s/o Schools for average kid interested in engineering

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have him get a teaching degree. Or how about being a mechanic?

Engineering isn't really about taking things apart. It's about problem solving through endless calculations and strategies.
True, most engineers have good mechanical skills, but they also need very strong academic skills.

They also need to be very careful and precise - ' doesn't test well' is not impressive.

This is so untrue. You are clearly not an engineer. My job #1 with new engineers is to to break them of this notion that was beat into them by their teachers and overbearing parent. It needs to be good enough. We can fix it in the next version (as long as it does not kill anybody). Nothing is ever perfect. It needs to go to production, now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Have him get a teaching degree. Or how about being a mechanic?

Engineering isn't really about taking things apart. It's about problem solving through endless calculations and strategies.
True, most engineers have good mechanical skills, but they also need very strong academic skills.

They also need to be very careful and precise - ' doesn't test well' is not impressive.

Way to be condescending and dismissive of someone's child!

My kid (who does test well) might try engineering because he's good at math and science and isn't sure what else he wants to do. OP's kid is probably more likely to be successful.

There are no 'average' engineers. The professors, even at a so called 'average' school will brutally weed him out of the program. Engineering is a very exact profession. You HAVE to test well. I honestly predict that this kid will get a report card full of D's and F's freshman year.
It will not be pleasant for him.

There are plenty of average engineers if average is 3.5. He will be fine. Google even did a study and found the engineers hired from Ivy league schools vs the state schools performed at the same level.

[Anonymous]

Stevens Institute of Technology might be big but good to consider.

If you are in maryland, perhaps UMBC might be accessible (not sure these days) -- they are outstanding for this sort of thing.

Look for places that do active learning.

I think Bucknell might be a reach but a place like that would be perfect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have him get a teaching degree. Or how about being a mechanic?

Engineering isn't really about taking things apart. It's about problem solving through endless calculations and strategies.
True, most engineers have good mechanical skills, but they also need very strong academic skills.

They also need to be very careful and precise - ' doesn't test well' is not impressive.

This is so untrue. You are clearly not an engineer. My job #1 with new engineers is to to break them of this notion that was beat into them by their teachers and overbearing parent. It needs to be good enough. We can fix it in the next version (as long as it does not kill anybody). Nothing is ever perfect. It needs to go to production, now.

Are you a PE?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am loving the thread on schools for average kids. I have a kid who is not a great tester and is likely to have something like a 3.5 GPA (only a sophomore, so too soon to tell). But he is a born engineer (likely mechanical or civil). He's the kid who's been taking things apart and putting them back together since he was 2, spends his weekends working on old cars, buys/repairs/resells old computers. Ideally, I think he'll do better in a small school; I think he's gotten a little lost in a big high school.
Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

This screams auto mechanic or skilled trade to me, not eningeer. Have you thought about a 2 yeast or certificate program? An apprenticeship? NVCC has some good options.

[Anonymous]

2 year^^ not yeast!!

[Anonymous]

OP here. I don't have any problem with his working in a trade (I think he could make a decent living with the skills and knowledge he already has), but I know he would be bored to tears at NVCC. He taught himself Algebra a couple of years ago over the summer, and he recently won a timed robotics contest with enough time left to help other kids with their projects (which was allowed and which he happily did). He has been bored at summer classes at GMU in robotics and engineering three years when we last sent him because he knew it all already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have him get a teaching degree. Or how about being a mechanic?

Engineering isn't really about taking things apart. It's about problem solving through endless calculations and strategies.
True, most engineers have good mechanical skills, but they also need very strong academic skills.

They also need to be very careful and precise - ' doesn't test well' is not impressive.

This is so untrue. You are clearly not an engineer. My job #1 with new engineers is to to break them of this notion that was beat into them by their teachers and overbearing parent. It needs to be good enough. We can fix it in the next version (as long as it does not kill anybody). Nothing is ever perfect. It needs to go to production, now.

What have you been smoking? What kind of engineer are you exactly?
Yes, I'm an engineer with advanced degrees and this kid will suffer in school.
There is very little chance that he will pass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I don't have any problem with his working in a trade (I think he could make a decent living with the skills and knowledge he already has), but I know he would be bored to tears at NVCC. He taught himself Algebra a couple of years ago over the summer, and he recently won a timed robotics contest with enough time left to help other kids with their projects (which was allowed and which he happily did). He has been bored at summer classes at GMU in robotics and engineering three years when we last sent him because he knew it all already.

