Is engineering supposed to suck?

[hans007]

Really, i'm interested in a lot of the stuff that they are supposed to be teaching. But classes are horrible, we get tested on stuff that really doesnt seem to matter. I mean you get a test for math or physics or something where someone who doesnt understand it can memorize like mad and do better than you because they memorized and you might have a better understanding (which i think would apply more in the real world), but it doesnt matter. I think tests just suck since it has nothing to do with what you are goinna do. I remember my CS tests, were just basically a ton of bug finding on PAPER! and number base conversions and bit shifts on paper. Now how does that relate to CS at all.

I guess i just hate the way schools are. I mean tests or so much unlike what you'd do in real life that its just horrible. Like stuff on tests is never applied, and most people dont understand whats going on. And the worst thing about engineering is that you just sit there and listen and get bored. I've been in english and foriengn language classes, and they are a lot more fun, you talk , you discuss, you THINK, its so much more interactive. Going to my compsci and math sections is almost just like a lecture, hell there are 80 people, which is the entire lecture, in my compsci section. We dont discuss anything even though they call it a compsci "discussion". Its just like an advanced preview of next weeks uber-boring cs lecture. And amazingly i think the only reason i'm still in this, is that i've wasted a ton of units, and well the concepts still are really interesting, but doing all this BS drudgery work is just so painful.

Any other CS majors out there feel the same way? I

 

[Hawk]

Yes, engineering sucks, but you already knew that. School isn't run very efficiently I think, but oh well, what can you do? Unless you own a school...=)

 

[trmiv]

I'm not a CS major (MIS for me), but I hear you on the tests thing. In a programming class I had last semester, the tests were all on paper. They were a combination of multiple choice and hand done coding. He would give us cases and situations, and we would have to hand write syntax correct code on paper. Really, is that the proper way to test in a programming class??

 

[phhnyc]

well I'm an electrical engineering student at a very prestigious engineering school and I totally know what you mean. unfortunately, not much can be done to change things as this is the way this material has been taught for a very long time. on the bright side, getting through all this drudgery [supposedly] changes how you think and essentially makes you think more efficiently (if you're really trying). i'm thankful, because for the most part, classes at my school are rather challenging, and memorization is generally pointless.

if you like, you can get involved in a more dynamic branch of engineering, i.e. biomedical engineering, information engineering, etc. as for cs, i think that sucks a LOT more than engineering. i'm friends with a few cs majors and seriously believe that what they're doing is pointless. most of them are just gonna have spent some tens of thousands of dollars to later become code monkeys post-grad. i mean come on, i know kids in high school who could program as good as the best and they dont have cs degrees or anything...i guess what im trying to say is that a cs degree in my mind is superfluous, as i could do anything a cs major could do and more with an electrical engineering degree (not to mention these 15 yr olds).

engineering isnt for everyone, and if you cant get through that horrendous drudgery dont do it. once you hit the real world you'll probably learn everything you need to know on site...and there's no way for an engineering school to try and teach everything you may or may not do in the real world...the best they can do is teach you tons of theory, and refine the way you think in the process. some lab classes can also help, depending on what kind of engineering you're in...

finally, yeah the classes are terribly boring, generally static in nature...but engineering does give you a good foundation for tons of other stuff, and even an engineering bachelor's is generally better than most other degrees. hahaha for one you can do patent law (what im gonna be hopefully doing) which is a great way to compound that engineering degree with another one to put you in a demanding field with tons of opportunities. as for right now, the best you can do is grit your teeth and get throught it. good luck

 

[The Wildcard]

I find engineering to also be a little more hands on than other majors. CS major is so bland. all you do is sit in front of a computer or whiteboard, lol.

