Challenges faced as an Engineer or Engineering Student Response

So the last couple of weeks I asked about some of the challenges people faced as an engineer or engineering student? I also asked how did they overcome and get through these challenges? Here are some of the responses from the people who follow this blog and the facebook page.

Getting thru Purdue's most dreaded weedout sophomore courses, ME 200 (Thermo I) and EE 201 (Linear Circuits I).......amazingly both with A's! I was just darn lucky with Thermo due to the fact that I had a very articulate, younger post-doc instructor who was very adept at combining both technical and lay speak during lectures. Otherwise, the biggest challenge is balancing perseverance with the extracirriculars.....and trying not to let the epicurean 4.0 Liberal Arts wussies bother yah as much. Tom Engelsman

Had to talk to a woman once........still recovering. Clay Feldner

I sat in class, consumed copious amounts of caffeine and payed as much attention to my professors as I possibly could. Knowing that I wasn't the only person who wanted to make it through our courses I took the time to reteach the subject matter and go through examples with my other classmates. In my program we have our own Facebook page ironically, even while I'm at work, I walk around my McDonald's with my calculous textbook and fluids work book working through examples and Sharing thought processes on every second of down time I have. Sleep deprivation this semester is really brutal and I can't wait for the end of this week. It's disappointing knowing that a lot of my friends aren't going to make it to next semester. Andrew Lukachko

Engineering - Let Me Sleep by Engineer Memes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Lack of sleep!? Seriously though, i have a hard time with group work - mostly because someone in my groups always has " something come up" thats more important or uses their backyard experience instead of using engineering practices.... Waste of the rest of our times...Michelle Gesh

I am a mechanical engineering student at a maritime school. On top of the mechanical course load we take requiring courses to sit for the coast guard engine license to operate shipboard plants. The course load is typically 21+ credits per term, and the summers are spent at sea operating a training ship or doing an internship at sea. The hardest thing is just keeping up. Seth Kaye

Trying to comprehend the subject while trying to understand the extremely THICK accent of the professor. it's quite a torture. Cory Chorne Over coming self doubts wondering if I was smart enough. I had a very challenging professor for Calculus 291 - Multivariable Calculus. Our professor required an essay with each homework problem and every test question. After the first exam and 80 percent of the class bombing it, there was a near riot the next class with students complaining his course was too hard. He calmly rolled up his sleeve and showed the class the identification number tattoo the Germans gave him during World War Ii. The only thing he said to the class was "You don't know what hard is". The class sat in stunned silence with most dropping the class shortly thereafter. Thank you Professor Fred Haring for putting things into proper perspective for me. After that life lesson, engineering seemed pretty easy. Hugues Dorzeus

Hard classes with no available outside help, classmates who give up and drop out every semester, teachers with thick accents, peers who don't understand what your major is like, having to balance study, work, and sanity, and still trying to live life as a normal teenage girl. Alexandra Hope Murray

During my sophomore year, I thought I was gonna fail my last quarter of engineering physics. My grade without the final exam was a D+. I think my problem was I was so shy to ask my instructor for help. So a few days before our final exam, I finally decided to go to my instructor and ask for help. He explained everything to me and I finally understand it! When I took my final exam, I felt that I did pretty good. I never find out what my final exam score was, but I got a B- for my engineering physics 3. Julius Ceasar Arevalo

For most of the engineering subjects its visualizable so it was easier, but EE was tough. You need to stop over thinking and use pure logic for the most part. Best way I can tell you how to overcome, don't memorize, try to understand how things come to be, especially formulae, the derivation is so important to understand. Laurie Bynum Caffeine.... And lots of micro-meltdowns that are overcome by an all-encompassing sense of accomplishment when I see my GPA. The struggle makes victory that much sweeter. Ian Goh

Lack of females in my classes. No getting through that....literally. Kevin Burke

Yep Engineering can be tough, but one should never give up because of that reason! There will be good and bad times, but in the end it will be worth it!

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Difficult and Challenging Engineering Courses

Have you ever taken a course in engineering that you just could not understand? A course you barely passed and you still didn't know what was going? I have had that problem before. I passed the course thanks to scaling and projects!

