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Well, now that the fall semester has started at Purdue, I’m going to make an effort to post more regularly. Of course, just one post a month would be more regular than my recent performance.  Anyhow, today’s e-mail brought a brochure for a course (IE 590 & ChE 597) titled, “Career, Teaming & Entrepreneurial Methods for Engineers.” It promises to teach engineers how to:
- Be proactive in career development
- Develop interpresonal and professional communications skills
- Understand large technical project management
- Develop an awareness of the technical marketplace and the supply of technology
- Learn entrepreneurial methods
It sounds interesting. Why isn’t this type of class required for all engineering students?
I might be tempted to take it if I could afford more time away from my dissertation. However, I can’t graduate without defending, and I can’t defend without a dissertation. And it’s difficult to teach at a leading engineering school without a PhD. So more of my future blog entries may be more related to my research (and less devoted to engineering education in general). At least until I clear the hurdle of completing my final defense.
Ever hear of the “Marshmallow Challenge?” Small teams of individuals are given the following assignment: use twenty sticks of uncooked spaghetti, one yard of masking tape, and one yard of string to construct the tallest possible free-standing structure that supports the weight of a marshmallow. Most people assume that since a marshmallow doesn’t weigh much, it shouldn’t significantly affect the support structure. Of course, even a small mass can produce structural failure when placed atop a long unsupported column.
So what profession does best at this task? According to Tom Wujec, a Fellow at software company Autodesk, the tallest structures are built by engineers and architects. They consistently outperform similar teams of lawyers, business school students, or corporate managers. This is not an unanticipated result, as we expect our engineers to know something about static structures. However, it is rather surprising to learn that youngsters, even kindergarten students, do far better than most adults—kids are simply not afraid to repeatedly fail as they search for an approach that works. (You may discover more about this learning exercise at MarshmallowChallenge.com).
Two insights come from this anecdotal report of group behavior. First, that engineers have been trained to think in a manner that is distinctly different from those in other professions. Second, that repeated rounds of prototyping and evaluation may be an effective means for dealing with the messy, unstructured, uncertain problems that engineers frequently encounter.
As you begin writing academic papers, you will need to cite the work of other researchers. From the prior two posts in this series, you know about using LaTeX to typeset your paper, and using JabRef to store your bibliographic references. However, typing in all the citation information by hand is rather tedious. Your ability to search the research literature is greatly enhanced if your academic institution provides you with access to databases of the engineering literature (Engineering Village, IEEE Xplore, Web of Science). All of these services allow you to export bibliographic data to a file on your computer, which you can then import into JabRef. However, there is a better way: BibConverter.
The brainchild of Kjell Magne Fauske, BibConverter is a free online service that converts a web page of information into a BibTex reference. While you are browsing through one of the article databases, you will likely find a paper you want to reference. Instead of downloading a citation file, simply copy the entire web page to your desktop, go to BibConverter, and paste the clipboard contents into the provided box. Click on the “Convert” button, and now you have a valid BibTex reference, that will look something like this:
@ARTICLE{Kalman1960,
title = {New approach to linear filtering and prediction problems},
author = {Kalman, R. E.},
year = {1960},
volume = {82},
number = {1},
pages = {35--45},
month = mar,
abstract = {Classical Wiener problem (filtering and prediction) is re-examined in
discrete case using author's new ("state transition") method of
analysis of dynamic systems; general solution is developed in
terms of conditional expectations; this gives result of
greatest possible generality when only first and second-order
statistical averages are used; basic concepts of theory of
random processes reviewed.},
}
Copy this data to the clipboard, and go to JabRef. Create a new BibTex entry with "Ctrl+N", select the "Article" entry type, and then replace the "BibTex Source" entry with your clipboard contents. Once you've done this once or twice, it will seem quite natural, and it saves you the time and mess of having to clean up all the citation files that will start to litter your system. You can even download a bookmarklet from the BibConverter site to save you the trouble of surfing to the BibConverter site and selecting the proper database format. This service has saved me hours of time over the past several years.
[Note: IEEE Xplore recently changed it's online format, and it looks like BibConverter is currently unable to process data from that service.]
