Are you paying for the course out of your pocket?

If the unversity has a gtfo attitude, i would certainly use that in my recommendation to attend that place and the would not get a penny from me.

If i had a trust fund for my children or grandchildren .. It would stipulate that unvirsity can not receive any funds. If my decendents wanted to go there, id tell them to get a job and pay for it themselves.

Apparently they dont need money to operate.

 

Thanks DerStorm8. It's just that type of assumption that pretty much discourages further and gives you a 'do it and be quiet or gtfo' kinda message. Something I keep receiving a lot from this university lately.

It's very difficult to be in a position like that, and it's always sad to see students with a lot of potential turned away or discouraged permanently because of bad teachers. My best advice is to try not to let that get to you. I know that's easier said than done, but that's where self-study comes in very handy. Use your spare time to experiment and have fun with it, with no pressure. Who knows, it may even put you ahead of the class! (I have seen that happen before )

 

Yep. Ok. Biographical explanation to ensue. Prepare the mind now.

Every last dollar I've got on my name from working in a small business owner's garage for the first 2 years of 6 day weeks goes to this university. Since then, I'm... man it's hard to type this... back home for this chosen degree. Anyway, this guy I'm working for (now part time after heading back to school post-music degree) has since moved out of his garage and has an additional 4 people working full time for him while I ended up giving that "next rung" I was originally going for in his business to... well... not my first choice of a candidate for the job however he is making it work better than I believed; especially considering he came from an English degree. But at the same time, he is a better fit with dealing with the boss on a lot of decision making and persuasion of him to make the right choices for the rest of the build team. Funny what success does to people psychologically. I digress. All the while working for him, I've contemplated my options A LOT. In between soldering stacks of boards (all SMT 0805 packages for 8 hours a day) I contemplated this future of what to do with my life. Squander this degree (music), take what I can find later down the chow line of life and go "damn I wish I did x,y,z after that worthless music degree?" Or get up off my can and try something harder, but ultimately turn out with WAY better job security? I'm going with option B there Vanna.

The people that have come and gone through this job have been an incredible education in psychology. Some disciplined, just not good at fine detail work. Others just didn't care but tried to hide that and would subsequently get fired... hell, one turned out to be an amazing friend and ally during some rough patches and fellow amp builder too.

In a small garage, hunched over a bench less than 4 ft from your co-worker also doing the same task, you get to know people, often, quite intimate detail haha. Also the variety of exposure to different genre's of music is almost impossible to beat. I'd say well over 4000 albums have graced those little computer speakers by now. It definitely took a serious time for me to adjust to this considering my previous employment before this was all retail. Not casting this in any negative. Just the simple fact of adjustment necessary there.

So, after this whole chapter of life for me began back in 2008, it's been sort of an x-files like existence. Some guy relentlessly trying to uncover more mysteries in the realm of electronics all the while being thwarted by such topics as "Chemistry for Engineers," Calc I (twice), the frustrations of being older now and having a radically different perspective of the business of higher-ed, and just figuring out that there's more to life than worrying about having to find some magical "place in the sun." Basically, in a quick little nutshell, that's what I've been up to for a while now.

 

I have all of 4 days to really decide if I still want to do this anymore. By that I mean register for this Spring. By next week... those classes will be all filled up again. Maybe some of you were right; this isn't for me. The more I see what this university's program is about the less interest I have in it and certainly the less welcomed I feel by it. Don't dispair, haters. This is the last post I intend to write in the foreseeable future here. Enjoy your club of exclusivity. You've done well to show me the exit door. Lovely thing about aloha. Means hello and goodbye. Aloha!

 

the only reason he said he hated programming was because he had a terrible teacher who didn't introduce it properly.

Sorry, but the statement

"I Hate..Absolutely Hate programming..." is unambiguous. I tend to take people at thier word, thus my opinion is unchanged, unless he has something to offer other than to characterize my response as discouraging.

