Comment by 0xbadc0de5
20 days ago
I still recall (as a student) challenging the colleges' decision to drop calc 2 and 3 from my EE program almost 20 years ago because the new students couldn't pass them. I had already taken them and couldn't imagine how students would be able to fully grasp EE fundamentals without them. But the college wasn't hearing it. They were replaced with non-core electives.
Who needs electromagnetism in an EE course anyways?
Where I live you need to take an exam to become a Professional Engineer (legal title) and you would be cooked — for good reason — if you could not do calculus.
Excuse me! No calculus in an EE course?
Calculus 1 remained, but that's hardly enough to develop an intuitive understanding of why things behave as they do or how to begin analyzing them.
But this isn't an isolated case - this has been widespread ever since the education system adopted the "no child left behind" policies. They now teach to the lowest common denominator instead of valuing competence, not to mention excellence.
How did you deal with anything apart from idealised DC circuits?
Like I said in my post - this affected subsequent cohorts. My cohort did the full curriculum of calc 1, 2 and 3 (differential & multivariate calc). I was trying to preserve that for those who came after us.