On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 00:54:31 -0600, Jim Carriere
wrote:

While we're ranting, I went to school for mechanical engineering. A
lot of the people seemed to be in it because their high school
guidance counselors told them they were good at math and science.
Smart people, just a different kind of smart. I got into it because
I thought it was neat the way stuff worked, but I had that in common
with less than half of the guys. I don't work in that field now
though, so it's just a pet theory of mine. Maybe Ron W. could weigh
in on this one?

I got into engineering because I wanted to design stuff that would actually *do*
things. Flash lights, make weird sounds, etc. I used to disassemble transistor
radios and make strange little oscillators from the parts...one transistor, the
output transformer, one resistor (preferably variable), and the speaker. Used
to experiment for hours, finding out what a capacitor would do here, rigging up
a light-dependent resistor for the pitch control, etc. Knew a guy in school who
absolutely hated high-pitched sounds, so a built a fixed-frequency oscillator
into a small candy box and arranged to hang around him for a while.

Funny, how things turn out. I got my EE degree specializing in high-tension
power lines, but was an ROTC type and went into the Air Force. Which completely
ignored my educational background and assigned me as a sensor specialist for an
early warning satellite. Post-Air Force, I worked as a test engineer for a bit
then ended up as a Systems Engineer. Other than a two-year stint managing a set
of RF design engineers at a dot-com, I've never even come close to using my
degree....

Ron Wanttaja