In other engineering fields this distinction is (more or less) captured in the difference between an “engineer” and a “technician”. An engineer may need to go d

In other engineering fields this distinction is (more or less) captured in the difference between an “engineer” and a “technician”. An engineer may need to go down to basic physical principles to come up with a good solution, so they need a science background. A technician is skilled with tools and materials and finds practical ways to build the solution. Edit: It’s also captured in something the professor said in the MIT intro to electronics course video, while working an example of how a digital logic gate works. Paraphrased: You may be thinking, why do I need to know this? Don’t I just buy these as chips and wire them together? Well, you’re at MIT because you want to be the one designing the chips.