"What courses were most and least useful to you in your engineering career?"

Stay strong. The world needs more like you. Have you read Don Quixote?

side note: my specialization was Measurement and Regulation (control?) techniques (Meet- en Regeltechnieken).

In essence, this meant learning presicion,  the uncertainties and tolerances when measuring, feedback and control theory, closed loops and automation (with valves and PLCs).

For electronics, pneumatic and hydraulics.

I can't even start to say what I've forgotten since 1986. Digital I may know better than in the 80's. But PID theory, analog control, feedback and control loops are very hard now for me. Same for maths - that's a disaster these days. I can't cope with calculus 1 anymore. Used to be fluent with looking op logarithms in a book ...

On the other hand, I gained other capabilities like managing big teams in harsh circumstances, managing budgets that scare me every day,  delive projects, stay when things get rough and others leave,  stand tall and own up when failing, grow, maintain a professional network, stay sane in corporate life  ...

I studied electronics engineering in my undergraduate program. Getting in at a young age at 17 in engineering; I had no much clue about it in the beginning. My focus was more on enjoying the college life and having fun

The courses I found most helpful to start my career later were

• Some software programming languages Matlab; C programming
• Analog circuit basics and labs. Having good labs and doing projects really made a big difference in my learning.
• Hardware programming: FPGA; and microcontroller programming PIC, 89C51. Helps in creating something of your own.

What I missed and did not learn in university was some mechanical design courses. I would have liked to learn some basics of CAD to start with.

I'm probably alone in saying this as well, but I'd probably say the most useful course was one of the first courses I took - ENGG1000 Introduction to Engineering Design and Innovation.

Straight into university, fresh out of high school with literally no expertise whatsoever, mixed with people you've never met before, but united by a common problem defined by the course convenor, a set of constraints, defined teams and some limited mentorship. The course was the steepest of learning curves, but was also one of the most rewarding as a result. From feeling like we knew nothing and were completely powerless, we were able to branch-out and try things hands on, narrowing down a path toward a solution as if our lives counted on it. The mentors would answer some questions but ultimately didn't do much to "steer the boat". Team interactions and dynamics were defined ad-hoc and a feeling of camaraderie developed as we all learned to speak the same (technical) language, understanding we were all just as clueless in the beginning. I think this course did the most to reinforce to its students that there are many solutions to a problem, that we don't know what the solution might be at the beginning (but we can still get there), that research is necessary and a methodical iterative approach can provide solutions, that we learn along the way, that teamwork is important and that we should consider our decisions carefully because they matter.

I'd probably say the second-most useful would be the ELEC4122 Strategic Leadership and Ethics course that came at the end of the undergraduate degree - it really made us all aware about the power that technology wields and the responsibility we must take to use it appropriately. A good reminder, especially in the present time when companies are undergoing an "at all costs" drive to boost profits.

As for the least useful course - that's actually quite a tough one. I quite enjoyed all my university courses, although that doesn't mean that I did well on all of them ... I'd have to disagree with the sentiment that general education courses weren't useful - after all, I chose rather interesting ones from my perspective so I enjoyed them and learned something different from them. I'd have to say all courses are useful to some degree if you're interested, even if it's not entirely obvious initially. But some of the more foundational courses may teach you first principles that are rarely used outside of formal derivation ... so not useful but still good to know rather than taking it for granted.

- Gough

I could well be on my own with this one, but the most useful course to me has been an earthing systems course. Learning about transfer of earth fault potentials helps me stay alive in the high voltage field I work in.

A course on applied problem solving from my bachelors has been very useful over the years for justifying projects and analysing different solutions. For me I have often found it easier to teach myself technical aspects but have struggled more with the non-technical skills, so have looked forward to courses of that nature.

The least useful course was Prince2 practitioners course (project management), weeks learning specific lingo for Prince2 to pass the exam for a system that the company dropped the following year.

Kind regards

I was rather lucky in that I left school and got a job as an Electronics Technician with NZ Post Office. This is your typical mid 1970's government department where things are done in a proper manner with reliablity more important than the final cost.

They sent you on nine week block courses where we learnt electronics, and radio principles, through to digital electronics. (I had several goes as the tutor just could not get it across)

Most of the equipment was analogue, and covered a range from low frequency cable locators to microwave links carrying the tolls up and down the country.

Back then computers were making an entrance and I recall learning BASIC to be able to program this 'HP Instrument controller' for some automation.

As well as the electronics we also did a lot of mechanical fabrication, so welding and painting were skills learnt on the job.

When I look back, the courses that relate to the actual work you are doing were more rewarding and the lessons stuck better than some stuff that we never touched.

Most of the courses I've done lately are related to supporting the equipment we have, and I'm too old to start shifting sideways.

Mark

I find being able to type well and not do the two finger dance, has proven to be most valuable.

Strangely in High School I took typing for one year. Me and the other guy weren't really sure why, as the girls weren't that great or we weren't that interested.

Later when it came to computers, knowing my way around the keyboard was a great help.

I'm only a two or maybe three finger typist and that's fine with me.

I think nowdays with computers, tablets and texting, the keyboard skills are learnt from a very early age, so unless you actually want to be a typist, I guess those classes won't have 'strange people' attending.

Mark

For me the most useful courses were the introductory courses that all engineers had to take:  Statics (mechanical engineering), Introduction to Electrical Engineering, Chemistry, Introductory Physics, etc.  I found that some of the 3rd and 4th year courses were years behind industry in my area of specialty once I was out of school but the basics never change.  If I had to pick one that was best it would be Statics like Doug.  That was the course used to weed out first semester engineers where I went to school.  FORTRAN also turned out to be very useful in my first few years out of school (I never dropped a deck ;-).

By far the most important course I ever took was was called "Statics" (the analysis of static mechanics). This course taught us the fundamental engineering technique of how to solve any tough problem by breaking it down into manageable (solvable) smaller problems. The techniques were important and it has also been very useful to understand static mechanics, but coming away with an attitude and the confidence to believe we can solve any arbitrary problem with this fundamental approach was simply priceless.

As far as career related knowledge goes, I've learned far, far more on the job than in all my courses put together, but the underlying confidence to solve new problems has been a critical key to success.

The most useless course I ever took wasn't useless because of the material so much as the Prof who taught it. It was a math course. His English was so atrocious and he had such a heavy accent, it was impossible to understand a single sentence he uttered. Everyone in his courses had major problems figuring out what he was trying to teach.

shabaz  wrote:

 

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I still try to select courses and webinars these days too, typically just single-day courses.

I do the same. My favourite one is the Coursera Power Electronics series (University of Boulder, Colorado). Switch mode power circuits are excellent tools to (re-)learn a wide (and tough) range of analog electronics concepts.

I've also refreshed knowledge by completing the Coursera Linear Circuits training - Kirchhoff and Thevenin again, network resolving, impedance.

All things that I got rusty on. It's been 30 years ago that I learned those.