From: bill.sloman@ieee.org   
      
   On 3/12/2025 12:18 pm, Joerg wrote:   
   > On 12/1/25 8:04 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:   
   >> On 2/12/2025 5:00 am, Joerg wrote:   
   >>> On 11/29/25 9:30 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:   
   >>>> On 30/11/2025 8:13 am, Joerg wrote:   
   >>>>> On 11/26/25 7:01 PM, Edward Rawde wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>> [...]   
   >>   
   >>>>> Exactly. Either that or have an electronics hobby. In my case that   
   >>>>> was ham radio but I also repaired lots of radios and TVs. The point   
   >>>>> is, if someone isn't doing any of this and thus hasn't acquired   
   >>>>> basic skills such as soldering or trying to figure out how a   
   >>>>> circuit is supposed to work but doesn't, maybe he or she should not   
   >>>>> head into an engineering career.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Graduate students learn this kind of practical stuff later than   
   >>>> hobbyists, but there's no reason why they wouldn't learn it just as   
   >>>> well. ...   
   >>>   
   >>>   
   >>> The point is that there is a "too late". Once they have their degree   
   >>> and apply for jobs it is too late.   
   >>   
   >> There shouldn't be any too late point. Most of the integrated circuits   
   >> I designed into products hadn't been invented when I was getting my   
   >> education, and every time I ran into a familiar problem somebody had   
   >> invented a new part that let me solve the problem in a different way.   
   >>   
   >   
   > This is about the basic skills. Soldering, diagnosing, using   
   > oscilloscopes, doing the occasional McGyver thing. If you don't know   
   > that by the time you send out the first resumes your career will most   
   > likely be much less lucrative and less interesting than for the guy who   
   > knows. Unless you go into sales :-)   
      
   Programing wasn't a basic skill when I was getting educated. I learned   
   it as a graduate student because it was useful. Once you get into the   
   habit of learning new stuff when it becomes useful, you do become more   
   employable.   
      
   >> The thermostat circuit that's described in my 1970 Ph.D. thesis is   
   >> wildly different from the one I published in Measurement Science and   
   >> Technology in 1996.   
   >>   
   >> Don't get me started on surface mount components.   
   >   
   > My first employer was an early adopter and so was I. 1986, almost all   
   > SMT except for what wasn't yet available in SMT. Never looked back.   
      
   Like and said - and you snipped - my first SMT part got soldered down in   
   1979. It was the T-packaged BFT95 broad-band (5GHz) PNP transistor. SMC   
   got into electronics from high frequency circuits - where low inductance   
   connections offered dramatic advantages - and the advantage of a   
   dramatically smaller footprints rapidly pushed it into the mainstream.   
      
   --   
   Bill Sloman, Sydney   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)