BTW,

Don't dispair, haters. This is the last post I intend to write in the foreseeable future here. Enjoy your club of exclusivity. You've done well to show me the exit door

Let us not forget, we were asked for our honest opinions. I strongly believe that passion for this business will get you though the times that make you question your choice to pursue this career. If you don't have that passion, then you'll struggle, in my opinion. If that sounds so harsh as to discourage further discussion of contemplation of the very important issue of what to do with your life, then you might be right and this may be the wrong group with which to have this discussion. We can only offer honest opinions. I for one am not willing to sugar coat the realities. So, I hope you can handle honesty and come back for more discussion. You'll face much harsher people than us, this I can guarantee.

 

To be fair, the notion that he hated programming because of the way he was taught was something that was drawn out over the course of the thread and was definitely not apparent in the first post.

I'm at a bit of a loss regarding that last post.

The point I wanted to make to him was something that I think got lost in where the thread meandered. Yes, you can work in portions of EE without ever doing any programming, though programming is directly or indirectly becoming a more important part of an increasingly large fraction of the field, either programming as part of the product or programming as part of designing the product (simulation, optimization, etc.), or programming as part of testing the product (test equipment, etc.). Also, at it's core programming is intimately linked to problem solving and planning out how to accomplish something step by step, skills that are pretty essential to most engineering fields whether or not programming is ever involved, so if that is the aspect that is causing the problems with programming (which it appears is likely not the case) then you may have big problems in any technical field. Finally, although analog and tube electronics is becoming a smaller and smaller niche subfield, they aren't going away anytime soon and because fewer and fewer people pursue them the opportunities to make serious money in them, if you are willing to put forth the effort to become really good, are probably better than ever and will only improve for some time to come.

 

Let us not forget, we were asked for our honest opinions.

I just love it when one asks for an opine and then complains because they don't like the opine.

If you really don't want to know, don't ask. Sometimes the unvarnished truth has painful barbs.

 

The answer to you original question is that you can be and call yourself anything you want. You do have to be prepared for the inevitable consequences of your choices. When layoffs come and you are chosen will you wonder why? When raises or promotions get handed out to your coworkers, but not to you, will you be surprised? You shouldn't be. In this game you need to acquire a wide range of skills in order to prepare yourself. You have to learn to succeed despite the bad teachers and incompetent managers. Welcome to the world my friend. I survived half a century in the engineering workplace and retired last April. I don't understand why I waited so long. It sure feels good!

 

There is a simple reason I asked if you liked math.
Mathematics is a language used to describe science and engineering concepts. It is a language used for problem solving.

And so is programming.
Programming is a language used for problem solving.
If you like math then programming fits right in.

 

There are plenty of jobs you can do as an engineer that do not require programming. Additionally, big companies often hire engineering graduates and quickly move them to technical support, technical sales, business development or product management or purchasing. The engineering degree is a ticket to the dance.

Make your own definition of what an EE does and look for jobs in that area. You may like motors or heaters or power distribution and want to work in the field. You may like troubleshooting boards or working in quality management or doing supplier audits. Three are many types of jobs in a big company that you never even knew existed until you start exploring. If you don't like the job you picked, pick something else. It is a job, not a wedding. Most people change 'careers' 3 or 4 times in a lifetime (some people change spouses that often as well but I don't recommend it).

Don't start making excuses why you can't finish your degree or why you don't want to finish your degree - put the hours in and get your ticket tot he big dance. Once you are there, look around, find a friendly face and ask that special someone to dance with you.

 

"I Hate..Absolutely Hate programming..." is unambiguous. I tend to take people at thier word, thus my opinion is unchanged, unless he has something to offer other than to characterize my response as discouraging.

Brownout, my post was intended to fill you in since you said you didn't want to read the rest of the posts in the thread. Since the original post we determined that it wasn't the programming that he hated, only the way it was being taught to him.

 

Oh I long ago read through the thread. Not convinced it's just about how it's being taught, however.

