. We may not have covered it to the same depth or with the rigourousness of examination that would eat up time, or even the variety of applications that is covered there but nevertheless, the same core material (fluid mechanics, statics & dynamics, materials, etc.) is there. For example, where they covers analysis of the rotating blade through water in their marine propulsion courses, we cover wing analysis in aerospace design. Where they analyse the effect of turbocharging a marine engine, we investigated the comparison of turbojets vs turbofans vs both with afterburning. In both contexts, the same basic stuff is there. I'm certainly not professing that I did an MIT-grade course  Please don't mistake me as saying that.
Nam Taf fucked around with this message at 10:05 on Apr 7, 2011 |
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Apr 7, 2011 09:59
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Heya. I'm studying accounting right now, and have thought alot about studying engineering. Are there any pathways to engineering that don't require an engineering degree?
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Apr 7, 2011 10:38
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Jam2 posted:Even so, there's nothing cool about a B-, or even a B.
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Apr 7, 2011 10:42
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grover posted:You might be viewing this through grade-inflated glasses. For schools that don't inflate grades and end up with bell-curve-like grade distributions, As and Fs are in equal number, and there's nothing wrong with a B. Not only that, but there are a ton of other variables that don't get considered via GPA. IE-I've had to work to pay my way through school, so-and-so got sick and stuck it out for the year rather than resign, etc etc. Don't be a douche and think GPA is the sole measure of a student's worth.
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Apr 7, 2011 15:24
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I have a 2.8 and I'm going to be starting grad school as a fully funded GRA this summer because I spent more time doing projects and undergraduate research than homework  (This semester I'm getting a 4.0 though, because all my grades are in classes that are 90% project work. Yay!)
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Apr 7, 2011 16:10
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Apr 7, 2011 16:29
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Jam2 posted:A B- average means you got C's. There's nothing bragworthy about a C on your record lol.
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Apr 7, 2011 18:20
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Just got a call from Ascend Performance materials and they want me to come out to their Texas site for a co-op this coming Fall semester! Anyone know anything about them? This sounds like a really great opportunity to me.
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Apr 7, 2011 21:08
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I'm studying ME (sophomore) and considering picking up a computer science minor. It only takes four classes to do it at my uni, so I can still graduate in only four years, and I've nearly finished the first course (a 200-level programming course). It was fun at first, but I'm kind of starting to lose interest. A couple of you have been saying that a CS or EE minor is really valuable for an ME to have, and I'm confident that I can pass all the courses. If I really do start hating it, should I still just soldier through it to make myself attractive to employers?
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Apr 7, 2011 23:31
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So, just had a phone interview with a small DoD contracting start up. Do any of you have experience with companies that contract out their engineers to the bigger guys so they can satisfy the x% of this contract must go to small businesses requirement? I work in defense but don't have much experience with small contracting shops like this. It would mostly be a software role.
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Apr 7, 2011 23:57
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Thoguh posted:Maybe, but if your univseristy was accredited by whatever the Australian or commonwealth equivelent of ABET is, you should have had a comparable amount of depth and rigor to an engineering degree taken anywhere. No Uni here is qualified under AEBT however the Institute of Engineers performs a similar function, I guess, and my Uni was qualified there. My point is that although it may not be identical to an MIT level of onslaught (they must do *something* extra to produce the quality they do), universities here also don't teach a significantly abridged degree in comparison to US universities. I used MIT to compare the array of courses because it's got OCW which makes it easy to see exactly what they teach. I never intended to use it to say 'my degree produces the same students as MIT'. My entire point, before this discussion moved completely off course, was that the stereotype of engineers having no social life at Uni absolutely does not exist here and instead they're known as the guys always at the pub, and that I never got why that difference existed. For whatever reason that is, I can only guess, but I certainly never intended to claim we're all walking intellectual Goliaths capable of devouring MIT's or Caltech's or Harvard's degree in our spare time only.
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Apr 8, 2011 00:54
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Plinkey posted:So, just had a phone interview with a small DoD contracting start up. Do any of you have experience with companies that contract out their engineers to the bigger guys so they can satisfy the x% of this contract must go to small businesses requirement?
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Apr 8, 2011 01:02
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Jam2 posted:What's been your strategy for identifying opportunities? Do you browse the career sections of websites or something else? Yeah, pretty much. I have been aiming kinda high with most of my apps but there are a few smaller companies that I have applied to as well. I've only gotten one rejection so far and silence from all the others.
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Apr 8, 2011 01:15
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grover posted:There are a lot of minority-owned small-businesses (8A) that take advantage of affirmative active legislation to act as a pass-through for contracting to other firms. Is that what you're talking about? Basically. From what the owner of the company (the guy I talked to) most contracts are written that a certain % of the funding has to go to small businesses (not sure about the minority owned thing but I've heard of that program too). So his company contracts out to other subcontractors to satisfy the overall contract's small business requirement. The salaries and benefits he was talking about seem really good because of his small overhead and small capital costs...etc. I'm just not sure how the contracts work and all. Looks like I'll be meeting with him in the next week or two to talk about this some more.
