+5, Insightful

<a href="http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=52238&cid=5184366">http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=52238&cid=5184366</a>

<<In engineering, if you screw up, at the very least it costs someone a (normally) substantial amount of money to fix the problem, or to pay the lawyers. At the other end of the spectrum, lots of people die (the bridge collapses, the airplane blows up, the submarine sinks). I think that professors in engineering schools take that into account when they assign grades.

An engineer will tell you what the answer is, how accurate it is, and what assumptions were made in getting that answer. In the end, something gets built, and either works or not, entirely based on how closely the engineer understands the problem, and how effective he is at reaching a solution. For the problems that you work on in college, there is very little wiggle room on the correct answers.
In few other professions will someone without many years of proven experience be given the kind of responsibilities that many engineers have to deal with. They would rather flunk you out than let you go forward without the skills you need, and the ability to apply those skills.

Many people leave engineering in the first few years of their careers, and decide to follow another career path. This happens because they can't deal with the pressures of trying to solve the problem, within budget, on time, and working properly.>> Received on Sat Mar 08 11:55:00 2003