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Flag Day - In honor of Flag Day I went to work yesterday wearing a red polo shirt and blue jean shorts showing the white pallor of my New Hampshire legs. “Oh my eyes! I'm blind!” *grin* After several days of hot, muggy weather things did an about face yesterday. On my commute home from work the sign on the bank said 55°! Because I had dressed expecting another sweatfest of a day, I actually turned a little bit of heat on in the car. From 90° to 55° in such a short span! On the plus side, the pollen levels dropped to below 3, but it's taking a bit for my head to clear.

Math - Monday I was reminiscing about math. Not to gloat or be immodest, but when I was younger, I was good at math. I think I had a perfect math score on the ACT. I enjoyed a good math puzzle. I 'got' algebra, trigonometry, calculus, differential equations. Perhaps I was blessed with good teachers. Admittedly, linear algebra and matrices seemed like black magic to me, but I could really visualize most of the other branches of mathematics fairly well. It came in handy for a lot of engineering subjects.

There are a lot of things I could have done with that ability, especially in the more fundamental sciences, but unfortunately in my particular field, there really isn't a lot of applicability. And so, as might be expected, my skill has atrophied tremendously. I suspect it's true for a lot of engineers. In that respect it's a bit sad to look back and think about what you've lost. Sure, if I were single, I could spend some time every night dusting off old brain cells and relearning the concepts and techniques, but with all the other more important things on my plate at this stage in life, it isn't a priority. Even I if spent the effort, where would I use it unless I had a career change?

College - I was having lunch with my friend, Will, yesterday when I brought this up. The topic broadened into other things you learned in college that you didn't end up using. At least in electrical engineering, the field is so broad all they can do is introduce you to a bunch the sub-disciplines. In the end you'll likely only chose one. I don't design antennas, motors, analog electronics, generators, power distribution systems, microwave circuits, fibre optics, etc. It's not to say the education didn't have useful aspects, especially toward the end when I got to focus more on digital design, computer architecture, algorithms, etc. but I got exposed to a lot that I haven't touched since the late 80's.

From there I started to think of the things you don't get prepared for. In college you might work on a cute little project that takes 4 to 10 weeks. Likely you design it from scratch. You bring it from concept to reality. In a way it's like the hobbyist wood worker tinkering in his garage, building a chair, table, or dresser. In the real world a large percentage engineers work on large systems that they didn't design. It can be the result of many man years of effort of other engineers. The work might involve verification of someone else's work, maintenance, tweaking it, stress testing it, documenting it, etc. In engineering school you don't learn critical processes like revision control and bug tracking and reproducibility. You don't inherit hundreds of thousands of lines of someone else's code with instructions to debug it. In the real world of computer engineering, you do.

I'm not sure whether there's a better way to prepare engineers. None of this is meant to imply that college is a waste. As I said, most fields of engineering are rather broad so you need a wide exposure to a lot of topics. With only four years to get you through it all, I'm not certain how it could be done better. I am glad that I got to go to graduate school in order to better focus on my area of work. Even so, there are just so many things you only pick up outside of academia after graduation from the experience of being immersed in it at work. Simultaneously, there are so many subjects you study in school that you never touch again.

Joke - I'll close with this joke my dad told me this morning:

Little Johnny went with his mom and dad to his grandmother's house for dinner. When little Johnny received his plate he started eating right away.
"Johnny, wait until we say our prayer," said his mother.
"I don't have to," Johnny replied.
"Of course, you do," his mother insisted. "We say a prayer before eating at our house."
"That's our house," Johnny explained. "But this is Grandma's house, and she knows how to cook!"