Page 210 - The Art of Designing Embedded Systems

People Musings 197

Degrees

A friend went away to college at age 18, for the first time leaving
home behind. A scholarship program lined his pockets with cash, enough
to pay for tuition, room, and board for a full year.
A few months later he was out, expelled for nonpayment of all fees
and a GPA that rivaled those of the students in Animal House. The money
somehow turned into parties-parties that kept him a long way from class.
Today he’s a successful mechanical engineer. With no degree he
managed to apprentice himself to a startup, and to parlay that job into oth-
ers where his skills showed through, and where enlightened bosses gave
him the title and the work he’s so adept at.
Over the years I’ve known others with similar stories, many of which
ended on not-so-happy notes. The draft during the Vietnam era was, in a
way, a tough burden for many smart people. They came back older, per-
haps with families they had to support, and somehow never made it back
to college. Many of these people became technicians, bringing their mili-
tary training to a practical civilian use. Some managed to work themselves
up to engineering status. Others were not so lucky.
My dad breezed through MIT on a full scholarship. Graduating with
a feeling that his prestigious scholarship made him very special, he started
working in aerospace. The company put him on the production line for six
months, riveting airplanes together. In those days this outfit put all new
engineers in production to teach them the difference between theory and
practicality. He came out of it with a new appreciation for what works
and for the problems associated with manufacturing, I’ve always thought
this an especially enlightened way to introduce new graduates to the harsh
realities of the physical world.
Most of today’s new engineering graduates do have some experience
with tools and methods. Schools now have them build things, test things,
and in general act like real engineers. Still, it seems the practical aspects
are subjugated to theoretical ones. You really don’t know much about pro-
gramming until you’ve completely hosed a 10,000-line project, and you
know little about hardware until you’ve designed, built, and somehow
troubleshot a complex board.
Experience is a critical part of the engineering education, one that’s
pretty much impossible to impart in the environment of a university. We’re
still much like the blacksmith of old, who started his career as an appren-
tice, and who ended it working with apprentices, training them over the
truth of a hot fire. Book learning is very important, but in the end we’re
paid for what we can do.