How I Feel about These Engineering Courses

The course I had trouble with was Control System Design, under electrical engineering. It was taken in my final year and I thought I would like the course. I thought it would be very useful for when I graduated and started working in the industry. I took a course before it called systems and control. It involved a lot of math (laplace transform), state-space analysis, root-locus method, frequency domain analysis etc etc. That course was fairly easy ( I believe my professor was pretty 'chill'). So I was like okay I did fairly good in this course so why not take Control System Design in my final year! Bad idea!

At the start of this course I was doing alright. We were learning about PID control, PID tuning, and pole placements. That wasn't too bad,but then we moved into more advance topics and I just started getting lost.

We then started talking about the fundamental limitations of control design, control architecture, MIMO analysis, decentralized control, and decoupling control. I was so lost in the course. I think the professor was not teaching it properly or I just couldn't grasp the concepts. The text book we were using didn't help either. The textbook was called Control System Design by Graham C. Goodwin (Author), Stefan F. Graebe (Author), Mario E. Salgado (Author). I tried reading the chapters over and over trying get a better understanding of the material.

Trollception by Engineer Memes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://engineermemes.blogspot.ca.

I found out I wasn't the only one who was finding it hard to learn the course material. A lot of my other classmates were having trouble as well. I think another problem that made it hard for us was there were no assignments. There were only 3 midterms (worth 25% each) and a final project (25%). There was no final. However, he did give us 1-3 past midterms for each midterm we had. He also allowed a single sided cheat sheet for the midterms. Those cheat sheets did not help at all. You really had to fully understand the course material if you wanted to do well.

Anyways, have you been in a similar situation? Is there an engineering course you took that you thought would be useful, but ended up not being useful and very challenging? Is there a course you passed with flying colours, but you still don't understand the material? If you answered any of these questions or want to share your experiences, feel free to leave a comment!

Fully Comprehend this Unit by Engineer Memes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://engineermemes.blogspot.ca

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Wait...you're studying what?

This is a guest blog post by Niko Temofeew. He is currently a Sophomore studying Biomedical Engineering at Saint Louis University. This is what he had to say about people reacting to what he majored in and why he chose to go into engineering.

It was the summer before I started college. I was working two jobs to save money and to get some experience. I worked at a pediatrician's office as a medical assistant. For the longest time I wanted to be a doctor like my dad. After working in the office though, I realized the office setting was a little too slow for me. I needed something that fascinated me more. It was a month before school started that I ran into Biomedical Engineering and what it was all about (little did I know there was much more to it).

Fast forward to move-in day. All kinds of name-games and ice-breakers to get everyone on your floor to be social and talk to each other. Of course, like any college ice-breaker, whoever was running the show would say something like, "Okay we are going to start with your name, where you're from, your major, and something unique about yourself!" Someone started and the information flowed. "Hi my name is Jim, I'm from Boston, Massachusetts, I am majoring in Accounting and…what was the last one? Oh yea, and I was a stunt double in a Hollywood movie when I was 15." People continued to announce their names and other information with some cracking jokes while others were quite and nervous.

Finally it was my turn. I recited my name, hometown, major, and "unique fact." However, to my surprise it was my major that riled up a response. I received a few odd looks and even an "Oh wow…" I wasn't quite sure how to take this so I ignored it. But it continued to happen whenever people heard of my major. They said it was "the hardest major on campus." As I soon came to realize, it was pretty tough. After two semesters we lost 20% of our original class of 60.

Though I didn't understand before hand, I now understand that engineering of any kind is difficult and is definitely not for everyone. But I chose it for a reason and I'm sticking to it. I've made it this far (about to finish my third semester) and don't plan on looking back. So bring on the math, physics, engineering, and biology because its what I am interested in. If engineering is what you're interested in, don't let predispositions scare you away because you may regret it.

If you want to be a guest blogger like Niko Temofeew just message me on the facebook page for details

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TEXTBOOKS

In first year I bought almost all my textbooks.

In second year I bought maybe a quarter of my textbooks.

In third and fourth year I bought one textbook.

I noticed as I went through my engineering degree I never really used my textbook at all. Most of the information I needed I could find online or I could just find a digital copy of the textbook online. I also found reading the textbook was not helpful in preparing me for exams. I found that doing more practice problems was what benefited me the most in succeeding in my midterms and finals.