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Apr 8, 2011 01:18
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Nam Taf posted:I never got this. Maybe you Americans are different (maybe it's to do with the 18 vs 21 thing) but here, the engineers are the biggest drinkers and always live in the pub. I spent so much time there during Uni it was criminal. We're also the guys constantly having 'social club events' (uni-funded pissups) under the guise of Uni rugby teams, etc., not to mention all the 'industry networking evenings' (industry-funded pissups). Study was relegated to a distant annoyance that had to be just barely satisfied for about 95% of us. Here in my hometown in Mexico, we definitely are the biggest drinkers, but social lives? Hell no we don't have one really. Specially on 6th and 7th semester, the workload is huuuge. My best friend is now a guy a year below me and I hang out with him every day. My other friends I barely ever see... Since I was ignored last time, I'll rephrase my question: Is it worth it belonging to IEEE and ISA (as a student member, of course)? I'm Secretary of Memberships of the ISA student faction in my school, and I'll probably join IEEE too. Although I want to know if I'll be wasting my money. And I wish someone from a developing country that got a Masters or Phd overseas would share his experiences with me. I do have all the requirements I need but the language to get an scolarship in Germany when I finish my current course, but I get kinda anxious that I'm not getting enough merits as it is, and I really want to study abroad. I aim for Germany, but I'll go anywhere.
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Apr 8, 2011 03:40
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Apr 8, 2011 04:12
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I'm not sure exactly how I do it but I go out on average 3 nights a week and pulled a 3.3 last semester at a US school with classes like calc 5 and thermo. I'm not super brilliant, the semesters before were the range of 2.0 and 2.6 I guess I've learned when I'm studying to actually study and use my time wisely. Also I work about 10 to 15 hours a week on average.
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Apr 8, 2011 04:39
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I found that after I did my internships my grades went up quite a bit because I had a lot better idea of what real engineering was like and the classes seemed much more relevant. Couldn't save me from a 2.8 GPA though.
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Apr 8, 2011 04:41
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Apr 8, 2011 04:51
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huhu posted:I'm not sure exactly how I do it but I go out on average 3 nights a week and pulled a 3.3 last semester at a US school with classes like calc 5 and thermo. I'm not super brilliant, the semesters before were the range of 2.0 and 2.6 I guess I've learned when I'm studying to actually study and use my time wisely. Also I work about 10 to 15 hours a week on average. This is a bit more similar to my experience. I do have to spend a good amount of time studying for tests, but i can get by with a 3.2 without a soul-crushing level. Then again that might just say something about my particular school.
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Apr 8, 2011 04:57
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Murgos posted:When I interned with Honeywell the interview process consisted of, "You want to be an intern?".
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Apr 8, 2011 05:29
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Thoguh posted:You're missing the point. What posters who have gone through Engineering degrees elsewhere are asking is how people can get through an extremely time consuming and intellectually intense course of study and be the "guys always at the pub".
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Apr 8, 2011 10:51
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T.H.E. Rock posted:On the other hand, I had an interview last summer for an internship with a utility that would've mostly involved painting power boxes (I was desperate) and they conducted an in-depth interview. When I called up a few days later to see if they'd made a decision, he said the interview had gone "really well" but that they ended up going with someone else. I haven't had the experience of internship interviews being a formality, but then I don't have any connections so YMMV. The post I was replying to was concerned that the 'quality' of the position was correlated to the difficulty of the interview process. I was just trying to point out that it varies and you can't discern one from the other and I was not attempting to declare general practices.
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Apr 8, 2011 14:26
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Thoguh posted:You're missing the point. What posters who have gone through Engineering degrees elsewhere are asking is how people can get through an extremely time consuming and intellectually intense course of study and be the "guys always at the pub". Nobody is questioning any Australian engineer's intelligence or anything, just wondering how the most demanding degree options can lead to having time to always be at the pub. Even if someone is excellent at managing their time, they're still going to have at most only a few nights open a week. And that would require being really disciplined about getting all your homework and studying done in the mornings/afternoons, and not having a part time job or being part of a university sports team or club. My experience here in Canada sounds a lot closer to Nam Taf's than the american experience. The engineers here also have the reputation of being the heavy drinkers, but it's very much a work hard/play hard kinda feeling. Plus, the pub is an excellent place to work on assignments with friends over beers.  Thats not to say I don't spend most nights a week working. It's just that when I have nights off (I can usually swing friday/saturday, sometimes more/less depending on time of year) I'm out with friends.
