The problem with having alphabet soup after your name (college abbreviations) only means that you were able to sit through boring lectures and pass standardized test.
That does not make you Smarter or more creative.
Years ago in the 1900 1930 era people went to colleges and universities to broaden their knowledge of all subjects, literature, art, some science and some math, it was the standard route to then go forth and try to make something of yourself.
A short true story,On the first day of school this young man returned from school with a note to his mother written, I suppose, in cursive, and the note said “ There is nothing that we can do to educate your boy, he is incapable of learning, so please find somewhere else to place him.”
Or words to that effect.
The young man asked “What did the note say mommy.” She said you are too brilliant to be in a school with such run of the mill students. that continuing to be in their presence might slow your meteoric rise to greatness.”
This young mane went on with his mother teaching him at her knee, and when it was time to find work he did.
After his mother passed he found the note that the head mistress had written to his mother and was shocked.
It said as I have stated above.
That young man without a college degree, without a high school degree was Thomas Edison.
Microsoft was started by 3 college drop outs, and Face book was founded by another college drop out from the same place HARVARD.
There are many bright individuals that come up with Earth Shattering ideas everyday and have no higher education.
College gives a mechanical engineer theory, but in the real world things are different, when a new engineer would be hired, by a defense contractor I once worked for, it was understood that their first 3 years would be a relearning curve.
So most were placed in charge of a LAB, a room with about 12 professional Senior Mechanical Draftsman, Design Draftsman, Detailers, Electronic Technicians and a possible Gopher who would run around the plant getting things to accomplish what the engineer had asked for.
The engineer would go to a meeting with the Senior members of his staff and he was told what the task was for his lab. So if he was an EE he would rough out a schematic, and give it to the Lead bench tech to build. This person might have 15 years working on the bench, so he would make a few changes to the schematic and build what he thought might get the job done.
He would hand off the marked up drawing to a detailer who would formalize it and draw it up nice and pretty and write up a parts list.
The bench lead would have this unit bread boarded to see if it accomplished what was needed of the task at hand.
If it did not then he would go back to the Engineer and ask for a little advice, since things were always changing, maybe the engineer had some ideas.
Some were mad that their original had been tweaked, but after speaking with the Bench Tech he saw that this part of the circuit would interfere with a different part of his design.
3 years to get the change from theory to actually what worked in the real world.
I was brainstorming with an EE and he was trying to make every electronic component on a circuit board (The VT-100) it was used in 99.9% of computers sold by Digital equipment corporation.
He kept making the parts bigger and bigger which meant design changes each time a part got bigger. I went through about 11 designs before we were almost finally through.
He complained to me that he wished that the 16 jumper wires at the top of the board were machine insertable. They were measured by women on the assembly line bent to the proper distance and then cut and inserted into the locations where they were to be used. Then the women would turn the circuit board over and bend the wires onto the circuitry and add solder and start the process all over again.
There were 16 jumpers on this board, and he said I made all of the other parts bigger and bigger because the bigger parts were less expensive to manufacture and since I am going to require 15,000 of these each month, or more, those jumper wires are going to be the most expensive part of building this circuit board.
I started spitballing ideas with him :No that would not work.” No that would not work either.” After about 5 NOs I got his interest and said is what you just proposed possible. I said let me pick up the phone and call the sales rep that left me his card after I visited the display trailer that his company sent around to many companies as a way of advertising and showing how their products were made.
I called the rep at Ohmite (a resistor maker) and asked him if he could skip step # 1 and go to # 2 and go 3?
The steps were # 1 Cut the wire to the correct amount to achieve the resistance that you wanted.
# 2 coat the wire with a ceramic mixture.
# 3 paint the resistance value on that unit.
He said “That would be possible, but a special run would require a run of 5,000 pieces, and what color would we paint this item?” “Black!” I said.
Let me get my engineer on the phone and he will give you a Purchase order.
The purchase order was for 2 months supply of 240,000.
And that is how the ZERO Ohn resistor was born now called a Non Resistive Element.
You do not need a degree to be inventive, curiosity and observation are 2 main keys to creating new things.
Apple computer was founded also by college drop outs, they drew their ideas on napkins in a restaurant.
No comments yet, come on and post~