/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.7079568]

What exactly do an engineer's workload consist of?
I don't think I can take doing integrals by hand for the next 40 or so years.

The pic is just a stock photo of seemingly happy engineers.

[Anonymous No.7079586]

funfact: a google search for "seemingly happy engineers" gives this thread as first result

[Anonymous No.7079589]

An engineer designs things then gives the plans to either a construction company or a manufacturer to have whatever it is built.

[Anonymous No.7079591]

Yup, nothing but integrals all day long.

[Anonymous No.7079596]

>>7079568
Here's a story:
There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired. Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multi-million dollar machines. They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine to work but to no avail.
In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past. The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine. Finally, at the end of the day, he marked a small "x" in chalk on a particular component of the machine and said, "This is where your problem is." The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again. The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service. They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges.
The engineer responded briefly: One chalk mark $1; Knowing where to put it $49,999.
It was paid in full and the engineer retired again in peace.

Calculations are made by computers, not by engineers. You have a problem, you find the way to solve the problem and let a computer do the number crunching; that's why numerical analysis is important for an engineer, so you can have a computer do the boring part for you.

[Anonymous No.7079597]

>>7079568
From working as an intern for some mechanical engineers I'd say paperwork is 70%. But that might just be because it was a medical device company and it takes like...2 years for the FDA to approve even the smallest change. Example: they were switching to a different manufacturer to save like 25 cents on a plastic piece and they had to do all this testing to show that it wouldn't impact the function of the device. Change all the specs and documents...I don't want to work in medical device field.

[Anonymous No.7079602]

>engineer's workload
cheap suit + hardhat?

[Anonymous No.7079611]

>>7079596
So basically debugging?
Or am I missing the point?

[Anonymous No.7079643]

>>7079568

>What exactly do an engineer's workload consist of?

Semen

[Anonymous No.7079653]

>>7079643
Get that filename back to /pol/

[Anonymous No.7079654]

>>7079611

Yes, you're completely missing the point. His point was that you have to understand the calculations but you're not actually doing them.

[Anonymous No.7079660]

>>7079586
Im so confused.

PS: Im and engineer, and I went straight into management after graduation.

[Anonymous No.7079688]

>>7079568

cocks and paper work and excel spreasheeting

[Anonymous No.7079704]

>What exactly do an engineer's workload consist of?
>I don't think I can take doing integrals by hand for the next 40 or so years.
Don't worry. After the first 20 years, you're allowed to use a slide rule.

There's actually very little call for doing integrals by hand. There are people who program computers to do integrals, and there are people who use computer programs that do integrals, but people who just do integrals are mostly students or teachers.

The actual world market demand is for about a thousand guys who know how to do integrals (as opposed to knowing what they mean), and they pretty much all need to be able to program a computer, but we train millions of them because nobody takes education very seriously as anything but a way to put the young in their place.

[Anonymous No.7079725]

>>7079704
>The actual world market demand is for about a thousand guys who know how to do integrals (as opposed to knowing what they mean)
Actually, there isn't even a need for a thousand guys who actually know how to solve integrals, they only need to understand how integrals can, in principle, be solved.

You can write a solver without developing the skill of solving integrals by hand, just as you can write a chess computer without developing the skill of playing a good game of chess.

[Anonymous No.7079748]

An engineers job is to solve problems in your field of study.

Being able to generate and interpret data is important. That means excel for calculations and kaleidagraph for making graphs mostly. Then using word ( or latex) to write a up a technical report outlying the problem and possible solutions based on the data collected. Then more than likely you need to oversee the implementation of your solution and collect more data and to see if your solution worked. Then the process starts over again.

The problems you solve vary greatly depending on your field.

[Anonymous No.7079947]

>>7079568
I once talked to a civil engineer working in water and sewage. Sometimes she spent the day checking leaks in sewer pipes using some big balloon thing, other times her team designed pipe and sewage systems for new suburbs being planned. And now I have exhausted my entire knowledge of engineering.

[Anonymous No.7080021]

>>7079596
Im surprised he responded at all with his mouth that full of cock

[Anonymous No.7080026]

The reason nobody is giving you a straight answer is because "engineer" is not one job, it's thousands of different jobs, the only thing in common being they require the knowledge of some kind of engineering.

[Anonymous No.7080039]

One of my colleagues at uni worked an internship at an engineering company. He wasn't super clear about what he did, but he described it as "nothing like what we are learning about in school" and "using already designed components" to build a solution for a particular client (he worked at a piping/irrigation company). All in all, he said it was "pretty easy." Your milage may vary.