A lot of actual engineering is a bit boring. Engineers frequently do the hands on stuff in their free time, but work can be a lot of papers and computers. Few people do hands on things and those jobs are not easy to get or find. Here's an interesting thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/engineering/comments/2fbvv7/who_here_has_a_more_hands_on_engineering_job/

You can always get a degree in one thing but work in an entirely different field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have him get a teaching degree. Or how about being a mechanic?

Engineering isn't really about taking things apart. It's about problem solving through endless calculations and strategies.
True, most engineers have good mechanical skills, but they also need very strong academic skills.

They also need to be very careful and precise - ' doesn't test well' is not impressive.

This is so untrue. You are clearly not an engineer. My job #1 with new engineers is to to break them of this notion that was beat into them by their teachers and overbearing parent. It needs to be good enough. We can fix it in the next version (as long as it does not kill anybody). Nothing is ever perfect. It needs to go to production, now.

So, your idea is that it's okay to say, send an exploratory Mars vehicle crashing into the planet after the LM ' engineers' (loose term because LM often hires non engineers to do engineering jobs - saves money!) didn't know how to make an accurate calculation or to understand how a result didn't make sense and was wrong. Because being exact and precise is just useless, is that right? I mean, what's $125 million and 5-10 years of an army's worth of people designing, testing , launching and monitoring the vehicle, right? No biggee!

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/

[Anonymous]

"Because being exact and precise is just useless, is that right?"

Being exact and precise is the point of this discussion. It is neither exact nor precise to claim that all or even most of the majority of engineers' work doesn't involve, "getting the job done and on to production or testing."

RIT has a useful graph that helps explain what engineers actually do. http://www.rit.edu/emcs/admissions/academics/majors/engineering-tech-or-engineering

I doubt there are many engineers that spend their entire careers at one level of the chart but very few ever get to the big league of space vehicles.

Those that do have overlapping checks and balances that weed out imperfections in the overall project and don't often rely on one person being infallible.

The engineer who works on Mars vehicles fall under what RIT calls "Complex design and analysis" that would be say the top 10% of engineers. The average 50th percentile engineer works in what RIT calls "Development and design" a much more forgiving field.

"So, your idea is that it's okay to say, send an exploratory Mars vehicle crashing into the planet after the LM ' engineers' (loose term because LM often hires non engineers to do engineering jobs - saves money!) didn't know how to make an accurate calculation or to understand how a result didn't make sense and was wrong. Because being exact and precise is just useless, is that right? I mean, what's $125 million and 5-10 years of an army's worth of people designing, testing , launching and monitoring the vehicle, right? No biggee!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Because being exact and precise is just useless, is that right?"

Being exact and precise is the point of this discussion. It is neither exact nor precise to claim that all or even most of the majority of engineers' work doesn't involve, "getting the job done and on to production or testing."

RIT has a useful graph that helps explain what engineers actually do. http://www.rit.edu/emcs/admissions/academics/majors/engineering-tech-or-engineering

I doubt there are many engineers that spend their entire careers at one level of the chart but very few ever get to the big league of space vehicles.

Those that do have overlapping checks and balances that weed out imperfections in the overall project and don't often rely on one person being infallible.

The engineer who works on Mars vehicles fall under what RIT calls "Complex design and analysis" that would be say the top 10% of engineers. The average 50th percentile engineer works in what RIT calls "Development and design" a much more forgiving field.

"So, your idea is that it's okay to say, send an exploratory Mars vehicle crashing into the planet after the LM ' engineers' (loose term because LM often hires non engineers to do engineering jobs - saves money!) didn't know how to make an accurate calculation or to understand how a result didn't make sense and was wrong. Because being exact and precise is just useless, is that right? I mean, what's $125 million and 5-10 years of an army's worth of people designing, testing , launching and monitoring the vehicle, right? No biggee!"

FYI - One of the main engineer who did the landing gear on Mars had a community college degree.

Also, by the time millions are actually spent on the final version, there were many, many imprecise and "good enough" attempts that occurred to get them there. That's what the engineers do to get to the point where things work and buildings don't fall down. A good engineer knows the difference between times when precision matters and times when it doesn't.

[Anonymous]

My son did an internship at VCU in engineering and really liked the school. He ended up at Tech for engineering but gave VCU a long look

[Anonymous]

IDK my younger brother (who is now 26, so this isn't forever ago) was a totally mediocre student in high school and he got it together in college and now has a successful career as a mechanical engineer. Non-flagship public universities can be great places get engineering degrees for students who were not superstars in high school.

[Anonymous]

Hey OP - I just want to remind you that there is hope yet for your sophomore. My daughter didn't even have that GPA at that point, but pulled it together and just got accepted at a bunch of good engineering schools (state flagships in other states) Not top 10, but plenty of top 30. I can't say that your kid will pull it together to this extent, but I can say that it is far from over.