Today was my first day of classes. I had ENG (engineering) 198. It is an introduction into engineering class. The class's goal is to teach engineering students some skills that will be basic skills in their career, but are neglected as classroom topics. Professor Goldberg thought this was a problem, so he set out to fix it by making this class. The basic skills include: asking good questions, labeling concepts and objects, modeling things well, breaking a big problem into many smaller, easier to handle, problems, physically taking measurements, visualizing in the mind, and communication.
My reaction to these basics that are missing, also known as the missing basics, is it is a very good idea. Communication is a skill necessary skill for everyone, but especially engineers. Most people talk about objects around them, but engineers talk about things that aren't in existence yet. It only exist in their mind so they have to be able to effectively take the picture in their mind and put it into a form so other people can understand what they are envisioning, but if the engineer is not able to picture this new object or concept is their mind very well, then communicating that object or concept to someone else is going to very difficult or impossible. Going along this is being able to model things well. Drawing pictures or having 3-D models of what they are trying to tell someone is one of the best ways to communicate. They also need to be able to label all the parts and functions of their model so there is no confusion.
As another engineer listening to these ideas, they need to be able to ask good questions so they fully understand and completely picture what someone is trying to tell them. If they feel overwhelmed by this concept, they should be able to take one step at a time and make the problem easier to handle. Understanding one thing at a time is much easier than trying to learn 20 new concepts at once. When building this object, the engineer needs to know how big every part is and how much space their object will take up. If they build something that is 3 feet long, but the space is only 2 feet long, then they have a problem. If even one of these skills is missing, working can be very difficult; if all seven concepts are missing, it is almost impossible to do the job they have been hired to do.
I feel I need to work on my ability to ask good questions. To improve this skill, I plan to find a structure or object everyday and think of 3 questions about why it works. I also need to work on my ability to measure objects. To fix this, I will measure 2 objects a week and then look up how big they really are and see how accurate my measurement was. Whenever I have an idea for an invention that I might wish to build, I will start drawing them out so I can improve my modeling skills.
