Who knows more about electrical components? Degree or non-Degree?
Who would know more about electrical components?· Someone who has a degree or someone who tinkers with electrical components?
If you say, "yes" to having a degree, what is your criteria?
If you say, "yes" to tinkering, how many hours of study are relevant?
If you say, "yes" to having a degree, what is your criteria?
If you say, "yes" to tinkering, how many hours of study are relevant?
Comments
Recently, I've been tinkering with RF electronics and am finding that the intuitive sense that I've developed over the years for digital and some analog electronics is hopelessly inadequate for RF stuff. Moreover, "cut and try" just doesn't work in this realm. As a consequence, I've been studying The ARRL Handbook for Radio Communications to brush up on the theory I'd long forgotten. It's fine and necessary to tinker, but you also have to know the math.
-Phil
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Once when I was buying components, a RS clerk asked me, "So how do those transistors work, anyway?"
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·"If you build it, they will come."
I have a Master's Degree in Computer Science, but I got a huge amount of hardware practical experience from Amateur Radio in middle school and high school that carried forward in everything I did since then including formal education and work.· Although I mostly worked in the software side of things, I've had to debug hardware in the process of writing and debugging firmware.
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The early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese.
Did you then proceed to tell him about the magic smoke inside them?
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There is no problem that can't be solved with a suitable amount of explosives!
EOD Memorial
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The early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese.
In my years of experience as an engineering manager, the worst engineer I've ever had working for me had a Ph.D. in EE, while the best had a B.A. in music...
The non-company-owned RS where I live, OTOH, has been blessed from time to time with part-time retirees who do have some electronics background and working knowledge. But that's the exception.
-Phil
Now let me say that in the case of basic components, resistors, caps, transistors, led's, op amps and other "common" chips, components and such, that this forum are full of knowledgable people that could tell you all you ever wanted to know about them.
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I'm just 7*1027 atoms floating through time and space in close formation. -KF4IXM
In the 70's I tried my hardest to get a job at Radio Shack. It was where I could talk to other hobby guys, (geeks), and get paid for it. It never did pan out. I did·get a job with a small telecommunications company on the ground floor in shipping. 6 months later I was in charge of 4 techs.
This job was based on me having an Associates Degree. It was just a piece of paper, because I had learned all this stuff while in·middle and high school, because I thought it was cool, and my Dad was a pretty·good Electrical Engineer. He taught me to play with stuff, but understand what I was doing by backing it up with some·Ohm's law and other equations. I'm still not sure why that Jackob's Ladder never killed me?
To answer the OP, I think a little of both if you going into generic engineering, but of course, if you·are going to·specialized in·a certain·field·, it would require the appropriate degree.
Jim
@hover: In the late 80's, I tried my hardest to get a job at the Los Angeles HEATHKIT store. They had a new HERO 2000 laying dormant in their store. Such wasted potential, I never saw them even turn it on in many visits there. I could never afford one, so I pitched to them that I would work part-time and write some code to have the robot auto-charge and run around the store doing nifty things. They never bit, and in fact, Heathkit closed all their stores within a few years. In an amazing stroke of luck, I wandered into the Orange county Heathkit store as they were closing and they had a fully decked-out HERO 2000 marked down to $1000. It just barely fit into my Corvair for the long trip home.
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·"If you build it, they will come."
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"I mean, if I went around sayin' I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away!"
I went to college ( for my first degree AS EET ) to fill in holes where my self taught hobby did not take me and for that paper ...
mind IMHO in the plain E tech world a ISCET or ETA cert is almost as good as the AS ET it self, but this depends on where you work .... I started in electronics at the age of 7 ... so I knew a ton before I entered college....i would not say my degree did not teach me anything useful BUT I feel I have not used the extra stuff to any real use "yet"..
IMHO If you learn it cause YOU want to, degree or not you will learn it much better ... ..
SO in the end I feel that is How much the person Loves his profession or Hobby . and how much they have done with there knowledge , then If they tested well in a college ..
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"Carpe Ducktum" "seize the tape!!"
peterthethinker.com/tesla/Venom/Venom.html
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway. —Tanenbaum, Andrew S.
LOL
[noparse][[/noparse]Slander and other offensive material removed by moderator]
Tinkerbell
Post Edited By Moderator (Chris Savage (Parallax)) : 6/24/2010 6:58:21 PM GMT
I think I've met as many degreed tinkerers as non-degreed, and the same for non-tinkerers.
But I'd say it takes years, not hours of tinkering to get a solid base on working with electrical components.