 

[DannyLove]

engineering is suck, i cant believe im still in that major, i want to change to CIS or something

 

[virtuamike]

Ugh, CS major here. We don't require sleep to function. Being physically capable of sitting and not getting up for 10 hour shifts is a requirement. So is being able to sit through lecture without falling asleep, taking midterms withough falling asleep, taking finals withough falling asleep, and still being able to get out of your chair when it's all over to hand your test in. And yes, writing code on a piece of paper is a sucky way of testing. Most profs are nice enough to make it open note and open book though. *sigh* hopefully 2 more years and I'm out.

 

[hans007]

well i actually like programming. I was introduced to it when i was 9, and programmed for a couple years in pascal and c++ in high school. The problem here, is that our CS major is in the engineering school. So i've been taking a lot of pointless EE and math classes. I actually like most of the theories and the subjects and i want to program for embedded devices in ASM, not that piddly crap that any retard can learn in VB of Vc++ (though i havent gotten around to this, i've got a book its easy and not very challenging, just remember which functions to call and it seems like you are go). I think i was just ranting about how classes in engineering are in general, and well they go about it in a really crappy way. CS to me is a good degree to get as a sort of fall back in my quest to start my own company and rule the world. Anyways, the parts i hate most about CS here at ucla are the engineering parts, like the physics the EE and that sort of crap.


And dont go insulting us CS majors. We may be slow to move, and sit in front of computer all day, but still, a lot of people switch out of CS to go to EE here, some people cant handle the way of thinking. and well i'm taking a intro digital systems class, where we design simple function circuits, and well you do it on a computer aided design tool, so EE isn't exactly running around and all active either

 

[bastula]

Yes, engineering sucks big time. I'm a EE and going to change to a Comp E. It really doesn't matter what I do undergrad - as long as its different from biology... I really want to go to med school after I graduate, and hopefully this engineering degree will have paid off by then. If I don't get in, I'm going to have to shoot myself for going through all this trouble to learn crap that I will probably NEVER use after I get out of school. Why do you ask I am picking engineering? Well, for today's med school applicant - being a bio or traditional science major just isn't competitive enough. You have to be something more. Now that I think of it, I wouldn't mind having been an english or liberal arts major. Now, if I don't get in - as an engineer, at least I can land a job somewhere doing something decent that pays reasonably well. But as a lib arts - I wouldn't find myself enjoying life teaching or acting or whatever.

My two cents...

 

[amnesiac]

I took a couple semesters of engineering and I started to wonder if ANY engineers are right in the head.

Programming (C++) - Taught by profs who know C++ like no one's business but have no idea HOW to teach. Talk to you like you are a walking RS/6000 workstation. Assisted by bitter foreign TAs who speak poor english and get very very mad if you ask them questions.

Math - Starts out as Calculus I/II/III requiring you to either be full-blooded Asian or take lots and lots of Speed and tutoring in order to pass. Followed by theoretical or logical mathematics (i.e. encryption/decryption) where you learn things that no human should ever possibly be forced to know as it's all done by computer anyway. On the bright side if SKYNET ever takes over the world you'll be able to speak to the robots.

Language Requirement - a CSCI requirement at USC, have no idea why they make you learn another language when most programming is done in English and C/C++/Java/etc is the same as learning a foreign language anyway. Why waste resources in teaching programmers to speak French or Spanish when they don't ever interact with other humans?? j/k

 

[shadowfaX]

Yay... I thought my life at school was bad enough... I guess by the time I hit college, I'll be really dead then! He he!

 

[vailman]

ROLFLMAO!!

As someone who has gone through it all (MS in ME in 3 more months!!!) you hit the nail on the head Amnesiac!!

 

[The LIdless Eye]

Geez, people, use your fricken brain. It's not THAT hard.
(BTW, if you DON'T want to use your brain, WHY are you in engineering anyway?)
Also, re: it's all done by computer comment. If you can't eyeball the data as
a backup, your screwed in engineering.

The Lidless Eye, BSEE, MSEE

 

[Mule]

I feel a little different about engineering, maybe because our school motto at Cal Poly - San Luis Obispo is "Learn By Doing"

I'm a CS major(second year) and I always thought that my CS classes were alright. Except for one but that's the professors fault. They teach us concepts and how to apply them to each situation differently. None of this memorizing bullsh:t. Even my Math and Physics classes allow note cards to write down formulas, because it's not memorization they want to teach you, it's about the concept and principal of the course.

