Open thoughts

[MICHAEL WILLIAMSParticipant @michaelwilliams41215]

[MICHAEL WILLIAMSParticipant @michaelwilliams41215]

One thing has always intrigued me about the many engineers that I have met in life :

There is no strong correlation between their engineering ability and their qualifications .

I’ve no axe to grind about qualified / unqualified people – my comments are just based on observation over many years .

I suppose that about40 % of people end up in the sort of job expected but for the rest there seem to be no rules at all .

This seems to read across to Model Engineers as well – of the many I have met and corresponded with there has been no strong correlation between their qualifications , day job and general background and their actual level of engineering skills at all .

On this site and as seen in the magazines there are all levels of ability and experience to be found from the great experts upwards to the most competent an experienced .

I’ve no specific question to ask – but any thoughts ??

MikeW

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Hi Michael,

Just as common sense and wisdom don't correlate with intelligence

I'm sure there's some sort of 'mechanical' intelligence – a sympathy with materials that engineers, woodcarvers, surgeons and all sorts of craftspeople have that sets them apart from us mere mortals.

Neil

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

If it's any basis I went to Oxford University.

[blowlampParticipant @blowlamp]

Posted by John Stevenson on 14/01/2014 14:12:51:

If it's any basis I went to Oxford University…

…I was delivering the groceries.

[richardandtracyParticipant @richardandtracy]

I agree about a lack of correlation between qualifications & ability.

I have met an engineering phd when I played at stressing aircraft interiors. The phd was so poor at practical engineering that in the end the only thing he was permitted to do was create artist's impressions of a new interior. He had a 2Cv (the only thing in his favour) but noticed a crack in a decorative panel between the front wing and the cabin bulkhead. As a result, he took the car to a garage to be looked at. Within 5 minutes the mechanic had grounded the car. The chassis had snapped just forward of the cabin, with the bottom flange of the chassis only being intact and acting as a hinge. The in-fill panel (held on with 2 M5 screws) was the only thing stopping the front of the car pivoting around the front wheels and digging in…

The best natural engineer I have met is a machinist at work. He has 5 O levels, but can feel intuitively how to make things right. OK, his abilities have been helped by the apprenticeship he took, but someone without the 'feel' would never be able to do what he can.

Unfortunately my 'abilities' put me closer to the phd than the natural machinist…

Regards,

Richard

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

22 Tonnes of bricks, actually

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

I loved that cartoon of the spotty academic PHD engineer with his DEEPLOMA sticking out of his top pocket. The caption read – "Six munce ago I couldn't spell Engonier, Now I are one"

Rang true for some of the 'Engineers' I have met.

BobH

[MetalhackerParticipant @metalhacker]

Qualifications and ability are frequently far separated. I am a doctor and have met highly qualified colleagues whom I would not trust as far as they could throw me. Others with just basic qualifications have such natural ability and empathy you would trust them with your life. Skill is what we all need whatever our field, not paper qualifications which show you can pass exams but cannot necessarily perform when the chips are down.

vive l'experience

Andries

[davebParticipant @daveb17630]

Some people will make a decent job of anything they do, others simply through the motions. I once asked an apprentice to sweep the floor, he waved the broom about for some time but appeared to be totally oblivious of what the business end of the broom was doing, in this case, it wasn't much. The boss was a bit like that too!

[Oompa LumpaParticipant @oompalumpa34302]

"Skill is what we all need whatever our field, not paper qualifications "

Throw a bit of common sense into the equation and you have someone who could really achieve something world class.

graham.

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

> 22 Tonnes of bricks, actually

Dare I ask what you read…?

Neil

[FMESParticipant @fmes]

Never really seen the point in being able to calculate the square root of a jar of pickles if you can't get the lid off.

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

What you assert is fairly common knowledge in the engineering world. A certain type of individual who is akin to a lighthouse in a desert.

Extremely bright, but f*** all use to anyone.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Posted by John Stevenson on 14/01/2014 14:12:51:

If it's any basis I went to Oxford University.

I went to Oxford University too – on a school trip round the physics department. At the end we were left alone with a PhD with no teachers and staff who told us 'in confidence' the only useful thing he did in 4 years was a 1 week surveying course which enabled him to get a holiday job holding the stripey pole.

[SteamcoalnzParticipant @steamcoalnz]

I studied Geography at University and have been manufacturing shotgun ammunition for the last 22 years!

Love machinery and how it works, beats office work. Just that I have to fix the machinery that so call engineers have designed!!

[Geoff RogersParticipant @geoffrogers81118]

Michael,

what do you mean by 'engineering ability' ?

Geoff

[Pete TitanParticipant @petetitan85913]

Yeah, I'd agree with O.P.

My father works at a clay quarry and model engineering is his hobby. He has made some beautiful engines. Then, having said that, with ref to qualifications, he decided to go to open university to read a maths degree because he found his methods of machine set up used maths…

I grew up around old oil engines and steam models and with my feet planted at the foot of the lathe from an early age, began building and honing my 'engineering ability'. I chose to do a degree in engineering after my A levels, which was intended to help me secure a good engineering position – However, being a particularly firey individual I found taking orders from half wits in jobs I'd secured hard to do, so set up my own business in a field that I have interest and experience in. (A vehicle workshop)

The thing I always think about engineering is that 'Engineering' means different things to different people.

