2011 ECAC Post-season

[Trotsky]

One of the most humorous aspects of Cornell is how people from A&S and Engineering each have a delusional superiority complex.

(Particularly since it's the Ag School that rocks.)

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

There were plenty of courses I wanted to take but due to Engineering course load couldn't.  I would have liked to take a foreign language course, but couldn't afford 6 credits of language on top of 15+ of Engineering core requirements.  And biology would have been fun, except it was a pre-med weed-out course.  There's even more courses that I'd find interesting now. If I knew then, what I knew now...

The courses that in retrospect have turned out to be the most useless were all Engineering core requirements.  I had to take 3 semesters of math, and I've used calculus once in a 30 year career.  Worse, I knew going in I wouldn't need it.  I had three relatives who were ChemE's and they all said they didn't need calculus.  The only physics I've used out of 3 semesters I learned in high school.  I've never used any P-Chem (8 credits) or Materials Science (3 credits).  So there's 1/4 of my Cornell education that was of zero value to me.

[Trotsky]

I'm actually really surprised there are Engineers who don't use Calculus.  I thought it was ubiquitous in the kind of analysis they do.

[Robb]

I'm actually really surprised there are Engineers who don't use Calculus.  I thought it was ubiquitous in the kind of analysis they do.

You'd be even more shocked at all the engineers who *can't* use calculus.  I use it constantly (e,g. tracking rates of change of temperatures and fuel quantities in aircraft fuel tanks), and it is always somewhere between amusing and depressing to see established, successful engineers' eyes glaze over the instant I mention integrating mass flowrates....

[RichH]

NM

[RichH]

I'm actually really surprised there are Engineers who don't use Calculus.  I thought it was ubiquitous in the kind of analysis they do.

These days, software packages pretty much do all the grind-work for those that need to do such analyses.  I would hope that people still need to understand what is actually happening underneath the front end, and be able to plug-in complex assumptions and required conditions to a problem to allow computers to chug through the "turning the crank" calculations we were taught in college.  But I'd be willing to bet the whole "the software spits out an answer" has made the practice and application of calculus somewhat rare.

My field (optics) relies more on linear algebra unless we really dive down into Maxwell's Equations (which rarely happens). Otherwise, the design work I do relies on knowing the subtle effects of components/elements have on a system and finding elegant/cheap solutions to problems others didn't anticipate.  Matlab/Mathmatica or specialized optical modeling software does the grunt work. The rest of my work deals with the problems that arise from physically building & testing complex systems.

[Trotsky]

I'm actually really surprised there are Engineers who don't use Calculus.  I thought it was ubiquitous in the kind of analysis they do.

These days, software packages pretty much do all the grind-work for those that need to do such analyses.  I would hope that people still need to understand what is actually happening underneath the front end, and be able to plug-in complex assumptions and required conditions to a problem to allow computers to chug through the "turning the crank" calculations we were taught in college.  But I'd be willing to bet the whole "the software spits out an answer" has made the practice and application of calculus somewhat rare.

My field (optics) relies more on linear algebra unless we really dive down into Maxwell's Equations (which rarely happens). Otherwise, the design work I do relies on knowing the subtle effects of components/elements have on a system and finding elegant/cheap solutions to problems others didn't anticipate.  Matlab/Mathmatica or specialized optical modeling software does the grunt work. The rest of my work deals with the problems that arise from physically building & testing complex systems.

Interesting.  I've never met an Engineer who wasn't also a good mathematician (not a freak genius like jtw, but solid and competent), but I can see how the tools have advanced to where Engineering becomes more a matter of gathering requirements, designing solutions, and anticipating (or responding to) all the myriad complications and problems of real world implementation.

[judy]

I'm actually really surprised there are Engineers who don't use Calculus.  I thought it was ubiquitous in the kind of analysis they do.

These days, software packages pretty much do all the grind-work for those that need to do such analyses.  I would hope that people still need to understand what is actually happening underneath the front end, and be able to plug-in complex assumptions and required conditions to a problem to allow computers to chug through the "turning the crank" calculations we were taught in college.  But I'd be willing to bet the whole "the software spits out an answer" has made the practice and application of calculus somewhat rare.

My field (optics) relies more on linear algebra unless we really dive down into Maxwell's Equations (which rarely happens). Otherwise, the design work I do relies on knowing the subtle effects of components/elements have on a system and finding elegant/cheap solutions to problems others didn't anticipate.  Matlab/Mathmatica or specialized optical modeling software does the grunt work. The rest of my work deals with the problems that arise from physically building & testing complex systems.

Interesting.  I've never met an Engineer who wasn't also a good mathematician (not a freak genius like jtw, but solid and competent), but I can see how the tools have advanced to where Engineering becomes more a matter of gathering requirements, designing solutions, and anticipating (or responding to) all the myriad complications and problems of real world implementation.

I came out of Engineering with a Computer Science degree. I don't really use much of that in the day to day even though I am still somewhat in the industry.

So is this what we have gotten to, a discussion about degree requirements while we all wait for the weekend?

[Towerroad]

I'm actually really surprised there are Engineers who don't use Calculus.  I thought it was ubiquitous in the kind of analysis they do.

These days, software packages pretty much do all the grind-work for those that need to do such analyses.  I would hope that people still need to understand what is actually happening underneath the front end, and be able to plug-in complex assumptions and required conditions to a problem to allow computers to chug through the "turning the crank" calculations we were taught in college.  But I'd be willing to bet the whole "the software spits out an answer" has made the practice and application of calculus somewhat rare.

