CWS4322
Chef Extraordinaire
My DH became an electrical engineer in 1987. He worked in R&D for 15 years, went back to university and did an M.Sc. in Materials, a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (specialization being nanomaterials). He taught a mandatory 2nd year course on materials during that time. One of the quiz questions was related to the tensile strength of rivets and what would happen if this requirement was miscalculated (the question related to airplane structure--I can't remember the question, but I do remember one student's answer, and I quote, was "Planes would fall from the sky and people would die." My DH's observation from the time he went to school and 2005-2009 was that there was a definite "dumbing down" of courses (which he observed during the 5 terms he taught the course, test questions had to be rewritten and materials revised so more student passed) and that students did not have to take mechanical drafting, technical writing, or other courses he had to take. He doesn't need a computer-generated CAD drawing--he can draw his own. The point being, the tool doesn't necessarily demonstrate the person understand the methodology behind generating the drawing. He had students who had to repeat the course 5 times and still had not passed it by the time he completed his Ph.D.