Most of my CS courses are also followed up by Labs in which we learn how to program/communicate in the real world. We have group projects in which each person is responsible for a certain aspect of the program and how data is version controlled by each user. When conflict arise we have group discussions on how to resolve the problem and so on.....

Anyways my classes are very much interactive and you certainly have to think. I think most schools just want to teach you "by the book" and leave it at that, but that's one of the reasons why I chose Cal Poly, other than MIT didn't want me (other school which is highly interactive in it's engineering programs)

 

[hans007]

oh we have projects, and we have note cards. but they still give us problems that have nothing to do with the concepts. I.E. i am in a class doing infinine series calc, and we have to do stuff with trig functions a lot, because well trig functions are hard to derive and integrate especially inverse ones. Yea we could do it with normal problems, but this way its just harder and we spend another hour doing homework. Lectures are just crap, i mean you dont learn ANYTHING, that you wouldn't already know if you read the book (which i actually do, so i dont go to lecture very much). I really think the professors are useless at this point, they are just there to give you tests and say if you passed or not, but they really have no teaching ability / talk like they are that computer HAL. plus really , i dont think knowing how to eyeball a 24bit binary floating point notation number back into a decimal one without a calculator at insane speed (so you could finish the test obviouslly) really is that useful.

 

[loogie]

Engineering dudes get all the chicks.

 

[hans007]

loogie is telling blatant lies

 

[PakG1]

Personally, I like my comp classes, discrete math, and calculus classes. Well, calculus only because I like the stuff but sleep in class (did it in AP). amnesiac and hans007 hit it on the head though for my first semester programming class. It was a sessional instructor and the guy didn't know how to teach. If I hadn't done that one in AP also, I would have died, it was SOO boring (I died anyway, wasn't motivated to work ). But most of my profs are pretty good, some are even funny. And they do agree that tests suck and they're sick of the whole procedure but they have to follow policy and give out a grade somehow.

 

[ZeroCool420]

i agree with loogie. CS dudes get the Pre Med chicks!

 

[CyberTiger]

I am a CS major. This is my fourth year but going to get a Master next year. Classes really do seem useless for my career since they are very theoretical.

 

[Mday]

i like programming too, but the classes are so slow... =(

i mean learning how to code is one thing, and learning concepts of CS is another. i can't do the first very well though i can solve problems... converting the solution to psuedo code then to java is not easy since i don't know all the syntaxes of java...

i have learned very few concepts of CS =(

--

as for engineering, yeah the classes suck =( and i have not even taken a real EE course yet... i mean, half of the people in my program, i would call idiots. okay, i exaggerate, a third. but each have their talents, and a few have problems all around...

 

[Mday]

if i had not taken AP physics C my senior year, my gpa would be soooooooooo low... physics C is mechanics (physics 1) and e&m (physics 2)... that's a year of physics too ;-)

and i got BC credit also so that's a year (sorta) of calculus... (as a junior)...

and i also took a BS (as in bull) multivariable calc course in HS as well as a BS differential equations course in HS, both during my senior year. the teacher did not know how to teach (we did not even have a text book for differential equations. and it was her first time teaching it, the former teacher of both classes was the head of the dept, who died the year before =( who was going to stop teaching it anyway... but i took both in college, and Aced them, ;-)...

--

btw, i was a CpE, changed to EE, may change back ;-) (probably not)....

 

[samarth]

I'm a CS&E major. I agree, the engineering programs arent that great. all they teach you is just a whole lot of theory which i am pretty sure wont be that helpful(on your job) later on. Its just learning something about a lot of stuff.
I guess it will be different when I get a masters though, because then I might be focusing on one specific area and understanding it completely. Hope so. 2 more years till i get a BE.