In article , Dave Plowman (News)
wrote:
In article , Laurence Payne
wrote:


Oh I know. I was using 'meja studies' to cover anything to do with
broadcasting and recording etc - as I said they are relatively new.

It doesn't HAVE to be a joke subject.

Sadly many of the colleges in the UK seem to turn out technicians who
want to run before they can walk. Which can be extremely frustrating for
the individuals.

I recall being shouted at by an aged professor of physics because the basic
'electronics' course I was giving physical science undergrads included
teaching them to solder and to build their own simple circuits. He was
furious that I was 'wasting their time', and that 'soldering was for
technicians, not graduates'. Fine for them to have lectures on
semiconductors and devices, but not to actually solder or make anything.

He was quite angry. And I was quite shocked by his reactions.

I was/am used to the idea that experimentalists should be able to design,
built, and test their own kit. Not just buy it all from the HP and
Minicircuits catalogue without having a clue how it worked. But so far as
he was concerned a 'graduate' would simply get someone else to do all that
and just step in to take down the results and publish them. Weird.

Similarly, I feel that even theoreticians find it useful to appreciate how
the kit that gathers their data actually works. Helps them to avoid 'over
interpretation' of the data, and to see what improvements might be sensibly
asked for.

Alas, his view wasn't unique. I have come across one or two 'EE' grads who
can't solder, and Mech ones who can't tell brass from aluminimum when given
two lumps of metal and asked which is which. Again, this does seem weird to
me. I guess they just get lectures and computer simulations. Who needs to
solder when they have spice, etc? :-)

Mind you, I admit to being old-fashioned. Took decades to wean me off
FORTRAN onto 'C' and I still dislike people modelling with Mathcad,
Spreadsheets, etc. 8-]

Still... after 25 years, the labwork I put into the course is still there.
:-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
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Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html