For instance, the workshops I went to after uni were all CAD/CAM orientated. Generally you simply pressed go on a machine or put a fresh bit of stock in the chuck, or on the table. If you had no actual practical ability, you would find it hard to come home from work and set about making something (My colleagues always admired engines I took in to show them but couldn't conceive how it could possibly be done with manual machines and files without CAD. But they would still consider themselves 'skilled engineers' Whereas I considered the quiet and usually forgotten chaps that were designing the parts, working out tolerances, UTS' centrifugal forces, failure probability with F.O.S and loading etc to give the CAD people something to draw the true talents.

I myself found university slightly bizarre as there was very little practical (mainly due to health and safety) and all you were required to do was prove you could make something. In our case a silly little 3 legged bearing puller, which ironically I never made because I took in a couple of my engines and they decided it was a waste of resources. Instead I turned out some rear wheel rims for a traction engine I was finishing for a friend.

Now I really do love maths, and physics and all things mathematically derived, but I do remember a moment at about 3am one morning when I was working on a piece of coursework due in the same day. (also knowing as last minute stupidity) I was writing out some polynomial division as part of a proof that 22/7 is greater than pi and I remember thinking to myself, I know what pi equals, why I am proving what pi DOESN'T equal when I could be making something constructive!!

To me, broadly, engineering is the series of solutions (machining / design calculations etc) that turn an idea into a practical item. But then I build models and I consider that engineering so who knows!!

I do largely agree though that daytime job versus hobby are often worlds apart. I once knew a concrete worker who would go home a build clocks…how such dumpy fingers could even pick up half the components of it was beyond me!

Anyway, at present I and talking on the model engineering site when I really should be working!

Kind regards, Pete.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Returning to the original post I think qualifications have so little to do with real world jobs (obviously exceptions like medicine) that it is a surprise to find correlation. I've rarely seen an electrical or mechanical engineer needing to use 'learning' gained post school. There are normally just a handful of people in a company of thousands who do all the advanced stuff.

Then hobbywise people with practical ability might be influenced by their parents, teachers, neighbours to focus on anything from sculpture, to woodwork to cooking to gardening to car maintenance depending often on chance encounters.

What one can say is they are very unlikely to take up model engineering if they never encounter it or their exposure presents it as a magical black art. In that vein my club had a stand at a model railway exhibition last weekend to show that there are scales bigger than they are used to.

[colin hawesParticipant @colinhawes85982]

I have known several engineering graduates fresh from the uni. going into CNC machine design who could do anything with a CAD/CAM program but had very poor knowledge of the tools used and toolsetting ;some of them had to get me to explain the use and performance of many commonly used tools for machines when asked to actually produce a machine set up for a specified component. I also knew a skilled general machinist who went on to uni. after an apprenticeship: he was brilliant as a CNC machine tool designer because he had lots of manual machine experience before learning CAD/CAM theory and the maths to use it .Theory and ability can be very far apart but a high paper qualification does demonstrate the intelligence to learn. One learns more every day throughout an engineering career. Then takes up modelmaking and learns lots of short cuts. Colin

[John ShepherdParticipant @johnshepherd38883]

Several (many in fact) years ago I worked with someone whose son was an outstanding PHD in his chosen subject and was assistant to a very prominent scientist at the time, but when he came home from university they could not trust him with a key to the house, so they tied it on a piece of string accessible via the letterbox.

Despite giving detailed instructions to pull the sting up to get the key, they were awakened one night because he had got his arm stuck in the letterbox trying to reach down for the key!

[Rick Kirkland 1Participant @rickkirkland1]

I used to work with a guy who, one afternoon got our large heavy old fashioned sack barrow out of the van, stood it down whilst he closed and locked the van, then picked it up and struggled to carry it across the car park and into the workshop! !.

[Halton TankParticipant @haltontank]

Reading through this and some of the other threads, I do get the sense of inverted snobbery coming through, ie you ain't proper engineer unless you got your hands dirty. No I am not a graduate but did manage to get an HNC in Electrical & Electronic Engineering by doing day release. In my time as an electronic engineer (or should I say technician) I have met and worked with high qualification who were brilliant and knew what they doing and yes I also met PHD's who I wouldn't trust with a broom let alone a soldering iron.

This inverted snobbery seems to come about is that in many large business managers with little engineering experience tend to make decisions often contrary to advice given by staff with vastly greater experience. Coupled to this is where years ago job might require ONC or HNC qualifications now require a degree. This is probably due to successive goverment pushing school leavers to go to university taking people who would have gone to Technical Colleges instead. Nowadays the education system in the UK is only geared to get people into university and those who don't make it or academically minded are thrown onto the slag heap as the alternative means now virtually non existant with Technical Colleges becoming universities.

Regards Luigi

 

Edited By Halton Tank on 15/01/2014 18:16:42

[martin perman 1Participant @martinperman1]

My job takes me to a different university every day of the week and when I'm driving around the campus looking for some where to park etc I see the "students" and think is this what the future holds for the country, and those I have to train on equipment always give me the view the lights are on but nobody's at home.

Martin P

[Steve WithnellParticipant @stevewithnell34426]

Posted by Halton Tank on 15/01/2014 18:16:07:

SNIP>

This inverted snobbery seems to come about is that in many large business managers with little engineering experience tend to make decisions often contrary to advice given by staff with vastly greater experience. <SNIP

Regards Luigi

Edited By Halton Tank on 15/01/2014 18:16:42

Read Richard Feynman's exposition on the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster.

Consequences of not talking and listening to the man that actually does the job.

Steve

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