It's a matter of knowing what, right? How to use them, or how they work? I would say the tinkerer would probably know more about how to use them. He spends more time playing with them, and generally has no time constraints. The degree'd dude would know more about how they work. He IS constrained by time, and possibly makes more hasty decisions that involve components that are more than able to do the job. Plus, budget is normally less an issue when you are backed by your employer, so you probably spend less time finding the perfect part to fit the need.
I'm a degree'd ME. Just a Bachelor's degree. I work for a company that is full of MIT, RIT (and many other VERY fancy schools) PHD's. I'm pretty much stupid around here. BUT, I was hired most likely due to the fact that I was an SAE guy in college. That is tinkering at it's finest when it comes to mechanical engineering. There are a lot of PHD guys that couldn't design there way out of a box, but can provide every single specification and calculation to do so! Ask them to find the right bearing and see what happens.
It's also passion. Tinkerers have passion. Passion leads to knowledge and experience. Most degree'd people's brains shut down when they badge out of work at the end of the day. There isn't enough time to tinker when time is at hand and your boss just wants the job done.
--Parsko
I have a friend who went to college and my friend doesn't use the degree.
I have about 60 feet of books on a subject and I haven't read everything there but I've been involved in another field without a degree even though I have a degree in something else.
The other person says they know more.· I don't know everything and I can be very daft at times but I practice my other hobby for years and the other person does little.
The other person says they know more and it isn't about being right for the sake of being right.· It is about what I feel is important and the other person thinks it is not important (hence why they don't use their degree in another field).
Computer/electronics types have for years given the "Human Resources" types fits. They like to place people in a neat little "box" by what college degree they have. And they battle with the managers who know that the best person for the job might have no degree or a degree in an unrelated field. And the HR types can't understand that anyone could possibly have any knowledge in something without a degree in that field!
The solution to this is to get all promising job applicants past the "pit bull" in the HR department, have the manager interview them,·and give them all·a test.
You might find someone with an EE degree who does not know what an RS-232 is and someone else with no degree might be able to explain it in detail.
·
I'll probably never work for someone else again.
Is it blessing or a curse? We'll see.
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Propeller Pages: Propeller JVM
the best guy I ever saw was a EE from India that worked at my
last job. He was amazing, I learned so much from him. I still
communicate with him nearly every day via cell phone and often
send an image of something I am working on. I don't have a
degree of any sort but I'm gaining knowledge every day. I'm
lucky to be surrounded by people that really know their stuff.
In a way I sort of did take a test
We built some custom high speed communications analyzers at my last
job and several were shipped here to where I now work as a
programmer. At the interview I mentioned that I wrote much
of the code in those analyzers and when they took a look at
the source code supplied with them and saw my name they hired
me. That code, in effect, was my test.
Technology programs are designed to teach about a range of specific topics so that the graduate can enter those areas of work and continue to hone their skills related to their training. In most regions, technologists are not regulated in the legal sense and do not take on so-called "professional responsibility".
Engineering programs are designed to teach more of a process of problem solving in the various disciplines ( electrical, mechanical, civil, etc). The graduate must then obtain work experience to demonstrate his/her ability. This is where the engineer gets the "hands-on" part of their training. The professional engineer is then regulated by a regulatory body and must take "professional responsibility" for the work. There are legal responsibilities stretching out many years for doing professional engineering.
There are some exceptionally talented folks with training via either path. As my family physician used to say " half of all med school grads are in the bottom 50% of the class!". Judge the work output, not the certificate on the wall.
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Tom Sisk
http://www.siskconsult.com
Post Edited (stamptrol) : 6/25/2010 7:01:26 PM GMT
The hate message and slander were reported to me and I gotta be honest with you folks.· It's hard to believe people like that exist and actually find their way to our forums.· I apologize for not noticing sooner.
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Chris Savage
Parallax Engineering
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Propeller + Picaxe = Romeo & Juliet
First I worked for my Uncle's business writing software for
medical devices. Then after I became acquainted with his
business partner I went to work for him at a small firm that
made custom security gear and a few other things. Then I
got to know some people here in Haifa that bought some of
the equipment we made and was invited to come and look
the place over when I visited Israel. I did visit and ended up
finding a spot here. What I do is work with several EE types to
add improved modern control interfaces to older equipment.
