Thoughts of studying engineering.

[jonathan01n]

I studied engineering for around a year now. I admit, it is hard, and sometime failure may occur. But in the following paragraph I have some feeling about engineering.

1- Accuracy and Precision.

(In maths is two different concept- but I am not going deep onto that)

In daily life, most people will only encounter units up to mili- 10^-3
But engineers work 1/1000 of it! 1/1000 of 1mm is very very small, it opens another world. In engineering, 1mm error is considered as large and in some cases disaster will happen..

2- Material Science-

Many materials got different characteristics. And Fatigue were taught too. If the material encountered fatigue but ignore it. It will cause disaster, such as the comet.

3- Engineering drawing.
I am poor at that. I failed it with like 20%. But by looking at an object and transform it from 3d-2d or 2d to 3d is quite an experience

4- Maths
A lot people hate maths , I dont as much. I got an A* in gcse and An a for the additional one. SOme people think a large chunk of maths is useless in daily life. ie. why calculus or differentiation releveant to me. Or trig. But in engineering. optimize something requires differentation.

Here is just some of my thoughts.

 

[edwin_m]

Engineering covers a huge range of different fields. Probably the only things they all have in common is a solid grounding in the sort of maths that is in the A level syllabus, and an interest in applying scientific knowledge to the "real world". Depending on your interests, you can embrace precision measurement, materials science and engineering drawing, or find a way to avoid them!

 

[D365]

What branch of engineering are you specialising in? I'm currently preparing for exams (less than a week away now) and seriously demotivated, as I've worked out that my current year of study is unlikely to influence my final grade.

Some of the modules this year have been an absolute ball-ache, but surprisingly I've done alright in Further Maths assignments, despite having dropped it at A Level. Quite honestly, I'm looking forward to taking a year out for placement.

 

[jonathan01n]

What branch of engineering are you specialising in? I'm currently preparing for exams (less than a week away now) and seriously demotivated, as I've worked out that my current year of study is unlikely to influence my final grade.

Some of the modules this year have been an absolute ball-ache, but surprisingly I've done alright in Further Maths assignments, despite having dropped it at A Level. Quite honestly, I'm looking forward to taking a year out for placement.

In fact, I agree some bits are pretty struggling i.e MATLAB is such a killer.
I am doing mechanical engineering.
Or we can share bits together

 

[Domh245]

In fact, I agree some bits are pretty struggling i.e MATLAB is such a killer.
I am doing mechanical engineering.
Or we can share bits together

I seem to be rather the opposite of you. I find MATLAB tolerable, and quite enjoy engineering drawing (and seem to be a go-to for advice for CAE) - but am not the biggest fan of the mathematics parts. Much like D365 though, the revision for exams is a killer - I've got a solid week of exams starting the 22nd of May which I am very much not looking forward to.

 

[AndrewE]

Stick with it, you young people! I would have gone for engineering 40 years ago, but I was told that my maths wasn't good enough in those days... People who can do things (or make them happen) are the most important people in the world! The despicable bankers and politicians just feather their own nests and get in the way of worthwhile progress - or even just sensible maintenance. My engineer offspring's friends who went into the city 15 years ago are now burnt out and discarded, while the practical people are still enjoying their jobs...

I worked with engineers for 30 years and it is a fascinating job, especially if you can keep in touch with actually making things! (Especially infrastructure: every time you go past you are reminded that you had a part in creating it.)

 

[bb21]

The despicable bankers and politicians just feather their own nests and get in the way of worthwhile progress

Some of them you mean.

 

[Nym]

I seem to be rather the opposite of you. I find MATLAB tolerable, and quite enjoy engineering drawing (and seem to be a go-to for advice for CAE) - but am not the biggest fan of the mathematics parts. Much like D365 though, the revision for exams is a killer - I've got a solid week of exams starting the 22nd of May which I am very much not looking forward to.

I'm currently facing a project management exam (part of an MSc), my advice would always be, finish university / college, then start work, going back while working is painful.

I'm also wondering what the OP is studying, because in my world, 1mm is an acceptable tolerance. It's all about scale, "How much can this be out by before I start to care about it?" is something I have to teach a lot of graduates coming through.

Clarence for fitting a 100mm PCD unit with four fixing holes with M5s for example, you could machine to within 2thou and have it fit perfectly and use 5.2mm holes to have it all perfect.

