Period open university degrees?

[Me!]

Colin Chapman, ... had no qualifications in their final discipline

I understand, and totally agree with your point, however Colin Chapman did have a degree in Structural (Civil?) Engineering as far as I'm aware, which seems like a very good start for designing strong, stiff, lightweight structures such as sports and racing cars.
Even if his degree may not have been the traditional one people may expect for cars, it was probably very relevant to the actual work.

 

[Flyfisher]

Interesting point. I've often thought that crossing disciplinary boundaries opens up problems to new thinking and leads to innovation instead of just a blinkered and unquestioning approach to things.

Given my background, I'd cite things like genetic algorithms and neural networks (amongst others) but I'm sure there must be loads of other examples.

 

[philpjuk100]

Colin left UCL without a degree,resitting a year later, but spent time with british aluminium and the RAF which probably helped,( "if it weighs anything it weighs too much,if it costs anything it costs too much") I have run lotus cars and now know that Lotus stands for- Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious !

 

[Flyfisher]

When first married, my parents lived close to the original Lotus workshop in Hornsey, north London, and told me that they would often hear Chapman's racing cars roaring around the streets. A couple of decades later, the now Mrs FF was racing powerboats at Oulton Broad along with Chapman's son, Clive.

There can't be a more tenuous claim to fame than that! :lol:

 

[plasticpigeon]

I just wonder why you want to work in engineering?? I work in engineering and sometimes wonder if it's something I want to do till I retire, it can be quite dry. Leading on from Colin Chapman talk, I was a development engineer at Cosworth engines a while back. In the 60s it was Cosworth engines that powered those Lotus F1 cars to so many victories, but I worked there long after that and I never worked on racing engines, I was in the road car section. I don't know much about the open university, but I'm convinced that many established universities are not teaching in a rigorous way, now that market forces drive the further education sector.

Having said that I think a degree is a must for a job in engineering that requires the knowledge one should gain at university, which in mechanical engineering for example should mean fundamentals such as maths, mechanics and thermodynamics, and the ability to think critically. So I think a job in research, innovation or the more technical side of design and development should require someone with a degree. I believe someone with a curious mind and enthusiasm can still be a good designer without a degree, or work in development, but it might be difficult to get past the application form stage without those letters. Unfortunately I come across degree educated engineers whom I believe seem not to understand the simplest principles, and worse still, consider themselves knowledgeable and excellent engineers and like to tell everyone they know just that! Don't listen too much to me though, as I'm sure many of the bullshitters get paid far more than me.

My boss was recently recruiting and he was put off from interviewing an otherwise capable looking candidate as none of his hobbies were engineering related. There is an assumption that if someone wants to make a career in a certain discipline, then they should be interested enough in it to pursue some sort of related interest in their spare time so there's one thing I can say for sure!

 

[philpjuk100]

Quite right about qualified engineers p-p,some are great some are full of B-S, a colleague who is unqualified and dyslectic is one of the best trouble shooters I know,when there is a problem instead of reaching for the keyboard to see how others dealt with a similar fault he will dismantle the item and get a pencil and paper out and usually come up with a radical solution,his main problem is being outspoken,I remember the tech diretor telling him "we`ve always done it this way" and him replying "well you`ve always done it wrong" and he was correct! (we do it his way now saving time,money and getting better reliability!) But no degree means less pay!

 

[Flyfisher]

Quite right about qualified engineers*** p-p,some are great some are full of B-S,

*** replace with any profession you can think of . . .

 

[philpjuk100]

Probably correct F-F but I can only spot a B-S ing engineer,all the other professions get away with it! have you been in hospital recently?