This might come across as a very strange question but is it uncommon to find engineers who did not enjoy school or think highly of the schools that they attended? I have encountered numerous computing and IT types over the years who did not enjoy school or had bad experiences at school but very few electrical or mechanical engineers.
I think it's always very hard to generalise about "engineers" - we are a very, very diverse bunch.
But that said, there may be a positive three-way correlation between those who lack social skills and who a) don't enjoy school because of it and b) retreat into a non-social activity such as engineering. Which is unfortunate as engineering benefits hugely from engineers with good social skills!
Personally I thoroughly enjoyed school up to the age of 11, which actually in hindsight was when I developed my underlying engineering attitudes of enquiry and experimentation. I did not enjoy it after that having been wrongly streamed - I really enjoyed academic work but was put in the totally anti-academic group*. (Off topic, this is why I am determinedly against grammar schools, it was bad enough for me being wrongly labelled in a comprehensive at that age, at least I was able to move a bit.) Now, it is very possible that if I had been in a more academic peer group that I would have gone in a different direction, law perhaps, or psychology. We'll never know!
One of the best pairing of two engineers I ever had the privilege to manage was an engineer who had left school straight after GCSEs because he hated it (that said, we later sponsored him through uni where he strolled out with a first) and a very dedicated Chinese academic who absolutely loved studying. So I wouldn't like to generalise at all. But it's still an interesting and, I think, important subject - thanks Arran for raising this.
Cheers,
Andy
* Anyone who went to a rough North London school in the 1970s will know exactly what I mean by "anti-academic"...
I think it's always very hard to generalise about "engineers" - we are a very, very diverse bunch.
But that said, there may be a positive three-way correlation between those who lack social skills and who a) don't enjoy school because of it and b) retreat into a non-social activity such as engineering. Which is unfortunate as engineering benefits hugely from engineers with good social skills!
Personally I thoroughly enjoyed school up to the age of 11, which actually in hindsight was when I developed my underlying engineering attitudes of enquiry and experimentation. I did not enjoy it after that having been wrongly streamed - I really enjoyed academic work but was put in the totally anti-academic group*. (Off topic, this is why I am determinedly against grammar schools, it was bad enough for me being wrongly labelled in a comprehensive at that age, at least I was able to move a bit.) Now, it is very possible that if I had been in a more academic peer group that I would have gone in a different direction, law perhaps, or psychology. We'll never know!
One of the best pairing of two engineers I ever had the privilege to manage was an engineer who had left school straight after GCSEs because he hated it (that said, we later sponsored him through uni where he strolled out with a first) and a very dedicated Chinese academic who absolutely loved studying. So I wouldn't like to generalise at all. But it's still an interesting and, I think, important subject - thanks Arran for raising this.
Cheers,
Andy
* Anyone who went to a rough North London school in the 1970s will know exactly what I mean by "anti-academic"...