>>7080026
No, it's because no one on /sci/ is employed in engineering

[Anonymous No.7080114]

>>7080026
This.

>>7080039
I'm a professional engineer and I used to work as a control engineer which mostly consisted of modelling and writing software to simulate and control the process.

Today I'm working as a researcher at a university for the nano materials science initiate, which is a research group consisting mostly of physicists and chemical engineers, most of my daily routine involves modelling, programming and teaching with the occasional lab work mixed in.

Most of my colleagues who graduated with me are working in the process industry, some of them as managers and some as engineers in larger companies, also a few doing private research. One of my close friends is working for a petroleum company mostly on the processing, he earns the most from our year group.

This is only one discipline, engineering is incredibly vast.

[Anonymous No.7080120]

>>7080114 (here)
>>7080039
>"nothing like what we are learning about in school" and "using already designed components" to build a solution for a particular client (he worked at a piping/irrigation company). All in all, he said it was "pretty easy." Your milage may vary.


The thing about engineering is that you aren't ever going to get problem set type problems and told to solve them; no one knows what the problem is you have to formulate it on your own.

The extent to which you employ the more difficult/advanced science and engineering techniques that you learned at university are what makes you good or a shitty engineer; a poor engineer might try to model a reactor using simple algebraic mass and energy balances, which will often fail requiring a consultant to step in, while a good engineer will set up proper DEs and do a full model analysis to optimize the design/operating costs.

If I hear the phrase "you will never use X" form an engineer uttered to an undergrad it's always a shitty engineer who really shouldn't be giving advice to students.

[Anonymous No.7080123]

>>7080120
>you will never use x is said by shitty engineers
I knew it was bullshit dawg. I knew it.

[Anonymous No.7080139]

Engineer here. My daily work is vastly different from what I assumed it would be at uni (studied chemical engineering). I manage a shift team in a processing plant and I'm basically there to fix deviations from the process before they become problems or managing breakdowns in a manner that least affects production. Most of the knowledge I use is extremely process specific and not learned from university although I can't rule out my education assisting with my understanding.
From time to time I will do projects that involve process improvement under continuous improvement methodology which I really enjoy and hopefully will get a position focusing more on this. The CI department is largely experienced technicians who have been moved into the role when they are unfit or older. I think they would really benefit from some solid design improvements backed up by theory. I derived an equation just using a mass balance one day that showed a yield someone was interested in and they were totally blown away...

[Anonymous No.7080155]

>>7080139
>I derived an equation just using a mass balance one day that showed a yield someone was interested in and they were totally blown away...
lel.

And yeah man you need to be more confident in yourself and take charge, most people in the industry, including older professional engineers, don't really know what you're truly capable of. I've noticed a lot of established plants seem to become too docile and content with the process, this one guy I know did some consulting work for a refinery plant and improved their yield to 99.9% from less than 80%, how now regularly sells them a "compound" on which he makes an 8k USD/batch (~10 kg) markup.

The "compound" is just a salt that decreases the cavitation (and MT barrier to the reaction of course).

[Anonymous No.7080157]

>>7080155
>...how now regularly...
...he* now...

[Anonymous No.7080164]

>>7079596
>You have a problem, you find the way to solve the problem and let a computer do the number crunching; that's why numerical analysis is important for an engineer, so you can have a computer do the boring part for you.

It's not just that, almost no real world problem in engineering cannot be solved analytically, the most important analytical technique engineers learn is probably linearization, most PDE problems have to solved numerically.

[Anonymous No.7080171]

>>7079947
>other times her team designed pipe and sewage systems for new suburbs being planned.
Oh god, this should be stopped, Civil engineers are pretty terrible at fluid dynamics and piping design, they're going to fuck up and the choke the pipe or put an overly large/expensive pipe in.

[Anonymous No.7080172]

>>7079704
>The actual world market demand is for about a thousand guys who know how to do integrals (as opposed to knowing what they mean), and they pretty much all need to be able to program a computer, but we train millions of them because nobody takes education very seriously as anything but a way to put the young in their place.

The reason we teach integrals (and calculus in general) to everyone is because it teaches logic, reasoning, and problem solving skills. All things needed to be successful in most careers. Especially engineering.

[Anonymous No.7080186]

>>7080172
>The reason we teach integrals (and calculus in general) to everyone is because it teaches logic, reasoning, and problem solving skills.
Exactly it's the same reason, for example, that we have an entire course dedicated to solving electrical circuits.