One thing I thought that was pretty ridiculous was the price of the textbook! Some of the text books the professors wanted us to buy could range either from $80 to $300. I remember buying a textbook in second year that was worth close to $200 I believe. It was a microelectronics by Sedra Smith. I did not use that textbook at all. However, there are times when I did use the textbooks quite often.

In fourth year I bought a textbook for my Semiconductors course. I found this course really interesting and I usually don't enjoy reading things off a computer. So I ended up buying it ($80 I think). I didn't read the textbook as often as I would have liked, but when it came to exam time and midterms I would read the textbook like crazy!

I love how one or two hours before the final exam people read their textbook for the first time and try to learn 100's of pages worth of information. I wonder how much information they actually retain haha.

Another thing I hated was authors who changed the edition of their textbooks. I'm pretty sure they just used a random number generator to randomize their textbook questions and maybe added one or two pages to their textbook to change the page numbers. I'm glad some of my professors said it was okay to use old textbooks. If you plan on buying textbooks try to buy used ones!

Here's a question for the readers. Do you buy your textbooks? Or do you usually find a digital copy or find the information you need online? Also what was the most expensive textbook you have bought?

Engineering Fact - Textbooks by Engineer Memes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

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Solar Cells

One of the courses I took in my senior year was a semiconductors course. There was one topic I was really interested in and that was solar cells. I will just go over a little bit of what I learned/remember from class.

A solar cell is a semiconductor device that uses the suns radiation to produce electrical energy. Typically a solar cell is a p-n junction diode. This means that the solar cell is a combination of an n-type semiconductor and p-type semiconductor material. The reason why is because the p-n junctions potential energy barriers are formed and this will facilitate the separation of electron-hole pairs(carriers) generated from photons.

One of the important parameters of a solar cell is the band gap energy. The band gap energy is the minimum energy required to excite an electron from the valence to the conduction band. When the electron is excited into the conduction band it is free to participate in conduction. At the same time though, a 'empty' space is left in the valance band (hole) and as electrons move around in the valence band, it looks like the hole is moving. This means the electron and hole participate in conduction.

Now we can learn about carrier concentration. We learned about free carriers above (electrons and holes participating in conduction). We can call the concentration of these carriers the 'intrinisic carrier concentration'. This tells us the number of electrons in the conduction band and the number of holes in the valence band. The number of carriers will depend on the band gap energy and temperature of the material (High band gap energy leads to less carriers). The band gap energy and carrier concentration will be important in determining the solar cells efficiencies.

When we illuminate light onto a solar cell three things occur. It is either absorbed, reflected or nothing happens. Sunlight contains photons and these photons have different energy levels because of their different wavelengths. E=hc/lambda where h represents Planck constant, c represents the speed of light, and lambda represents the wavelength.

Here is a simple way of looking at it.

If the energy of the photon is greater than the band gap energy of the solar cell that means the electron will be excited out of the valence band and into the conduction band. However, the excess energy of the photon is wasted into heat.

If the energy of the photon is less than the band gap energy of the solar cell nothing will happen to the electron.

If the energy of the photon is equal to the band gap energy the electron will be excited out of the valence band and into the conduction band. This is the most ideal case as no energy is wasted into heat.

I hope this info is useful for anyone who wants to start learning solar cells. Note this is just an intro to solar cells and not in depth information. Solar cells can become much more complex when dealing with other factors like recombination and quantum effieciency.

What do you think of solar cells? Do you believe that they will be important in the future as a clean and renewable energy source? Problems that arise now are the cost of production and the amount of land required to use. Furthermore, the effieciency's of solar cells are still low.

Want to learn more? You can learn more about solar cells by going here

Solar Cells and Photovoltaic Education

Is there a topic you want to write about? Wind turbines? Electronics? Feel free to message me on our facebook page!

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Electrical or Computer Engineering?

We all know that in some departments around the world they combine electrical and computer engineering in 2nd year, but after that you gotta choose between the two. Have you ever had troubles choosing between the two? I know for me I had an easy time and chose electrical because I was not a big fan of programming. However, some people may not have an easy time choosing between the two. Some people want to know which one will provide a better career? More money? Or what if I want to do both? Well here's a post by Abraham Chan, a University of British Columbia student in the faculty of applied science. He will share his thoughts of electrical and computer engineering and discuss why he chose the path he did.

