It is completely inexcusable that people in STEM fields are so reactionary, considering how capitalism utterly destroys science.
If universities were actually "left wing indoctrination factories" like the right thinks they are, every STEM grad would be taught, for example, what Kropotkin had to say about innovation.
I've been tinkering with CAD and I'm convinced that the mechanical engineers at work just bullshit their designs instead of doing a whole bunch of FEA and minimizing the amount of material for this and that. So much for all that math, physics, engineering mechanics, etc that they took in college.
as a mech-e undergrad that is how most of my designs have been made with nobody telling me otherwise, yes
I also slap together code so I think it is a cross discipline approach to 'engineering'.
This is kinda real On Practice hours, but I've always respected purely hands on engineering types, which abound at my employer. Though, I do think they are missing out by not knowing enough backing theory. One must have the synthesis to be complete.
But also...
I've also done some FEA in solidworks and then just went "I'll just make this thicker until the factor of safety is like 10 or something. That should do it".
Really, I think the coursework is meant to give one an intuition about how much to add or remove and where one can. This replaces breaking a whole bunch of stuff to learn the same intuition. You can see the hands-on types doing the latter as amateurs on YouTube. It seems that's how it worked for my electrical coursework even though there are some simple maths that often needs done.
I suppose the classes also make it so you can better understand what to use FEA on and how to understand the results.
If you talk to MEs, they often will say they feel they use such a small percentage of their schooling in their careers, probably because its mostly math that you never/rarely preform in the real world anyway. I only had one CAD course in years, and the computer based FEA class was an elective.
I'll be honest, I held the belief throughout college, and still do, that in all reality the way its taught ME could easily be a 2 year tech degree. I would have preferred it that way at least.
True, one forgets the math but learns the feel. How best do we teach the feel? I dunno.
And yeah, I agree that a lot of college degrees really could be way shorter. Maybe they could be shorter with more co-op like how some Euro schooling works.
Well, it's that expectation that competent engineers are good at math and physics that's the problem.
Sure, compared to the average person, an engineer might have an enormous knowledge of those fields, but if you're talking about the cutting edge, you've delved into a completely different subject area. The best engineer in the world isn't necessarily qualified to say shit about real academic mathematics.
So, you have good engineers who know everything they need to know and perform their jobs excellently getting the impression that the're good at math and physics, not just compared to the average person, but compared to mathematicians and physicists, leading them to embarrass themselves when they try and speak with authority.
Engineers are good at specific forms of applied math. Academic mathematics can be so completely different and esoteric that it's really more in line with philosophy than with engineering.
"Industrial Society & Its Future" anyone?
In my experience it's like engineering but for a universe with different and strange properties.
I told myself that when I get bored with making stuff that I'd just pursue math until I fall over dead.
I disagree with this in that most engineering companies now have so much change control and documentation required for new designs that it makes it difficult to push "new" bullshit through.
The main capitalism flaw is how engineers are pushed to use "carryover" designs as much as possible and the term carryover gets used too loosely. With exhibit fucking A being the 737MAX. MCAS was a carryover design from the military tanker KC-46. But aside from them not even implementing it properly, it's so disgusting they thought they could use a military bandaid on a civilian product. Military folks are at least aware their equipment will often be optimized with shady design choices that might make them more efficient at striking hospitals. Regular airline passengers deserve to not be subjected to these design choices as just a basic fucking decency. I will forever be salty these Boeing execs will never be extradited to Ethiopia or Indonesia for some real justice.
You are right. Most of the mechanical engineer's work at our place is either making slight mods to enclosures or minor tweaks. It's all calcified, even in our team. There is also a hesitance among the top management to take risks on new projects that the engineering teams all think should happen. Of course, they know better than us.