Engineering / education advice - Page 2

TerryBPP · 02-06-2006, 11:53 AM

Be very careful about taking online undergraduate courses. I took some my senior year at FAU. After I was done the governing board deemed the online classes unaccredited and therefore where worth nothing! I had to take the classes over again at the school. Wasted 2 semesters (1 fall, 1 summer).

They didn't want to refund my money until I got a lawyer involved. Supposedly this happened at FIU last year and there are pending law suits. Accrediation is a big deal. I thought about getting my masters through FIU but decided agaiinst it after hearing that.

masraum · 02-06-2006, 12:00 PM

A few FL people around. I went to USF the first time.

onewhippedpuppy · 02-06-2006, 12:35 PM

I've kind of been around the block as far as working goes, and after years of working $hit jobs for poor pay and less recognition, being in a semi-respected position will be a nice change. I'm not the typical student, as I'm 25, married, with a 22 mo old. Needless to say, my partying days are done. It took me a while to pull my head out of my ass and realize that I would not get where I want to be in life without school, so I went back. It's not easy though, going from supporting your family to your wife putting you through school, it's a bit of a hit to the machoismo.

Basically I can't wait to get back to earning a paycheck, and starting a career. Plus, I hate theory, and that's 90% of what engineering coursework is. I can't wait to actually apply what I have learned to real life problems and designs, and find out what it's really like.

vash · vash's Garage

Quote:

Originally posted by masraum
A few FL people around. I went to USF the first time.

hey, when were you there? i was there too.! USF.

TerryBPP · 02-06-2006, 01:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by onewhippedpuppy
Plus, I hate theory, and that's 90% of what engineering coursework is. I can't wait to actually apply what I have learned to real life problems and designs, and find out what it's really like.

In the CE field you use your book knowledge 0.0001% of the time. No equations, just basic math skills. We follow a code book that makes little to no sense. Much different than school. After doing this for almost 4 yrs I feel like half of my college classes were a waste of time. Its a shame.

Now if you were designing water control structures or lift station then you would be applying a little more.

onewhippedpuppy · 02-06-2006, 02:21 PM

I'm AE, but am leaning towards doing more structural stuff. It's all the same statics, just applied differently. Everything seems pointless until you actually can apply it in the real world. Hopefully I can dig up an internship this summer, then my real educaton can begin. If I had a second choice it would be CE or similar. You guys that are MEs are sadists, the courses you take are awful! Advanced thermodynamics, heat transfer, blah! Lots of theory with that stuff too. I guess you can all laugh at me when the aerospace industry hits a downturn and I'm working construction.

jhelgesen · 02-07-2006, 05:04 AM

Thanks for all the info guys. Looked at some online course and some ref books yesterday, and been discussing things with my boss. Don't really have the time to go back to school at this point, project is too busy, so I'm leaning toward more ref material, see where I can go from there.

onewhippedpuppy · 02-07-2006, 05:50 AM

John, if you're in a position where you have somebody willing to teach you, you'll be fine. Get some books for reference, study them, and ask a lot of questions. Learning as you go is 1000x better than in a classroom, you shouldn't have any trouble picking it up.

David · David's Garage

There are several machine design books that would help. I have The Strandard Handbook of Machine Design by Shigley and Mischke that I got after school. For overall info I'd recomend buying a study book for the Mechanical Engineering PE exam. It has good calculations for most topics.

As for FEA, if you already have some software, you could take an introductory course for it which gets you up to speed pretty quick on FEA. You would also need some 3D modeling background. I use ALGOR but it's pretty low end.

onewhippedpuppy · 02-07-2006, 03:11 PM

Wichita State isn't a big school, but they offer a lot of Catia classes. Might look into that at your local college, they even have them on evenings/ weekends for people that work. I'm not sure if Catia is what you want, but it's an example. Cessna/ Raytheon/ Boeing etc sent their employees to WSU to learn Catia, so it's tailored to working adults.