4 ms·
One thing I don't get about online schools and courses is their lack of laboratory facilities. How is a student supposed to do engineering or natural sciences w
by monster_group 8y ago
One thing I don't get about online schools and courses is their lack of laboratory facilities. How is a student supposed to do engineering or natural sciences without labs? When I was doing engineering we used to spend so much time in labs doing experiments on expensive machines (electron microscope, X-ray diffractor etc.) that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. For me the real learning happened in the lab. How do MOOC and online courses plan to fill this gap?
- dantheman 8y ago99% of course work students do doesn't actually involve labs. I could see dedicated lab facilities being provided to students taking a MOOC or some other class.
- monster_group 8y agoApparently even good universities like UT Austin don't care about labs anymore. They offer an online grad degree in Mechanical Engineering with no lab work! Imagine calling yourself a mechanical engineer without having set a foot in the lab. https://executive.engr.utexas.edu/pme/msme.php https://executive.engr.utexas.edu/pme/msme.php
- btrettel 8y agoI am a PhD student at UT Austin in mechanical engineering right now. The MS does not require a lab class in either case. In my division, thermal/fluid systems, you can take either a class on experimental methods or a class on numerical methods (or both if you want) for a MS. Both are required for a PhD. http://www.me.utexas.edu/graduate/areas/tfs/courses http://www.me.utexas.edu/graduate/areas/tfs/courses Multiple lab courses are required for a BS in mechanical engineering at UT.
- hinkley 8y agoA primary draw of the engineering school at my university was an overabundance of hardware, especially in the CS program. I only had one class where there was a waiting list for hardware and that class was almost entirely grad students.