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Apr 8, 2011 14:56
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grover posted:It's simply, really. Just be super brilliant and able to slack your way through an extremely difficult degree program with little effort. The classes themselves are only 12-18 hours per week, leaving you lots and lots of time to get drunk if all you do is go to class. And, really, if you're good enough, you don't even need to show up to all of them all the time. I had ~20 hours of class a week, and in order of difficulty (highest to least) it was probably EE, Biochemistry/chemistry, and then CE (probably because CE ended up using very little of the math I learned). I graduated with a 3.68 I think, I just really loved the material and found it fun to study it. Most of my free time was occupied with clubs/activities and a girlfriend. I didn't start drinking heavily until senior year, I'd probably have a 3.3 or something if I was partying/drinking daily With engineering, like other professional degrees, you have to think long run. Party it up with the philosophy majors, graduate with <3.0, have trouble finding job, or put your nose to the grindstone, do an internship or two and get >=3.0/3.5 and get awesome job. Then you get to move to and work in a college town and reap the benefits of making good coin whilst still being college-aged and not being terribly creepy to go hang out in the student-quarter and hit on chicks there  e: ^^ Canada is awesome, when I joined the Order of the Engineer I was told people would actually recognize the ring there! Here it's just "what's your pinky ring?" 
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Apr 8, 2011 15:23
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movax posted:e: ^^ Canada is awesome, when I joined the Order of the Engineer I was told people would actually recognize the ring there! Here it's just "what's your pinky ring?" The US version was copied from the Canadian "Ritual of the Calling of the Engineer", which actually has some meaning and prestige. The US version is a money-grab from newly graduated engineers.
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Apr 8, 2011 17:54
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SeaBass posted:The US version was copied from the Canadian "Ritual of the Calling of the Engineer", which actually has some meaning and prestige. The US version is a money-grab from newly graduated engineers. At least the IE department at my school (who ran it) offered full refunds on costs paid if you passed the FE on your first try, so I don't feel as dumb now.
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Apr 8, 2011 19:43
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Thoguh posted:What is Calc 5?
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Apr 8, 2011 21:49
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movax posted:
That's cool. I wish my school did that. I had to dip into my beer fund to pay for the FE; it was mandatory to graduate.
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Apr 8, 2011 23:39
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Anyone else take the PE Exam today? Just got back from it (Civil - Water / Environmental). Overall it was a bit harder than I expected, certainly harder than the NCEES Sample Exams on their website. I went in with Lindenberg's CERM, Goswami's All-in-One book, my review class binder, and the FE reference and made good use of all of them.
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Apr 9, 2011 00:02
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Necc0 posted:Because I've done real work as an engineer and am set to graduate in the spring. That's why. Is striking out programmer supposed to be an insult or something? I'm not really sure. Oh God please develop some social skills..lol..I teach classes occasionally with engineers as the students..yes, some of you still need to learn stuff like JIRA.. and have found that some engineers (SOME, NOT ALL) are so nerdy geeky that when asked a direct question, they look down, don't answer, and sit there like a toad on a stool. Also basic english writing skills..you may have to do reports! will serve you well. The ability to think beyond your skill set is essential since it seems that some companies are using engineers for everything these days, including system analysis, CQE, etc. Reach beyond your boundaries. Advise from one who has worked with engineers since the 80's. But I gotta say, I love me some engineers..they can focus like nobody's business!
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Apr 9, 2011 23:14
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Writing good readable reports is probably the easiest way to distinguish yourself positively when you're straight out of school. Some new people are stuck in the university "minimum pagecount" mode. Brevity is good thing. Using simple direct language is a good thing. Aim for short and easily digestible. Made something really cool and you want to stick it in the report even if its not really necessary? Put it in an appendix. Making a template and polishing it every time you reuse it for standard stuff will save you a shitload of work and make your work look better.
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Apr 10, 2011 03:59
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taketheshot posted:Anyone else take the PE Exam today? Just got back from it (Civil - Water / Environmental). Overall it was a bit harder than I expected, certainly harder than the NCEES Sample Exams on their website. I went in with Lindenberg's CERM, Goswami's All-in-One book, my review class binder, and the FE reference and made good use of all of them. Electrical-Power here. It kicked my rear end. I was all ready to do difficult per-unit fault analysis, complex algebra for calculating currents, etc. When I got into the test it was nothing like the practice exams and consisted of trivia questions on obscure poo poo. Also, gently caress whoever invented the question that starts with "What is the best way to XXXX...". It makes you overthink the simplest things. Been horrifically fretting over it the past few days. I made a lot of stupid mistakes because when I look up a lot of the things I didn't know, I used the theory instead of common sense.
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Apr 11, 2011 03:54
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Cheesemaster200 posted:Electrical-Power here. I'll be taking that one in October. Could have taken this past one, but I decided to put it off (glad I did).
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Apr 11, 2011 04:20
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