I mean why electrical circuits? They're extremely easy to understand, model and simulate, so why are we wasting an entire course and solving increasingly complicate circuits by hand?

Turns out the same logical creative problem solving skills can be applied to almost any system with more difficult principles, multi phase fluid networks, pneumatics etc. to name a few. But the problem solving skills you learn carry over to many other fields that you won't learn about in undergrad.

Engineers are paid for their problem solving skills, not for their knowledge (which can easily they acquire on the job).

[Anonymous No.7080193]

>>7080186
>Engineers are paid for their problem solving skills, not for their knowledge (which can easily they acquire on the job).
What's the most direct way to improve problem solving skills?

[Anonymous No.7080215]

>>7080193
>What's the most direct way to improve problem solving skills?
Become a PI. (no really, that type of thinking is best for noob gains in creative problem solving skills).

More practically, before you enter undergrad to really hone your skills, you can solve logic circuits, find stuff to fix, open and put back together, solve Physics problems in introductory textbooks like Halliday, Resnick, Walker. All of this will prepare you for reasoning out more difficult problems.

Himmelblau's Basic Principles and Calculations in Chemical Engineering was my first real exposure to engineering creative problem solving, the way he emphasized creative problem solving to solve mass and energy balances just completely changed the way I think about everything and anything. It's actually such a crappy textbook, but I would never have become a successful engineer without it.

[Anonymous No.7080254]

>>7079654
In that case, what can i do/study/practice to improve my problem solving skills in general?

Computer engineer student here

[Anonymous No.7080309]

I recently attended an open day at a university for a course in "Electronic Engineering with Nanotechnology", there are several modules, each year, specifically tying in with nanotech; i.e. nanomeasurement, nanofabrication, spintronics, to name a few.
I got to talking with a PhD student there who said, other than research at some kind of academic institution (which would likely mean becoming a lecturer, and/or spending all day around undergrads), job prospects are quite limited. For something which sci boasts about so much, it kinda sucked to hear how limited the prospects are for that specific field of study, especially to hear it from a student who was meant to be advertising the course to potential undergrads.

[Anonymous No.7080313]

>>7080254
Practice

thats all there is to it.

Find and an error then resolve it. Then do that nonstop for about 25 years. By that time you will be able to recognize and know what to do in 95% of the situations you find yourself in.

Im a materials guy so my problems mainly consist of figuring out why something failed, why something isn't the right chemistry, how to actually manufacture the retard designs i get handed (I've come to believe mechanical engineers are retarded), and so on and so forth.

[Anonymous No.7080316]

>>7080309
everything /sci/ spouts off about is completely useless and nobody should pursue it.

Unless your goal is to be a university professor, don't get a maths degree of a physics degree.

[Anonymous No.7080318]

>>7079653

Dude it's obviously making fun of ridiculously corp stock photos

[Anonymous No.7080323]

>>7080171
>Mfw I'm on civil, learning hydraulics this semester.

[Anonymous No.7080348]

>>7080309
What he really means is he couldn't get a job. Not everyone with an engineering degree is employed just like with in other profession there are winners and there are losers. Electronic engineering in particular is a bad choice, there are far more opportunities with Electrical.

Furthermore just because a programme has buzzwords like "Nanotechnology" in it doesn't mean it's any good, literally every engineering programme except Civil and Industrial teaches the techniques of those "modules" you mentioned in material science, analytical instrumentation/chemistry and/or post grad.

[Anonymous No.7080352]

>>7080323
Just because you study something doesn't mean you don't suck at it, what textbook are you using? Throw it out and get a properly rigorous textbook.

[Anonymous No.7080500]

>>7079568
no engineers does integrals at work. Calculus is useless in the real world

[Anonymous No.7080503]

>>7080500
it's because integrals suck.
I have to solve diff eq all the time though.

[Anonymous No.7080845]

>>7080352
> rigorous

I've come to hate this word because of how /sci/ overuses it. Seriously, I've never seen anyone write: "This book is good/better". Everyone just writes "le rigorous".

Yes I'm mad.

[Anonymous No.7080905]

The construction company I work for currently is essentially all fucking engineers. The roles filled by engineers (mostly civil and mechanical, some electrical).

Design: They actually do the designing of the sites we build, a lot of what they do is essentially dictated by client or federal standards.

Estimating: Bottom-up job estimates, this involves putting together various estimates from other sub-contractors to build an overall price.

Management: All the project managers besides one (originally an electrician who got an MBA) are engineers. The middle management ranks are filled with the exceptional project managers and designers.

Project Engineer: Like advanced Lego. So the drawings will call for pumps and pipe work of certain capacity and certain mediums. It's his job to hopefully select the best options from existing products to suit the design drawings and account for unforeseen problems in the design stage. Due to the majority of our work being upgrade work there are often unforeseeable problems it's his role to do minor design changes to account for this. This is an onsite role.

Commissioning: Once the project is built the commissioning guys make sure the site operates as required. Alterations go through the project engineer if things need to be changed.

A lot of what engineers do isn't 'hard' engineering. It's being able to read the manual, understand the graphs and have a large knowledge base or ability to quickly find suitable products for your problem.

[Anonymous No.7080907]

>>7080352
I have yet to see a rigorous fluids book.
Care to recommend one?

[Anonymous No.7080913]

>>7080905
>like advanced lego
fuck should have majored in engineering

[Anonymous No.7080934]

So how do you guys feel about industrial engineering?

Talking to an advisor about getting into an electrical engineering at their school and I was told to mark IE as my second choice major since I'm not that smart and as a backup

[Anonymous No.7081333]

>>7080845
A rigorous textbook isn't necessarily good, however, an unrigorous textbook is always bad.

Enjoy using the distinction just like /sci/ for the rest of your life.

Stop being mad at the internet.

[Anonymous No.7081335]

>>7081333
>an unrigorous textbook is always bad.
maybe in mathematics and upper level physics, but most fields don't give a shit about "rigor"

[Anonymous No.7081355]

>>7081335
>mathematics and upper level physics,
You mean those two fields have been extremely successful and respected without which the digital age, an electrical grid, cheap medicine and sustainable farming would not be possible?

>but most fields don't give a shit about "rigor"
You mean those unsuccessful fields like feminism, political science and psychology and which have been incredibly unsuccessful at contributing anything of value to the human race?

[Anonymous No.7081358]

>>7080934
It's good as a backup, it's much better than a business degree.

[Anonymous No.7081359]

>>7081355
no I mean like chemistry, biology, any engineering.
And most physics books.
Name an entry-level physics textbook that is rigorous.
Or are you saying that everyone should just skip entry-level?

[Anonymous No.7081361]

>>7080905
I'm confused, how did expect the world to work in any other way?

[Anonymous No.7081376]

>>7081359
>chemistry,
It's rigorous, good textbooks establish postulates and reference more fundamental works from which the postulates can be derived, it then uses these high level postulates to ease the work of presenting chemistry.
>biology,
Most biology textbook are shit in my opinion, with the exception of some biochem texts that are written like chemistry texts.
>engineering.
Engineering uses the same textbooks as physics and chemistry for its introductory pre-requisites, it builds on these fundamental principles and proceeds similarly to what I said in the chemistry paragraph.
>And most physics books.
You mean the shitty ones.

>Or are you saying that everyone should just skip entry-level?
I'm saying it's easier to understand material if it's presented in a rigorous and organized fashion, than disjointed high level ideas that assume the student is an idiot with no interest in further study.

The problem is you see to think "rigorous" means 200 pages of proving 1+1=2, when it is exactly as rigorous to reference those works and continue using 1+1=2 for further development of the material. This is compared to just saying 1+1=2 with no justification or context which is not rigorous. Most academics would agree with me.

tl;dr Learn to read (good) books.

[Anonymous No.7081381]

>>7081376
You don't think that basic concepts like time or mass don't have to be rigorously defined before jumping right in and using them?
Defining things by citing examples is nice for teaching, but it's not "rigorous"

[Anonymous No.7081385]

>>7081381
>Defining things by citing examples is nice for teaching, but it's not "rigorous"

If you say so, then there are no truly rigorous textbooks because all upper level texts written after 1950 cite references to other works.

[Anonymous No.7081389]

>>7081385
That's not what I meant, and I hope you know that.
I mean defining something like mass by saying a car has 1 ton mass, a bowl a 1 kg mass, etc.
If an entry-level textbook cites another work to formally define time, I haven't seen this book and I'd like to.

[Anonymous No.7081392]

>>7080254
Remember the little things, but don't ever let them distract you from the big picture.

[Anonymous No.7081399]

If you're lucky you have a life like this:
http://www.reddit.com/r/EngineeringPorn/comments/2we6br/fabulous_things_ive_heard_safety_engineers_say/coqpqtd

[Anonymous No.7081408]

>>7081399
Engineers have the potential to lead the most interesting and adventurous lives because they're degrees are accredited internationally and they're useful to everyone. You can travel to any country and probably find work.

