New guy from Central California

[davidfkim]

Wow, lol dont be so hard on the guy! Welcome buddy, I'm new too. Been reading here for a while but just decided to join today! From LA, CA

[jflorey2]

And maybe one ought to come somewhat before the other ? A short story: I got interested in solar thermal energy in the mid '70's and studied heat transfer and associated disciplines on my own. I thought I knew a lot - I already had an undergraduate degree in Physics, and maybe I did know a bit more compared to my perhaps less educated and less enthusiastic peers. I read everything I could get my hands on - all the popular stuff, subscribed to magazines, even joined the International Solar Energy Society.

Then, I got my head handed to me in spades by a mechanical engineer who probably forgot more about heat transfer, fluid mechanics, Thermodynamics, and most everything else than I'll ever know. I soon realized my hubristically assumed vast knowledge amounted to precisely --- wait for it---... ****. Long story, but I returned to school, got another degree and changed careers. Point is, I wasted a lot of time and effort by putting the cart before the horse and trying to end run the knowledge quest.

I went through a very similar process. But what I noticed is that when I did go and get my degrees, there were some subjects (labs and the more practical courses) that came fairly easy to me. And that was due in large part to reading, experimenting, having lots of (often wrong) opinions on things, trying to build things and failing . . . . knowing what you DON'T know is often a very important lesson to learn, and it's a lesson a great many people never learn.

I definitely think you need both, but there's not too much harm in getting one before the other (IMO.) And in some cases there are benefits, like learning how to fail gracefully.

[J.P.M.]

I went through a very similar process. But what I noticed is that when I did go and get my degrees, there were some subjects (labs and the more practical courses) that came fairly easy to me. And that was due in large part to reading, experimenting, having lots of (often wrong) opinions on things, trying to build things and failing . . . . knowing what you DON'T know is often a very important lesson to learn, and it's a lesson a great many people never learn.

I definitely think you need both, but there's not too much harm in getting one before the other (IMO.) And in some cases there are benefits, like learning how to fail gracefully.

One of my many mentors and later a good friend, now deceased, considered formal engineering education in a university setting as a fist step, and little else, in a lifelong process of learning how to think like an engineer thinks - the engineering concepts are little more than tools and teaching aids to show examples of how the engineering thought process works, not unlike a machinist who needs to learn the tools of the trade to better understand the profession. A poor machinist blames his tools. a good machinist needs few tools to do good work, but the more he has, the more magic he can do. My mentor's philosophy: Get the critical thinking skills and see the world with an engineer's eyes, attitude and outlook. Learn the concepts (the tools), stay curious, focused and disciplined, and always remember that what you do can kill people. Do that and know that's about as good as you'll be able to pull out of a tuition receipt (an engineering degree) as a start to a lifelong adventure.

As for my mistakes, ****head opinions and things gone wrong, one of many examples: The first air cooled flat plate solar collector I built caught fire. Proof of concept gone bad. Fortunately no damage/injury, and a real wake up call that eventually ended in the story about getting my head handed to me and the return to school. Now, I'm still learning how much I don't know with the result that I find out I'm increasingly dumber than I thought I was, and therefore getting dumber by the minute. I plan on dying a blithering idiot.

FWIW, the solar generating station I engineered and designed that now sits on my roof and in my garage bears the aforementioned and now deceased mentor's name.

As usual, take what you want of the above. Scrap the rest.