But there's nothing wrong with defining the square as 70.7mm, using 6.0mm dia. holes, with standard tolerances of 0.3mm, this is easily done by an inexpensive laser cutter, and is possible by eye.

I've had some graduates come through tolerating everything to within micrometers, so I'd disagree about how much small units matter.

Finally, depending on the industry and trade, I'd question the full value of university for the job, the amount of training I have to do for graduates is creeping up year on year. Even the likes of basic technical drawing principals are now escaping them!

 

[Nym]

(Especially infrastructure: every time you go past you are reminded that you had a part in creating it.)

Like Button!

I still get giddy when I see some of the 1st projects of my career out in service.

 

[jonathan01n]

I'm currently facing a project management exam (part of an MSc), my advice would always be, finish university / college, then start work, going back while working is painful.

I'm also wondering what the OP is studying, because in my world, 1mm is an acceptable tolerance. It's all about scale, "How much can this be out by before I start to care about it?" is something I have to teach a lot of graduates coming through.

Clarence for fitting a 100mm PCD unit with four fixing holes with M5s for example, you could machine to within 2thou and have it fit perfectly and use 5.2mm holes to have it all perfect.

But there's nothing wrong with defining the square as 70.7mm, using 6.0mm dia. holes, with standard tolerances of 0.3mm, this is easily done by an inexpensive laser cutter, and is possible by eye.

I've had some graduates come through tolerating everything to within micrometers, so I'd disagree about how much small units matter.

Finally, depending on the industry and trade, I'd question the full value of university for the job, the amount of training I have to do for graduates is creeping up year on year. Even the likes of basic technical drawing principals are now escaping them!

I went into a workshop at Lincoln college. All machines are with displays and the scale is down to micrometers. 10^-6. The lathe and those milling machines are 40+ years old but they're retrofitted with digital displays.

 

[Nym]

I went into a workshop at Lincoln college. All machines are with displays and the scale is down to micrometers. 10^-6. The lathe and those milling machines are 40+ years old but they're retrofitted with digital displays.

Yes, and getting things manufactured to your design (operating a lathe isn't engineering!) are exceedingly expensive.

If you want to begin that type of observation Joseph Whitwoth could measure to one mil (1/1000th of a thou) or 1/1000000th of an inch (no Americanizations here!)

Part of being a real engineer is knowing how much things cost and actually being able to get things made. Tolerances are a very important thing.

 

[Domh245]

I went into a workshop at Lincoln college. All machines are with displays and the scale is down to micrometers. 10^-6. The lathe and those milling machines are 40+ years old but they're retrofitted with digital displays.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you have to! In practical terms, higher precision means longer machining times (and potentially more specialist manufacturing processes) and thus higher cost. Having checked a few of the drawings that I've had to do for some of my projects this year, my university's standard tolerance is +/- 0.1mm unless stated.

 

[jonathan01n]

Just because you can, doesn't mean you have to! In practical terms, higher precision means longer machining times (and potentially more specialist manufacturing processes) and thus higher cost. Having checked a few of the drawings that I've had to do for some of my projects this year, my university's standard tolerance is +/- 0.1mm unless stated.

Maybe I should review the use of Cp,Cpl and CpK values that taught earlier! I did a coursework writing about how "good" the process should lie between two constraints. The best is 1.33!

 

[jonathan01n]

Just because you can, doesn't mean you have to! In practical terms, higher precision means longer machining times (and potentially more specialist manufacturing processes) and thus higher cost. Having checked a few of the drawings that I've had to do for some of my projects this year, my university's standard tolerance is +/- 0.1mm unless stated.

I checked some Prof' given notes, the measurements are +-0.2mm unless stated , you are right.

 

[Nym]

Just because you can, doesn't mean you have to! In practical terms, higher precision means longer machining times (and potentially more specialist manufacturing processes) and thus higher cost. Having checked a few of the drawings that I've had to do for some of my projects this year, my university's standard tolerance is +/- 0.1mm unless stated.

Even +/- 0.1mm is a bit extreme for my kind of scale, things around 1m in their largest dimension. 1mm or 0.3mm is what I'm asking for, only for 0.1 where it's tapped holes on critical dimensions, even then, it's usually a THRO hole onto a tapped hole with a tolerance on the THRO to make up for any mistakes on the tapped holes.