If you write academic papers, then you need to maintain a database of the references you cite. Assuming that you use LaTeX, this is typically accomplished by creating a BibTeX file that contains the needed bibliographical data. (Note that, in addition to identifying this particular data format, you may also see the term “BibTeX” being used to reference the software program that pulls information out of the BibTeX file and integrates it into a compiled LaTeX document.)
While it is possible to create a BibTeX file using nothing more than a text editor, it saves time to import such information into a program designed for this purpose. Always pleased to uncover free software, I’ve found the open source program
Continue reading Secret Tools of the Engineering Grad Student, Part 3: JabRef
If you are going to write a dissertation (or any other paper for that matter) with significant mathematical content, you will discover that the typesetting of your equations proceeds much better if you use LaTeX. While there is a steep learning curve, you will save a good bit of time down the road if you get comfortable with LaTeX (pronounced “Lay-tech”) early on. Here’s an equation for the Fourier transform rendered with this typesetting system:
This equation is created with the following code:
F(f) = \int_{-\infty}^\infty f(t) e^{-j2\pi ft} dt
As you can probably figure out, mathematical symbols are created in LaTeX with text keywords preceded by a backslash. In addition to the improved typesetting, this means that you can quickly [...]
Continue reading Secret Tools of the Engineering Grad Student, Part 2: LaTeX
Each engineering specialty makes use of certain software packages. For instance, in my area of automatic controls, just about everyone uses Matlab; those studying other disciplines make use of other topic-specific packages. However, certain tools (software and otherwise) will prove beneficial to just about any engineering grad student who must carry out research and produce a dissertation at the conclusion of their studies. However, these tools are rarely mentioned as key technologies for surviving as an engineering grad student. Over the next several posts, I will identify some tools that I had to discover on my own as I marched toward a PhD degree. Today’s category is desktop search.
You will undoubtedly collect a lot of information on your computer as a [...]
Continue reading Secret Tools of the Engineering Grad Student, Part 1: Desktop Search
Happened to stumble across Mango Languages last night. It seems to be a nicely constructed site for language instruction. Once upon a time I worked for a firm headquartered in Germany, and had taken some company-sponsored language lessons, so I poked around in the first-level German module. One of the things I noticed right away was that translation was required in both directions. First, I was asked to translate from English to German. Then, after practicing a phrase, I was asked to translate from German back to English. This was easy for the first couple of phrases, but became increasingly difficult as I had to juggle more and more words in my head. I gave up halfway through the lesson [...]
Continue reading Bidirectional Translation
While skimming through a year-old post over at edtechpost, I noticed the following reflection:
So I will forgive you if you ignore me from here on out as a perennial dimwit when I tell you that it took me this long to ‘get’ how crucial narrative and storytelling are to everything we are doing, be it learning online, connecting, weaving one’s online presence, blogging…
What really caught my eye was the phrase “narrative and storytelling.” Why are these factors not more frequently incorporated into the teaching of technical issues? While sitting through long lectures that cover intricate mathematical development, I often long to hear more about the context in which the methodology was developed.
What problem drove the development of a new [...]
Continue reading Narrative and Storytelling
Happened across Dr. Richard Felder’s website today. Wow! What a treasure trove of information. It’s going to take me a while to digest this information, but I’m thrilled to see that the research exists. You can view an hour-long presentation Dr. Felder recently made at Penn State University, titled “Engineering Education in Five Years (or sooner).” Too bad we can’t see his slides most of the time, but an interesting talk nonetheless. My take away quote: “The power of the interactive tutorial is huge.”
Thanks to Teaching College Math for leading me to Prof. [...]
Continue reading A Mother Lode of Engineering Education Information
As I enjoyed lunch with a friend today, he described a teenager that he has been counseling. The young man that my friend has been advising wants to be engineer. When asked why, the teen replied that he wants “to build things.” That’s certainly why I wanted to be an engineer. It’s also why I was so frustrated in my first two years of college. I didn’t understand what possible connection all of the math and physics I was “learning” had to do with making things. My father ran a machine shop, so I knew what making things looked like. It usually didn’t involve a lot of calculus. In fact, I worked in industry as an engineer for twenty years without [...]
Continue reading A Narrower Focus
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