 

Oh I long ago read through the thread. Not convinced it's just about how it's being taught, however.

Fair enough. I just didn't want you to think I was trying to argue or anything. I just wanted to clear things up a bit.

 

To be honest, my first majors isn't in EE engineering. It's something else. I picked up all my programming off-campus. I picked up even some mechanical engineering subjects during my course. I've seen lecturers derailing themselves from the syllabus and forced me to learn on my own. It's sometimes hopeless to 100% depend on the lecturer - the important thing is the learning spirit.

I've seen students hating microcontrollers during the lab work until I give them a small hint (not answer). Then, their interest begins again.

 

As I read it, unless I missed something, the OP's issue is he hasn't learned "c" and jumped right into uC programming. These are two seperate, full time courses AFAIC. I made a similar mistake once, started a course in Windows programming and had not completed C++. So, I dropped the course, took C++ instead, and some time later, taught the windows programming stuff to myself.

 

Why does one blame their own downfall because of unacceptable teaching? Some are better than others, that's just the way it goes in life. You're not going to be able to eliminate bugs by listening how to program, it comes with experience by "doing it". My weakness is I struggle to learn new concepts no matter how qualified whomever is who is stood in front of me. It's just something I have to experience and conquer for myself. When I return with questions is when the learning begins.

 

The original problem centered around the necessity of having a certain skill set to be an engineer. I think the answer is yes, it is necessary, and it differs for each branch of engineering. That said I don't think it all has to be acquired on the front end. Think rather of a lifelong process of adding to your store of knowledge as the need arises. Many analog designers that I know thought they could do an entire career without learning to program. Then fast cheap DSPs made them rethink that position and they became some of the best programmers I know. I attribute this to the sound fundamentals that analog design requires. Many digital designers that I know learned TTL and CMOS design in the 70s and were writing excellent firmware in 90s and beyond due to microcontrollers for less than a dollar. Again the design discipline leads naturally to ability to program. I started with FORTRAN in the 1960s, learned digital design in the 70s, analog design in the 90s, a degree in financial engineering in 00s, and retired this year generating custom Windows images.

I've had all kinds of teachers and I never ever let their shortcomings impede my progress.

 

Why does one blame their own downfall because of unacceptable teaching? Some are better than others, that's just the way it goes in life. You're not going to be able to eliminate bugs by listening how to program, it comes with experience by "doing it". My weakness is I struggle to learn new concepts no matter how qualified whomever is who is stood in front of me. It's just something I have to experience and conquer for myself. When I return with questions is when the learning begins.

If your very first introduction to programming is by someone who does a terrible job of teaching or explaining it, it can be very overwhelming. That feeling of confusion can quickly lead to distaste of programming in general, simply because the student feels like he or she will never be able to get it.

Brownout hit hit the nail on the head though--One should DEFINITELY learn the basic programming language first, before attempting to apply it to microcontrollers. However, in this case learning C may not help too much, because the Arduino language is severely butchered C that can be very different to the real language at times.

 

I only said "c" because in post #12, the OP complained about "flying through" c language. That said, I agree with the members who have stated a bad teacher should not discourage a motivated student from learning and reaching. Good grief, if that was the case, I'd hate just about every subject in engineering. Most of my teachers just expedited information, and we had to snag as much as we could. And, considering the ease with which the OP was discouraged form pursuing further discussion as soon as someone dispensed a little reality, well, that pretty says it all.

 

I only said "c" because in post #12, the OP complained about "flying through" c language. That said, I agree with the members who have stated a bad teacher should not discourage a motivated student from learning and reaching. Good grief, if that was the case, I'd hate just about every subject in engineering. Most of my teachers just expedited information, and we had to snag as much as we could. And, considering the ease with which the OP was discouraged form pursuing further discussion as soon as someone dispensed a little reality, well, that pretty says it all.

Exactly right, bad teachers shouldn't discourage students, but often they do. That is why I mentioned in one of my first responses that self study is VERY important when going to school.