WTF Purdue

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Vonz90
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WTF Purdue

Post by Vonz90 »

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/45 ... er-article

Well Purdue wants to destroy whatever reputation they have I guess. I don't think too much of them anyway.

As an Engineer who does NPD and manages an NPD team (spread across 4 countries) I have recruited at Purdue. To be honest, I was not all that impressed with their folks of any color compared several other schools in the Midwest from which we recruit. I have only ever fired* one Engineer for incompetence, and he was a white male Purdue grad (who I had not hired).

I have never had an Engineer I hired not work out. But I am also an a**hole who asks them to solve equations and problems and such in the interview. Freaking amazing how many of them can't do it.

In any case, relative to the diversity aspect. There are some very competent minority and female Engineers. I have hired a few both in this role and past roles. The problem is always (if you set getting them as a goal in itself) that there are so many companies after the good ones that you have to be prepared to spend a premium for them unless you are offering something other than money (job in their hometown or such) or they are otherwise undesirable. A couple jobs ago I hired a black female Engineer who was obviously pregnant, and I am guessing could not get a job for that as she was very qualified. Lost her for awhile for maternity leave, but she was a great engineer on my team and very loyal because we helped her out when she needed it (and I gave my team a lot of flexibility which probably helped). Hard to find cases like that though.

* I have had a couple take the hint and find new employment where they could not do as much damage, but they were not people that I had hired.
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Frankingun
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Re: WTF Purdue

Post by Frankingun »

I'm a Purdue grad, with a computer major. I wept when I heard the news. Can't speak for the quality of the engineers.
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Steamforger
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Re: WTF Purdue

Post by Steamforger »

I'm a Michigan State grad and glad beyond belief to hear a bit of sanity coming from us.
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Weetabix
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Re: WTF Purdue

Post by Weetabix »

I looked her up on the Indiana Board of Engineers. Not licensed there.
She came from Smith College in MA... not licensed there.
BS in ChemE from Princeton... hmph. Not licensed in NJ, either.
Currently interim head of the Engineering Education department at Virginia Tech. The only licensed Donna Riley in VA is a cosmetologist.

So, I'm guessing she's never practiced. That's the right type of person to be interjecting Social Justice! into engineering. :roll:
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Vonz90
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Re: WTF Purdue

Post by Vonz90 »

Weetabix wrote:I looked her up on the Indiana Board of Engineers. Not licensed there.
She came from Smith College in MA... not licensed there.
BS in ChemE from Princeton... hmph. Not licensed in NJ, either.
Currently interim head of the Engineering Education department at Virginia Tech. The only licensed Donna Riley in VA is a cosmetologist.

So, I'm guessing she's never practiced. That's the right type of person to be interjecting Social Justice! into engineering. :roll:
Depends on the field. If you work consulting or construction or civil then a license is important. If you work NPD or production it is a waste of time at best.
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Weetabix
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Re: WTF Purdue

Post by Weetabix »

True. I tend to forget about that. My life has been civil consulting design.

I guess the point I was trying to make is that if you're the head of a department, I'd think it would be important to have some practice somewhere to temper outlook from being purely academic or theoretical. Presumably many of her students will practice engineering at some point whether a license is required or not.

Most of my professors had practice experience. The guy who taught high rise building design gave us projects that his firm had done and that we could drive by and see. Somehow, that made it feel more real and less theoretical.
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Vonz90
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Re: WTF Purdue

Post by Vonz90 »

Weetabix wrote:True. I tend to forget about that. My life has been civil consulting design.

I guess the point I was trying to make is that if you're the head of a department, I'd think it would be important to have some practice somewhere to temper outlook from being purely academic or theoretical. Presumably many of her students will practice engineering at some point whether a license is required or not.

Most of my professors had practice experience. The guy who taught high rise building design gave us projects that his firm had done and that we could drive by and see. Somehow, that made it feel more real and less theoretical.
Oh, I agree with your larger point. It is just that the absence of a license does not prove the point.

It is likely as you suspect, but on the other hand it could be she spent some time filling spots as a diversity hire and thinks she is an expert. Or for that matter that she resented being expect to perform the same as everyone else.

There are a lot of diversity pathologies - sometimes hard to guess which one applies. (This goes for the rare idiots who don't want any women / minorities because reasons.)
Last edited by Vonz90 on Thu Aug 03, 2017 1:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Weetabix
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Re: WTF Purdue

Post by Weetabix »

Vonz90 wrote:It is just that the absence of a license does not prove the point.

It is likely as you suspect, but on the other hand it could be she spent some time filling spots as a diversity hire and thinks she is an expert. Or for that matter that she resented being expect to perform the same as everyone else.
Her BS is Chem E. I imagine there are lots of applications there that don't need a license.
This goes for the rare idiots who don't want any women / minorities because reasons.
I tend to take tangents on stuff like this - I don't tend to notice women/minorities in engineering as women/minorities but as engineers.

Thinking back, all the women/minority engineers I've worked with have been decent, competent people except for one guy who owned an MBE firm that we had to hire as part of a DOT&PF project. That must have been 27 or 28 years ago. I never met him, and I couldn't tell where he was from by his name, but I had to redo all of his layout work, because none of it was right. I always guessed he got the MBE status so he could cash in on the public contract requirements.

The women have pretty much all been fine. There was one minority woman from Seattle that I absolutely hated until I figured out how she worked. Then we were fine. I'm guessing that issue was more of a difference between west coast and flyover country ways of dealing with things than a woman or minority thing. OTOH, maybe she just figure me out. Not sure. ;)

Another woman, I tried to hire when I started my company. She was one of the best project managers I knew, and one of the best contract negotiators. She'd go talk to a client, and they'd walk away happy that they'd given her more money.

You've got me rambling and reminiscing. I'll stop now. :)
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Old Grafton
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Re: WTF Purdue

Post by Old Grafton »

To me it all boils down to the money quote:

"As you approach a bridge, do you stop and think, “Gee, I hope that bridge was designed by a diverse team of engineers who weren’t overly influenced by Western civilization”? I doubt that anyone — even Dean Riley — does. You just want it to hold up."

My same thinking for law enforcement, the medical professions, the highway departments, water, power, etc. In many ways parts of our western civilization, norms are starting to fall off the rails due to all the "social engineering" BS. Most of the NON-"western civilization" areas of the world never even got to the "Level-Out-The-Dirt-In-Front-Of-The-Track-Gang" rail-BUILDING stage.
I'm not old--It's too early to be this late.
Greg
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Re: WTF Purdue

Post by Greg »

Old Grafton wrote:To me it all boils down to the money quote:

"As you approach a bridge, do you stop and think, “Gee, I hope that bridge was designed by a diverse team of engineers who weren’t overly influenced by Western civilization”? I doubt that anyone — even Dean Riley — does. You just want it to hold up."

My same thinking for law enforcement, the medical professions, the highway departments, water, power, etc. In many ways parts of our western civilization, norms are starting to fall off the rails due to all the "social engineering" BS. Most of the NON-"western civilization" areas of the world never even got to the "Level-Out-The-Dirt-In-Front-Of-The-Track-Gang" rail-BUILDING stage.
No.

They don't care. For them everything is subservient to politics. E V E R Y T H I N G.

Which is why they are such deadly poison, to everything they are allowed to control in any way.
Maybe we're just jaded, but your villainy is not particularly impressive. -Ennesby

If you know what you're doing, you're not learning anything. -Unknown
Sanity is the process by which you continually adjust your beliefs so they are predictively sound. -esr
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