I enjoy adding new features to the old military stuff, it saves
lots of money compared to replacing the old stuff. I like using
various uControllers to glue this stuff together. I don't really
have a deep grasp of the electronics involved but I ask lots
of questions and I'm pretty good at coming up with ways to
sniff data, analyze it, and finally feed that data to a new control
interface, modify it and then send it on to its original destination.
This all has to be done very quickly in real time. My work with
data/communications analyzers gave me the skills to step in
and do this stuff. I'm sure there are several guys here on this
forum that would also do well at this type of work.
Not sure what I'd be doing if I hadn't landed that first job with my Uncle's business.
I'd probably be in school somewhere.
I think maybe it's a bit easier to get a job as a programmer without
a degree than it would be as a self taught EE. Self employment is also
a dream of mine. I want to design and manufacture custom devices.
If I ever get enough engineering knowledge I'm going to do it.
(obscure Seinfeld reference to Markov & Chris Savage referring to themselves in the third person)
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·"If you build it, they will come."
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Chris Savage
Parallax Engineering
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I had to drop out of college with 96 hours of an engineering degree because I lost my scholarship by 0.01 of a grade point. I had had a major fallout with my parents (involving the existence of a female person more important to me in some ways than they were, a fact they had trouble handling) and the money did not exist to both live and keep going to school. In fact, the money did not exist to live. I had to find a job. And it was a very difficult economy, as bad as today's in some ways, particularly for job seekers.
I ended up getting hired in 1985 to work at the place where I still do today, a distributor of industrial weighing equipment. It's as recession-resistant an industry as has ever existed, a fact that kept me with them during the boom times of the 90's when people kept telling me how much more money I could make in San Francisco.
I didn't finish my engineering degree but I did make it through Dynamics, and my father was a college physics teacher and I grew up in his lab. I was comfortably familiar with soldering irons and voltmeters before I was 12. I was hired as a technician to repair electronics with no consideration given to my special skills, and I had a lot to learn; the real world was a most formidable teacher. I have carried my share of 50 lb (25 kg) pipe handle test weights (you always carry 2 at a time, one in each hand, for balance if you can) and got my hernias and done my time in the hot sun wearing Nomex and PPE in the blistering Louisiana sun. I have crawled around in the pits underneath truck scales and climbed hundred foot tall ladders (SQUICK) because sometimes that's what you have to do to find the source of a problem.
But it came to pass that these computer thingies, which my corporate masters knew I had some familiarity with, were becoming more important. I did a couple of bits of magic doing more efficient relay logic (hey I learned that in college!) and later reworking the firmware of a device that was giving sporadic false positives to make it sample an input more than once before triggering. Hand-coded 6502 hex machine language, entered in the hex keypad of a Prolog EPROM programmer FTW. Burn, insert, try, your debugging feedback is "did it work." I learned to keep 10 chips in the UV eraser.
Then the scale companies started coming out with programmable thingies, which were crude and limited but then that's what you'd expect from an industry that (at the time) deliberately kept itself years behind the curve so the regulators could be sure it's honest. You can't just hang up a shingle and decide you're going to sell scales. Scales are so important to commerce they're in the Constitution. You sell a cheap scale you made in your basement it better have NOT LEGAL FOR TRADE written on it in a prominent place, to certain specifications, or you're breaking a law much more serious than you might believe.
Then, to enter the Land of Euphemism for the purposes of Protecting the Guilty, I was asked to pull a very large rabbit out of a very small hat. A certain amount of industrial subterfuge and espionage had been involved against our interests and I was told to strike back; basically, whatever it takes, do it. I said I don't know if it's possible. I don't promise to do things I don't know how to do. My boss nodded, stood up, put his hands on the desk and said, "I don't care how much it costs. Do whatever you have to do. I'll pay for it."
It was understood that that wasn't a threat; it was more a promise of support. I worked 7 days a week (with overtime and doubletime) for nine months but I pulled the rabbit out of the hat. It involved a lot of blind x86 assembly language programming with no debugging utility (hey, at least I could one-click download to flash instead of using the UV eraser). I made a relatively cheap (by industrial standards) commodity machine do the work of far more expensive custom hardware normally air-freighted from northern Europe. Nobody had ever seen anything like it before. The people who built the machine I kindasorta hacked were not capable themselves of making it do what I made it do.
And so here I find myself, 46 years old, not rich but with a paid for house and a stable job. In the small pool of my industry I'm a bigger fish than I usually even realize, and many people I've never met know who I am. Should some catastrophe beset my nice little situation I have many possibilities for relocating; none would likely be as good as the situation I enjoy now but all would be better than being some random person who can't get a job at all