I had the pleasure to spend yesterday lunchtime at the University of Plymouth graduation ceremony where I was presenting an IET prize for best overall student in the electronics streams. Whilst chatting to the winner he mentioned he already had a job, so I asked how hard he'd found it to find one. From memory the answer was: applied for four jobs, had four interviews, was turned down for one (which was the one he'd decided he didn't want) and was offered a position at the other three.


That was very cheering! It would be interesting to know how general this is.


We also had an interesting discussion with the new head of school for electronics, Toby Whitley, on the importance of failure. Toby is passionate about students learning from things going wrong in practical sessions, an attitude I heartily endorse. Undergraduates always seem to have this idea that everything they do ought to work, and that if it doesn't they've failed. Whereas we know in the real world that engineering fails all the time, the important thing is to understand those failures and learn from them - and to try to make sure as far as possible they happen in the lab, not in the field! But even then, with the huge possibilities of condition monitoring (or "Internet of Things" *) actually accepting that systems will fail in the field, but by gathering data they can be continuously improved is a Good Thing. It's a very serious point in safety critical systems - I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time explaining to very capable engineers that their designs have a probability of failure, and that this needs to be accepted and controlled, and further that the worst thing they can do is stick to the mantra "if you are a good engineer then your designs won't fail". (I have no problem with the mantra that "if you have a good engineering team then the probability of your design failing can be reduced to an acceptable level", but that doesn't have the same snappy ring to it!) But also there's the general point across all engineering to encourage undergraduates to be bold and enquiring, to think "oh, my project's just blown up in a cloud of smoke, that's really interesting, I'm going to find out why."


Cheers,


Andy


* I loath the phrase "Internet of Things". Almost as much as I loath the phrase "Industry 4.0". Once again it feels to me like management and marketing consultants trying to create a new bandwagon for something we've all been working towards for many years. I suppose I don't like them because it feels like people are trying to pretend (for marketing reasons) that evolution is revolution. Maybe I'm getting old...

I had the pleasure to spend yesterday lunchtime at the University of Plymouth graduation ceremony where I was presenting an IET prize for best overall student in the electronics streams. Whilst chatting to the winner he mentioned he already had a job, so I asked how hard he'd found it to find one. From memory the answer was: applied for four jobs, had four interviews, was turned down for one (which was the one he'd decided he didn't want) and was offered a position at the other three.


That was very cheering! It would be interesting to know how general this is.


We also had an interesting discussion with the new head of school for electronics, Toby Whitley, on the importance of failure. Toby is passionate about students learning from things going wrong in practical sessions, an attitude I heartily endorse. Undergraduates always seem to have this idea that everything they do ought to work, and that if it doesn't they've failed. Whereas we know in the real world that engineering fails all the time, the important thing is to understand those failures and learn from them - and to try to make sure as far as possible they happen in the lab, not in the field! But even then, with the huge possibilities of condition monitoring (or "Internet of Things" *) actually accepting that systems will fail in the field, but by gathering data they can be continuously improved is a Good Thing. It's a very serious point in safety critical systems - I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time explaining to very capable engineers that their designs have a probability of failure, and that this needs to be accepted and controlled, and further that the worst thing they can do is stick to the mantra "if you are a good engineer then your designs won't fail". (I have no problem with the mantra that "if you have a good engineering team then the probability of your design failing can be reduced to an acceptable level", but that doesn't have the same snappy ring to it!) But also there's the general point across all engineering to encourage undergraduates to be bold and enquiring, to think "oh, my project's just blown up in a cloud of smoke, that's really interesting, I'm going to find out why."


Cheers,


Andy


* I loath the phrase "Internet of Things". Almost as much as I loath the phrase "Industry 4.0". Once again it feels to me like management and marketing consultants trying to create a new bandwagon for something we've all been working towards for many years. I suppose I don't like them because it feels like people are trying to pretend (for marketing reasons) that evolution is revolution. Maybe I'm getting old...