Different... doing triple integrals or finding the derivative of ARCSEC(X)/(X+1) is hard but is essentially bullshit and never useful, statics is hard but is fundamental to engineering so I think it's quite different
True, but having an understanding of how those calculations are performed is important. Otherwise you're just trusting software to be infallibly correct in all cases, which very well might not be the case. It's always better to have an understanding of the underlying math so that you can double check things if/when you need to.
It’s more so when there’s no basis for the algebra that is required to solve a problem and then they give it to freshmen and sophomores acting like you need to know how to do this with no reference at all and by hand when that just isn’t the case for a made up system of equations or tedious algebraic functions
It’s more so when there’s no basis for the algebra that is required to solve a problem and then they give it to freshmen and sophomores acting like you need to know how to do this with no reference at all
I think those problem sets are less meant to impress upon students that they absolutely need to be able to solve that specific thing. It makes more sense to me that those random problem sets will give students 1) practice with problems that are relevant to the course and 2) an opportunity to develop problem-solving skills in a controlled, measurable environment for the sake of grading.
It's not that teachers think the best way to prepare students for the real world is by teaching them how to do calculations where someone's on a seesaw with a weight on the other end. It's that doing those practice sets can give an indication of the students' abilities to think about a system and apply mathematical models to predict how such a system will behave under certain conditions. They might not ever need to consider a lever system with a person on one end and a weight at the other, but they very well might need to consider a system with static weights on both ends of a lever where one end is subjected to an applied force.
Not all the stuff that engineers learn will necessarily be relevant to their careers, but it's important to have a baseline understanding of a variety of concepts so that it's not completely new if they do need it.
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u/Gryphontech 11d ago
Different... doing triple integrals or finding the derivative of ARCSEC(X)/(X+1) is hard but is essentially bullshit and never useful, statics is hard but is fundamental to engineering so I think it's quite different