On 16 Jul 2003 14:28:18 GMT, Alun Palmer wrote:

I had to read it a few times. I think the reason for poor performance in
UK engineering has nothing to do with the quality of UK engineers and
everything to do with the culture of UK companies, in which the engineers
are not in charge, but instead the accountants are.

If you don't think that that is the case "over here" too, you have
not been paying attention to how Corporate America is being run.

And this is not
because we don't study business subjects (we do), or because we don't do
English or History or 'Western Civilisation' in college (the accountants
don't either).

In other words, your "professional education" is basically trade school
programs.

What a waste.

As I understand it (and I freely admit there are gaps in my knowledge of
your system), you can get a 4-year degree over here with 120 (?) semester-
hours of credit, and maybe only half of it has to be in your major (?).
When I sat down and tried to calculate it (from old timetables, since
there are no hours on my transcript, only grades) my 3-year UK degree
included about 150 semester-hours of classroom time, of which about 120
semester hours was in engineering subjects, the rest being things like
economics, finance, mathematics, etc.

IIRC my BEE degree was more like 180 hours (4 years of 20-credit
semesters plus one summer of Surveying -- did you take that by any
chance? It came in real handy when I built my first house and when
I studied Real Estate Law in law school and when I discuss or plot
radio path and contour calculations or directional antenna patterns
with clients or even map-reading and "orienteering" with non-technical
hiking friends and relatives.

No chemistry in an engineering program? This is not the same as a
Literature or Cultural Humasnitiers course. This is basic science.

In an EE program we took a year of chemistry (class and lab), two
years of physics, one year of advanced math, and assorted courses in
non-EE engineering subjects such as thermodynamics, mechanics of
materials, atomic physics, and surveying, plus our rigorous EE power
and electronics courses.

That was 50 years ago. Now they require a lot more of "non-EE"
stuff such as environmental engineering and medical engineering
The school has acquired a reputation for application research in
those fields.

Otherwise one is not a rell-educated engineer - one is a geek with a
degree.

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane