Are any of you like me?
Are any of you like me?
(OP)
I have been out of school for 7 years. I graduated with a BSEE from a "top ten" engineering school with a good gpa. I have never worked in design or R&D. I work in compliance engineering. My question is how many of you can understand how a circuit works just by looking at the schematic of a product? In my role, I see many products and have a hard time understanding what is going on. I can "read" a schematic but cannot explain how it works and why certain components are where they are. Is this because I never worked in design or do I just suck at engineering?





RE: Are any of you like me?
It doesn't mean you suck at engineering, it just means you don't have the experience or maybe complete training in electronics.
Chris
SolidWorks 09 SP4.1
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: Are any of you like me?
If you have a good GPA from a good university, I have a hard time believing you are a "bad" engineer. (assuming you didn't cheat) :)
If I was you, I would ask more questions of the design engineers. Everyone is busy, but they should be able to take 5 minutes to explain their circuit.
RE: Are any of you like me?
Moreover, rarely do we talk about technical compromises in school, but the real world is all about compromises, balancing demands from opposing requirements, speed vs. lower power, etc. These compromises lead to additional circuit complexities, to eke out every last bit of performance.
TTFN
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RE: Are any of you like me?
RE: Are any of you like me?
http:
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Are any of you like me?
Anyways, another possible choice is Horowitz' "The Art of Electronics" http:
TTFN
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RE: Are any of you like me?
A good Engineer understands his/her limitations, and gets help.
Charlie
www.facsco.com
RE: Are any of you like me?
I think that a good engineer is that one that can found the information that he need by his own, maybe asking others workmates or reading a good book.
RMRM
RE: Are any of you like me?
Cheer up! It is definitely not too late to ask others. And to answer your question: No, you do not suck at enginnering when there are things that you do not understand. That is daily business, even after 20 years in engineering.
RE: Are any of you like me?
MikeHalloran and IRStuff: I'll check out the books. I have seen the Art of Electronics book online before. I look into my college textbooks sometimes but they just cover the basic building blocks and I don't use 90% of the math at work.
FACS and rosarod: Thanks. I guess there is no end to the questions in engineering.
This brings me to another discussion. How many people use all that math at work?
RE: Are any of you like me?
Exert some positive pressure and ask questions. Your interest in learning should not go unnoticed.
Don't be negative...
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
Motto: KISS
Motivation: Don't ask
RE: Are any of you like me?
Read the EDN books by Williams, Pease,etc. about analog stuff.
The Navy and other branches produce great fundamentals of electronics and engineering resources. They show things in a very intuitive way. I have a couple of old ones: they illustrate through very good graphics current paths and operations. You can see some of them on scribd.
If you said you knew everything, then you'd suck. The fact you have an open mind & are self critical shows you're on the right path.
RE: Are any of you like me?
FFTs every day.
Algebra most days
Calculus by hand rarely
Calculus by Mathcad or equivalent quite often
Calculus by numerical integration every day
double integrals by hand once in 30 years
pdes by hand twice in 30 years
pdes by spreadsheet quite often
ODEs very often.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: Are any of you like me?
As a mechanical engineer I like the MIT lectures on circuts to dust the ol' cobwebs out of the mind.
http://
Probably to basic for an EE, but browse around MIT's OCW web site and see if there is anything you like.
-Kirby
Kirby Wilkerson
Remember, first define the problem, then solve it.
RE: Are any of you like me?
FFTs every day.
Complex numbers every day (see FFTs).
Matrix algebra every week.
Calculus by hand most weeks, depending on the project.
PDEs numerically, every day.
ODEs most days.
Greene's theorem occasionally.
Vectors, most weeks.
Random numbers, regularly.
Binary arithmetic, regularly.
Logs, powers, etc, every day.
Spreadsheets - NEVER.
- Steve
RE: Are any of you like me?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Are any of you like me?
Kirby, I'll check out the site. Thanks
desnov, can u post a link to the books from amazon?
RE: Are any of you like me?
Z transforms, every few months.
Laplace transforms, less often.
- Steve
RE: Are any of you like me?
- Steve
RE: Are any of you like me?
Well I can explain how a watch keeps time, but don't know a thing about designing parts or tooling. Together we may just be unstoppable.
RE: Are any of you like me?
RE: Are any of you like me?
I have been working for almost 16 years now and I can count on one hand then number of times I have solved a differential equation for work. I use math quite regularly, but most of it is HS level algebra done with Mathcad or Excel. I do a lot of analysis, but even there, the computer is doing all the math.
RE: Are any of you like me?
RE: Are any of you like me?
RE: Are any of you like me?
Ron
RE: Are any of you like me?
That book was our textbook for Junior level Aero Lab classes. Came in handy a few times.
RE: Are any of you like me?
For the OP, besides asking questions, I always found it useful to ask why they did something a certain way. And probably even bothered the person more as I then asked something related to those questions so I could get a good understanding of how the topic worked together. I also could assume you just need more experience in whatever you aren't understanding.
My favorite quote from a project manager was the more someone tells you they know everything, the more they don't know anything.
Civil Development Group, LLC
Los Angeles Civil Engineering specializing in Hillside Grading
http://civildevelopmentgroup.com
http://civildevelopmentgroup.com/blog
RE: Are any of you like me?
Vehicle dynamics development (ride and handling in the old money).
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: Are any of you like me?
Some of us have the pleasure (?) of writing the engineering software used in our industries.
Some of us get involved with detailed analysis of time series data (mostly NVH people). This often involves a lot more than throwing data at a cook-book FFT algorithm and plotting a spectrum.
It's all horses for courses. Finding ones place in the big scheme of things. I'd much rather be a nerd in the corner imagining the effect of a hilbert transform on some tooth-passing data from an inductive probe than an engineering operations director.
- Steve
RE: Are any of you like me?
Mathcad and Excel, nothing terribly complex; almost exclusively algebraic in nature, with goal seeking.
TTFN
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RE: Are any of you like me?
http://www.turbinetraders.com/turbine177.htm
When preparing the machine for use, I noted the test function was not working,
I forget exactly what the symptoms were.
I brought the unit back inside the shop, and and was helplessly perusing the voluminous schematics, hoping to recognize a fuse (OR SOMETHING) that might be at fault. About this time, the head of our small avionics department came by, possibly drawn by the 'smell' of a schematic.
He Asked what the problem was, and then flips through the manual for a minute or two, settles on one page, and points to a component buried in this mess of lines. "There's your problem" he said. "That zener's open"
"Bullshit" is what I replied. "No way"! This whole exercise has taken maybe 5 minutes. Well, he looks up the p/n of the "zener" and says he probably has one for his bench work repairs, in stock.
I'm still not convinced, but get the Bosses' approval for some 'in house' labor. The tech opens it up, unstacks maybe four boards, and locates the culprit. It is replaced, and the box re assembled.
A quick run on the calibrator to check it, and it's good as new. I relate this story, only to illustrate that there ARE people who can think on this level. I personally believe such technicians are like the "Guild Navigators" from the old "Dune" SciFi books. They operate on a different level.
RE: Are any of you like me?
That's an awesome story. I was expecting you to end with something like "yeah that same thing happend last month and it took us three weeks to find the problem, but by omitting that fact he'll think I'm an electronics god." or "replacing zener diode $20. Knowing which diode to replace $10000". I hope to have that kind of mastery in some subject by the time I'm a grey beard. And I need to hurry because it's already getting salt and peppery.
-Kirby
Kirby Wilkerson
Remember, first define the problem, then solve it.
RE: Are any of you like me?
Smart people can get to that level of skill if you work in the same field and are always trying to learn more about it. Its an easy thing to do for 1-3 years, gets difficult at 5 years, really hard approaching 15.
If you are always pressing to make yourself better you will have those situations when you solve a problem, someone asks you how you did it and then you go into a long explanation of how you connected the dots but it really just confuses people even more than if you told them "Magic!"
This is why companies are always trying to hire someone with "Experience" that is very specific.
this message has been approved for citizen to elect kepharda 2008
RE: Are any of you like me?
RE: Are any of you like me?
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If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!
RE: Are any of you like me?
- Steve
RE: Are any of you like me?
My engineering skillset is entirely different to his and he defers to me every so often on my knowledge.
drawn to design, designed to draw
RE: Are any of you like me?
RE: Are any of you like me?
drawn to design, designed to draw
RE: Are any of you like me?
Civil Development Group, LLC
Los Angeles Civil Engineering specializing in Hillside Grading
http://civildevelopmentgroup.com
http://civildevelopmentgroup.com/blog