This is what he had to say:

Deciding if you should go into Electrical or Computer Engineering?

After completing general engineering courses, students must choose a specific engineering discipline, which will set the direction for academics and perhaps, a future career. Should you find yourself in a tossup between electrical engineering and computer engineering, I hope I can help clarify their differences through my take on the situation.

Electrical and computer engineering programs typically share similar introductory courses in the first year. Courses like circuit analysis and digital logic design are usually required in both programs.

Electrical engineering deals with the application and development of electricity and electromagnetism. On the contrary, computer engineering deals with the application of electricity and software to develop computer systems.

To break things down for you, computer engineering can be described as electrical engineering without power electives and with software courses in its place. Furthermore, electrical engineering can be subdivided into energy systems and nanotechnology sectors whereas computer engineering can be split into hardware and software sectors.

The job market potentials for both fields are continually growing. However, computer engineering opportunities will be more diversified and grow at a faster pace than electrical engineering due to declines in the manufacturing sector and a heightened demand for software application development.

In the end, many electrical engineers will find work in the computer engineering sector and vice versa. The undergraduate programs are designed to give you a broad sense of what it is like in the respective field of study. After all, your upper-level technical electives will be more relevant to a potential employer than a designation on your degree.

Authors Note: At the end of my first year, I knew I was either going to study electrical or computer engineering. While I was interested in circuits, I had also expressed a fondness for programming. As a student determined to attain a future career in engineering, I wanted to choose the appropriate program. I wanted to weigh my options based on a variety of factors such as academic potential, employment opportunity and industry development. As a result, I examined the curriculum for each program. Wary that electrical and computer engineering share a common second year curriculum, I went with electrical engineering knowing that I could switch to computer engineering for third year. Having completed the various second year electrical and software courses, it was clear that my interest lied within computer engineering. I made the change to computer engineering just before third year and I have not regretted since.

This post was written by Abraham Chan, a Computer Engineering Student at the University of British Columbia (CANADA)

Feel free to comment on why you chose the engineering discpline you're in.

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Online Article + Supportive Comments!

So this is kind of old news, but I wanted to update it here on our blog page. As some of you may know, the Huffington Post wrote an article about our facebook page Engineer Memes online

You can find the online article here:

HuffingtonPost News Article about Engineer Memes

I thought this was really cool! I never expected my page to get this kind of attention/exposure especially from a news website like HuffingtonPost! Being an admin of this page has been a lot of fun. The only downside i've seen is that it is really tough to have engineer memes that can make everyone happy. Since I am an electrical engineer it's tough to create memes that other types of engineers can relate too. I have been thinking about looking for other admins who are studying/working in these different fields to help me with the page. The future is still uncertain though and I will have to wait and see what will happen.

At the same time it's great to see some of the people who commented about the page and are really supportive about it! Here are some of the comments I have read:

Although i love your funny memes, some are also motivational and inspiring which i also love...so thanks. Hannah Marie Seeger

You guys make my engineering memories fun. Abdullah Tariq

These memes are getting exponentially more hilarious with each hour I've spent in the library. So they are tending to infinite hilarity at the moment. Emily Beatty

This definitely has to be the best, most funniest page Ive ever seen. Keep it up guys. Sending this message from a lab in my university. Meanwhile in power electronics.....Xain Shah

Hiiiii there! Just wanted to say Awesome page, I can relate :D keep up the good work. Vanisha Mahabier Panday

Your page gave me the inspiration and the motivation because now I know I am not the only one who suffers from engineering. I am surrounded with some jerks from different majors who make me feel like I am the only one who gets fucked in this school. Engineering = awful school but amazing post graduate life and now I'll go back to study :) Karim Fahmi

I'm glad lots of people from around the world are able to enjoy these photos and are able to relate to these pictures. I know I can't make everyone happy, but I am trying my best. As well, if you have memes/pictures you want to share just message me on the fanpage! I welcome all types and will also give you credit for the photo! Thank you for the support! Anyways, I hope everyone had a good weekend and remember to...not drink and derive!

Feel free to leave comments on ways to improve the facebook page or anything you want to say!