My field (optics) relies more on linear algebra unless we really dive down into Maxwell's Equations (which rarely happens). Otherwise, the design work I do relies on knowing the subtle effects of components/elements have on a system and finding elegant/cheap solutions to problems others didn't anticipate.  Matlab/Mathmatica or specialized optical modeling software does the grunt work. The rest of my work deals with the problems that arise from physically building & testing complex systems.

Interesting.  I've never met an Engineer who wasn't also a good mathematician (not a freak genius like jtw, but solid and competent), but I can see how the tools have advanced to where Engineering becomes more a matter of gathering requirements, designing solutions, and anticipating (or responding to) all the myriad complications and problems of real world implementation.

I came out of Engineering with a Computer Science degree. I don't really use much of that in the day to day even though I am still somewhat in the industry.

So is this what we have gotten to, a discussion about degree requirements while we all wait for the weekend?

Believe me, we could do far worse and have done so on numerous occasions.

[Swampy]

I'm actually really surprised there are Engineers who don't use Calculus.  I thought it was ubiquitous in the kind of analysis they do.

These days, software packages pretty much do all the grind-work for those that need to do such analyses.  I would hope that people still need to understand what is actually happening underneath the front end, and be able to plug-in complex assumptions and required conditions to a problem to allow computers to chug through the "turning the crank" calculations we were taught in college.  But I'd be willing to bet the whole "the software spits out an answer" has made the practice and application of calculus somewhat rare.

My field (optics) relies more on linear algebra unless we really dive down into Maxwell's Equations (which rarely happens). Otherwise, the design work I do relies on knowing the subtle effects of components/elements have on a system and finding elegant/cheap solutions to problems others didn't anticipate.  Matlab/Mathmatica or specialized optical modeling software does the grunt work. The rest of my work deals with the problems that arise from physically building & testing complex systems.

Interesting.  I've never met an Engineer who wasn't also a good mathematician (not a freak genius like jtw, but solid and competent), but I can see how the tools have advanced to where Engineering becomes more a matter of gathering requirements, designing solutions, and anticipating (or responding to) all the myriad complications and problems of real world implementation.

I came out of Engineering with a Computer Science degree. I don't really use much of that in the day to day even though I am still somewhat in the industry.

So is this what we have gotten to, a discussion about degree requirements while we all wait for the weekend?

Believe me, we could do far worse and have done so on numerous occasions.

You're right, so let's take the discussion in a slightly different direction. Why does it seem that so many of the people on this board studied in the College of Engineering?

[Beeeej]

You're right, so let's take the discussion in a slightly different direction. Why does it seem that so many of the people on this board studied in the College of Engineering?

That's partly because you're seeing the Engineering alumni speak up on matters relevant to them.  As an English department alum, I have nothing to add on a discussion of what the liberal arts requirements are for Engineering students or whether RPI would have been a good alternative for me.

Plus, it's the geeks who will have the most to contribute to computational threads.  :-)

In other words, it's the Engineering alumni who have most recently had reason to speak up about which school they attended or offer playoff scenario algorithms.  That doesn't make them a majority of participants on this board, just the most vocal about particular recent topics.

[French Rage]

You're right, so let's take the discussion in a slightly different direction. Why does it seem that so many of the people on this board studied in the College of Engineering?

That's partly because you're seeing the Engineering alumni speak up on matters relevant to them.  As an English department alum, I have nothing to add on a discussion of what the liberal arts requirements are for Engineering students or whether RPI would have been a good alternative for me.

Plus, it's the geeks who will have the most to contribute to computational threads.  :-)

In other words, it's the Engineering alumni who have most recently had reason to speak up about which school they attended or offer playoff scenario algorithms.  That doesn't make them a majority of participants on this board, just the most vocal about particular recent topics.

The short answer is, because we're awesome!

[css228]

One of the most humorous aspects of Cornell is how people from A&S and Engineering each have a delusional superiority complex.

(Particularly since it's the Ag School that rocks.)

Hey I'm in A&S and I don't think we're any better than Ag or ILR or Hum Ec. I can't really comment of AA&P and Hotel though because those schools are just so completely different than every other program on campus. My dad was an ILRie and I happen to think (though I'm a gov student) that pre-meds who are aggies are smarter than the A&S pre-meds because they pay less for essentially the same program. That said there are people in A&S  and Engineering who do act superior to the state portions. It's kind of a shame because thats the kind of elitism that I specifically didn't apply to Hahvahd for.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

I'm actually really surprised there are Engineers who don't use Calculus.  I thought it was ubiquitous in the kind of analysis they do.

Much of chemical engineering tends to be steady-state calculations. Mix A & B to get C.  Once you have the data to scale up, those really don't need any calculus.  

The main use of calculus in ChemE is for non-steady state operation, that is time-dependent calculations.  So much of that is done with computerized numerical methods rather than true calculus.  So if there is calculus involved, it's hidden to me.

[Towerroad]

I'm actually really surprised there are Engineers who don't use Calculus.  I thought it was ubiquitous in the kind of analysis they do.

Much of chemical engineering tends to be steady-state calculations. Mix A & B to get C.  Once you have the data to scale up, those really don't need any calculus.  

The main use of calculus in ChemE is for non-steady state operation, that is time-dependent calculations.  So much of that is done with computerized numerical methods rather than true calculus.  So if there is calculus involved, it's hidden to me.

I worked as an economists use a fair amount of calculus but it was pretty basic simple partial derivatives and occasional integration of an income distribution curve.