Engineering degree are very heavy on theory and light on practice; my degree is chemical engineering, and while I had four years of concepts and equations stuffed in my head by the time I graduated, they hadn’t taught us which way round valves open and close. That does make new graduates look kind of bad on site! But the intention is that you’ll be designing or managing chemical plants, not operating them.
I can completely see that an electrical engineering course wouldn’t include how plugs are wired; that’s a job for an electrician.
But isn’t it a problem that people that don’t know how this stuff works design the places?
In basically every laboratory I’ve worked in there were insane design choices that no one that ever worked in a lab would have made.
Oh, absolutely. We were a bit obsessive about operability and maintainability - ensure that all valves can be operated without bending down, make sure that there’s space and lifting gear available wherever it’s needed for maintenance and removal. I could have told you the properties of ten different kinds of valves and when you’d use each one, I just couldn’t have recognised them on site.
One of the stumbling blocks we had is that the operators would look at our layout drawings, and be unable to visualise how that would look once we’d built it. We’d started to do 3D models; wander through the treatment plant like it was Quake. The helmets always made me want to vom. But that helped in sorting out additional issues while they were still “the stroke of a pen” to fix.
I suspect that the laboratory design issues are caused by the people spending the money either not appreciating that it’s even an issue, or not caring that they would cause issues. Bit like a kitchen, I’d guess - certain things want to be kept together because you move between them? But if the installation team can’t even take half an hour to check with you that [fancy gadget A] is suitable in the easiest spot to power and plumb it, then that’s a problem right there.
My EE course did include safety training as a prequisite to using advanced lab equipment. Some really did not pay attention. “What’s this [left] terminal in the [Euro Type F] socket?” − “Umm… phase?”
“And the other one?” − “The other phase?”
“And we have TN-C-S, which means the pin is neutral?” − “Yes”
“Go read it again” (He passed in the next round)
I have a friend who was a Lineman and works at a nuke plant now and was fired after 2 days as a residential sparkie. Just because you work in “electrics” doesn’t mean you u can do it all. The real problem is when you get your diploma and get high on your own farts and think you’re hot-shit-peanuts.
A bunch of my friends have electrical engineering diplomas, yet when I have electrical questions I have no one to ask.
The personal twist for me in this was that I my father was actually a professional electrician, hence knew far more about what he was doing when dealing with house wiring than me a recently graduated EE with a digital systems specialization.
(In compensation I knew far more about electronics and especially CPUs than he did).
I have an EE Master’s degree. Do I know how to do household wiring (safely)? absolutely. Do I know about what standards I need to respect? absolutely no idea
The cat in front was fixed, so the meme also could casually imply the kitten is the result of infidelity.
Or the cat for fixed after or whatever