The sad fact is most modern engineers do the opposite and vie to get a comfy secure state side salary in their home town.

[Anonymous No.7081414]

>>7081389
Eh I don't want to ruin the thread continuing this argument, by rigorous I mean that the material is presented in an organized and justified fashion, this means either referencing other working or giving both formal and informal postulates ("We will assume for now that we're working with mass in the classical domain..." etc.) though more formal is usually better and easier to understand imo.

[Anonymous No.7081416]

>>7081408
their*

Also this is opposed to lawyers and doctors who generally have issues with mutual international accreditation, my brother can work in the commonwealth for example, but he has to write a shitton of US MD exams because of the dickwaving contest the American medical institutions have trying to control their high salaries.

[Anonymous No.7081425]

>>7081376
>Engineering uses the same textbooks as physics and chemistry
Not really. I mean, not ever.

>>7081381
>You don't think that basic concepts like time or mass don't have to be rigorously defined before jumping right in and using them?
There's not much to define really. Things like time and mass are just stuff that is defined by how it shows up in the formulas of the theory you are using (like mass is the factor of proportionality in Newton's <span class="math">F = m a[/spoiler], it's the four-momentum squared SRT <span class="math">m^2 = p_\mu p^\mu[/spoiler], it's the coefficient of quadratic terms of the Lagrangian in QFT i.e. <span class="math">m^2 \bar\psi \psi[/spoiler] etc.), so you can't really define it rigorously for once and for all, ever. Of course everybody has an intuitive idea of these things, and slowly giving these ideas up is part of the fun, I guess.

[Anonymous No.7081427]

>>7079596
I am deeply astounded that this story didn't end in the engineer sucking dicks.

Seriously, congratulations on not shitposting.

[Anonymous No.7081434]

>>7081425
>Not really. I mean, not ever.
We did, Halliday, Resnick and Walker's "Principles of Physics" which is the same 1st year Physics students use here and Kotz, Treichel et. al. "Chemistry and Chemical Reactivity" which is the same chemistry students used. We also use the same O-chem textbook (McMurry) and chemical analysis (Holler, Skoog, Crouch) among other textbooks we shared.

You're pretty delusional if you think engineering courses water down their intro science. Engineering departments DO NOT offer science courses, the engineering students take the introductory science courses verbatim from the respective departments, it's not the same as science courses it is the same course, same study guide, same lecturer.

[Anonymous No.7081445]

>>7081425
You can rigorously define classical non-relativistic mechanics.
Spivak has a pretty nice book, but I think it's only about point masses and rigid bodies

[Anonymous No.7081448]

>>7081434
Here we have no intro physics book for physics students. They are assumed to have learned the intro stuff in school.

[Anonymous No.7081454]

>>7081445
Yes, you can, but nobody starts there. It's a better idea to keep the idea loose.

[Anonymous No.7081457]

>>7081448
I don't think you understand how incredibly shitty most physics and chemistry uni programmes are. There's no standard physics program, you didn't take intro courses: good for you, I wasn't talking to you. Most physics students have never touched relatively or sub atomic physics, for example, before their first treatment in intro physics texts.

I clearly said "introductory" in my first post, stop shifting the goal posts, you are clearly just trying to ego posts. The books are written for university students as it says in the preface and most programmes use the textbooks in the first two semesters of pure science degrees.pig

[Anonymous No.7081460]

>>7081457
you're arguing with a new person.
just fyi.
I think we ended up agreeing on concepts, and arguing on semantics

[Anonymous No.7081465]

>>7081460
>you're arguing with a new person.
I do know that, yes, I can't believe I'm arguing on the internet again. Thank you for pointing it out, I'm closing my browser to get some real work done for now.

>I think we ended up agreeing on concepts, and arguing on semantics
Yes I agree.

[Anonymous No.7081803]

>>7081399
>Cogan's Syndrome
Hopefully not.

[Anonymous No.7081820]

It varies greatly, obviously. One thing in common is that all engineers will have to be able to understand and work well within a structured company environment. This means adhering to certain rules regarding your "solutions", writing and presenting reports, working well within a team of equally skilled engineers but also working down at the ground level with factory workers etc.

[Anonymous No.7081851]

>>7080934
>I'm not that smart
Don't say this. You might not be working hard enough, and have yet to unlock your full potential. At least say "I'm not that smart yet"

[Anonymous No.7083823]

>>7079596
thanks grandma >_>

[Anonymous No.7083863]

>>7079586
Nice SEO skills bruh