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So, I have never taken organic chemistry, but in my Electrical Engineering studies at Univ of Illinois (a top-5 in the nation program at that time), math course

So, I have never taken organic chemistry, but in my Electrical Engineering studies at Univ of Illinois (a top-5 in the nation program at that time), math courses were used for a similar filtering purpose. In particular, Calculus and Differential Equations. In every EE course afterwards, we would in the first week or two solve problems using calc/diffeq, then get told "of course that's not how we want to really do it, so here's how you do it using algebra and complex numbers". It was pretty clear that Differential Equations, maybe even parts of Calculus, were not necessary to learn the engineering, they were a way of having another department (Math) do the filtering. In ten years of work in the semiconductor industry, I never once needed to use calculus or differential equations. I think there are a lot of fields that have "weed-out" courses, and the author of this article is right to point out that the more fundamental issue is whether or not this is the right way to do the (probably necessary) filtering.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> It was pretty clear that Differential Equations, maybe even parts of Calculus, were not necessary to learn the engineering, they were a way of having another department (Math) do the filtering. In ten years of work in the semiconductor industry, I never once needed to use calculus or differential equations. I’m a trained EE. Calculus and even differential equations concepts were used all the time before I became a manager. It depends on the type of EE work you do, but I would strongly disagree with anyone who suggests these math topics aren’t relevant to EE work.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
  It doesn't even make sense, really. Calculus is the "algebra" of higher level math. That is to say, it forms the base. Diff Eq teaches you the ability to create classes of equations (meta-math, if you will). My degree wasn't in EE, but I can't imagine neither of those are useful for an Electrical Engineer.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    I can imagine diffeq not being useful for an electrical engineer merely because I wouldn't expect most diffeqs they encounter to be solvable analytically? And the entire point of most diffeq courses is to focus on the small subset of analytically tractable diffeqs.
  - PragmaticPulp 4y ago
    > My degree wasn't in EE, but I can't imagine neither of those are useful for an Electrical Engineer. My degree was EE, and I can say they're definitely useful for a lot of EE concepts. It's similar to computer science: It's possible to jump into the industry and write CRUD apps and connect APIs together without ever studying algorithms or how CPUs work. However, if you go deeper or have to do the more complex work, you really need to understand the underlying concepts.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

> It was pretty clear that Differential Equations, maybe even parts of Calculus, were not necessary to learn the engineering, they were a way of having another department (Math) do the filtering. In ten years of work in the semiconductor industry, I never once needed to use calculus or differential equations. I’m a trained EE. Calculus and even differential equations concepts were used all the time before I became a manager. It depends on the type of EE work you do, but I would strongly disagree with anyone who suggests these math topics aren’t relevant to EE work.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
It doesn't even make sense, really. Calculus is the "algebra" of higher level math. That is to say, it forms the base. Diff Eq teaches you the ability to create classes of equations (meta-math, if you will). My degree wasn't in EE, but I can't imagine neither of those are useful for an Electrical Engineer.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  I can imagine diffeq not being useful for an electrical engineer merely because I wouldn't expect most diffeqs they encounter to be solvable analytically? And the entire point of most diffeq courses is to focus on the small subset of analytically tractable diffeqs.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  > My degree wasn't in EE, but I can't imagine neither of those are useful for an Electrical Engineer. My degree was EE, and I can say they're definitely useful for a lot of EE concepts. It's similar to computer science: It's possible to jump into the industry and write CRUD apps and connect APIs together without ever studying algorithms or how CPUs work. However, if you go deeper or have to do the more complex work, you really need to understand the underlying concepts.