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Women in Engineering

So I posted a engineer meme a week ago and it poked fun at how there are no females in Engineering. See picture here:

No Girls in Engineering Meme

A bunch of female engineers commented on the photo about how the photo was false (which is awesome by the way!). It was awesome and very nice to see all these posts by the female engineers on our fan page. It's great to see that there are more females joining engineering and that they are happy with their choice, going into engineering :). So I updated the photo with this meme:

False! There are girls in Engineering...and they're pretty boss!

I hope everyone liked the updated picture. Anyways, the reason why I wanted to make this post is because I wanted to share what some of the females in engineering had to say. I chose several comments from the pictures. Here are some of the comments:

Robotic Engineering. I'm Mexican, I'm studying a semester in France and Engineering rocks. It's not as easy as some other may think it is. We have to face discrimination day after day. But you have to have enough courage to let people know you are able to do the things as well. It's true there's a difference in strength between men and women, but we are using our minds and not our muscles.I really love what I do. Real Engineering. Sandra Bonilla

It'll take a while for us to mix in, it only started being acceptable for women to go to college like 100 years ago. That seems like a while, but 1965 was 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation but was everything equal yet? Quit calling us stupid and singling us out when all we want is a lucrative major in something we're good at and interested in. Stephanie Marin

I'm one of 3 girls in a total of 30-40ish students per class. In the beginning it's a bit hard to fit in, if you are too cocky like i was x3 but then it's just the same or even better. In fact, we engineer girls would be just common girls if it wasn't for the fact that we just decided to ignore what narrow minds think (like oldfashioned people in my home town who think i'm boyish or lesbian, no matter what i'm wearing atm, whenever i say i'm studying electromechanical engineering... like if it had any kind of relation) and chose a path we like/are good at. Each time i like more and more being an engineering student, each time i think about my decision i realize that it was the best for me, i know i wouldn't be happy in another area. Should we allow oldfashioned and non realistic stereotypes to prevent us from turning in engineers if that's what's going to make us happy? Hell no! A huge hug to all my female engineer or soon to be colleagues! Always proud to be an engineer! ;D. Cíntia Fernandes

I am Mexican, and I'm studying Civil Engineering in Manchester. I cannot described in a comment my passion for engineering, but what I can say is Thank you Great Britain, I face no discrimination whatsoever. Plus, last year I received the Civil Engineering school prize for the best grade of the year. I can only look forward to embrace my gender in the feel, by NOT trying to prove anything to anyone and just enjoy what I do best. Cheers! X. Carla Leticia Monck

I find it ironic how many guys want female engineers, but when they meet one (some of them) act as If girls should not belong in a science class. I'm a student for Aerospace Engineering and Political Science, and I'm really tired of some guys questioning my abilities due to my vagina. Which makes no sense. Ninoshka Llontop Lozano

Surprisingly to most I am a female Electronic Engineering Technology major with a concentration in Renewable Energy Engineering Technology. I get all A+ to B grades in all my math and engineering classes. I'm on the path of switching to an ABET accredited school to finish my Bachelors and then take the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam (the FE/EIT) and after going on for my Masters and Doctorate in either Electronic Engineering Technology or Electrical Engineering while pursuing my Professional Engineering License. I can say it is a lot of hard work and a lot of people try to tell me I can't do it but regardless I remain focused and dedicated to help make progress in the field of Engineering because Trust me i'm an Engineer! I <3 Engineering! Angela Lizardi Shephard

Mechanical engineering right here! Already took the FE, currently biting my nails while I wait for my score. Also, I will be one of the first females to graduate from my university's new ME Program this coming May! Besides getting made fun of for my hot pink TI-84 and my tendency to be girly about a lot of other things, being one of the few females in the program isn't bad at all! I deal with the guys and their personalities rather well, I'm a pretty laid back person with a good sense of humor. I'm definitely able to be myself around them without feeling awkward. Oh and thanks for correcting the meme, definitely approve. Amanda Ibañez

It's great to see all these comments by female engineers. I hope you enjoyed reading these comments by other engineers! Maybe it will put things into perspective.

Being a female engineer is just like being an engineer... Oh wait that's because it is just being an engineer! Laura Daniels

Yep, remember that a female and male can become an engineer. Now lets celebrate something we can agree on with this meme. Feel free to comment about what you're thinking!

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