Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ucdavis!iris!kerchen
From: kerchen@iris.ucdavis.edu (Paul Kerchen)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: I should go back to school?
Keywords: UCD Engineers
Message-ID: <4285@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
Date: 11 May 89 21:23:55 GMT
References: <854@odyssey.ATT.COM> <1670001@hp-ptp.HP.COM> <8398@chinet.chi.il.us> <4236@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> <3315@ae.sei.cmu.edu> <4255@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> <721@ecrcvax.UUCP>
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Reply-To: kerchen@iris.ucdavis.edu (Paul Kerchen)
Organization: UCD Computer Security Lab
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In article <721@ecrcvax.UUCP> periklis@ecrcvax.UUCP (Periklis Tsahageas) writes:
>No one can be considered a qualified engineer without a firm understanding of
>the scientific foundations of their discipline.  If your university produces
>engineers like you've described them here, that is very unfortunate.

UCD does *not* produce engineers like those described by Jason Gabler any
more than any other university.  A university education is what one makes
of it and there will always be people at *any* university who have no
interest in anything but thier major.  The fact that Jason Gabler has met
some of these bad apples should not taint the reputation of this
University.  Just for the record, UCD's engineering department is a 
nationally recognized one which produces high caliber engineers.  The basic
physics which UCD engineers are required to take is taught by one of the 
best undergraduate physics departments in the nation.  The fact that 
Davis engineers only take one physics series does not indicate that that is
the only physics to which they are exposed.  There are numerous other 
required courses which are taught by the engineering department which could
just as easily be classified as physics courses--electrodynamics, device
physics, statics, dynamics--all of which are taught by the
engineering department.  As for other "pure science" courses, Davis
engineers are also required to take a battery of mathematics courses as
well as basic chemistry.  I find it unfortunate that the words of one
person (i.e. Jason Gabler) can be taken as the absolute truth in this
matter when Mr. Gabler isn't even familiar with the required course work of
a UCD engineer.




Paul Kerchen				| kerchen@iris.ucdavis.edu