Engineering culture we lost?

This post is probably correctly perceived as a cry from the heart, as an attempt to find support in the core community and finally not lose faith in the current level of higher engineering and technical education. The fact that now everything is extremely difficult in this area is not only lazy, but I want to try to give you some objective information, but conclusions ... I think everyone will do it themselves. Who cares, I ask under the cat.

Preamble

Place of action: Moscow, August of this year.
Task: to find a graduate of an engineering technical university with a specialty of electronics / radio electronics engineer for the position of a service engineer.
Type of equipment serviced: high-tech water purification systems (water production 18.2 MΩ), laboratory instruments and tools.
Minimum knowledge required: the ability to hold a soldering iron in hand, an understanding of the basic principles of electrical engineering, electronics, knowledge of physics at least at the level of 2 courses of a technical college.

Instead of prologue

So, my company is engaged in the supply of laboratory equipment, most of which are quite high-tech water treatment systems. Some time ago, we opened our own customer service, which, I must say, turned out to be very popular due to the specificity of the equipment and its fairly widespread occurrence. Due to the fact that the systems have a rather long life cycle (some have been working since the end of the 80s), as well as a number of mechanical components that are subject to natural wear, these systems need to be serviced, though not very often, but still regularly and with a certain frequency. And to carry out these works (diagnostics, repair, service and control of those. Conditions), certainly, we need trained engineers who have, firstly, certain knowledge in the field of general electronics, and secondly, some specific ones that are directly related to the product line . The latter, of course, are imparted during training, various trainings and test work, which the engineer must undergo at the initial stage of his work.

So, just a month ago we came to the understanding that the load of our engineering staff was close to the critical threshold (about 90% of the time on business trips) and we need to urgently expand the staff. What problems, I thought ... In our country, where engineering culture is so high and popular ... I could not even imagine how wrong I was ...
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Plot

We went the standard way. Placed on the corresponding popular resource vacancy, we began to respond people. I must say that the conditions we have proposed, in our opinion, are quite market. Normal salary, of course, everything is on TC, free lunches, quite good travel allowance, prospects for internships abroad, official transport of necessity, communication, the opportunity to see the country on rather numerous and frequent trips. The responses were, and a lot ... But the quality ... Guys, this is just an indescribable nightmare. Yes, there are no other words.

Small lyrical digression: due to the fact that it was planned that the majority of interviews will be two-step, and the first part will be conducted by one of the managers who cannot independently assess the engineer’s abilities in theoretical and technical knowledge, the simplest task of 5 points, in order to immediately weed out candidates who do not have the minimum necessary knowledge. The results of these tests struck me deeply, taking into account the specialties of the respondents.

In the title you see a picture of a diode bridge, drawn by a man who has a fresh master’s degree (from June of this year) with the specialty “radio electronics” of a fairly well-known old Moscow university of federal importance. I will not call him, but many know him. Think about these words - master, radio electronics engineer, draws a diode bridge with a star. When I asked him to explain him, in his opinion, he imagines the passage of current according to this scheme - he clapped his eyes and honestly admitted, “I don’t know.” Or maybe he bought a diploma in the transition? I hope that this is so, although it does not seem to be, still some of the questions + - he answered.

Do you think I would write this post if I ran into one such respondent? Of course not. I will give you other masterpieces, like you, for example, here is a diode bridge:



I could not stand it yesterday, and called my old friend. He is Ph.D., working deputy. Director of the Institute in the structure of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a fairly well-known university in IT and related fields. And he poured out his soul in his understanding of the enormity of this picture. After all, these guys, I beg your pardon, the “engineers” claim to work in the real sectors, some of them from the biomedical faculties of universities. These people will customize your biochemical analyzers, MRI devices, radiographic equipment, etc. How can our universities allow themselves to produce such engineers? My old friend only sarcastically remarked in reply, without hiding, however, genuine sadness that yes, everything is so that everything is horrible and bad. That there are monstrously few engineers, that there is almost no demand from the real sector of the economy, that we produce almost nothing of high-tech engineering. What if you want to get something worthwhile, you need to take a student in the 2-3 year, still with burning eyes, give him real tasks and only then with a certain probability you can get the desired specialist with the skills you need at the output. And that is not a fact. And without real problems, technical students go to a serious depression for senior courses, not understanding why they need all this at all, why they need fundamental basic knowledge. In our universities, they no longer explain this to them. And they go out of high schools, not having knowledge of physics even at the level of 8-9 grades of school.

In my understanding, this is a disaster. How will we live in our world, in the 21st century, surrounded by an enormous number of industrial, often very dangerous objects, with such an education level of our specialists? Is this our future? They will manage the reactors, provide technical support and repair of aircraft, gas and oil refining facilities ... Or who?

Instead of an epilogue

I sat down to write this post today, at lunchtime, immediately after my interview with a bachelor’s degree diploma from another federal university. I give his bridge below. This guy offered to bring alternating current through one wire to the circuit (left), and then, according to him, “shared” (apparently, electrons-boys to the left, girls - to the right, the separation principle was not formulated anyway) and comes out on the wire to the right . Yes, yes, there is no second wire, such a single-wire circuit. As in one wire there may be a potential difference, he did not explain to me. Although I suggested that his proposal to supply current at one point of the bridge itself pulls on a premium, I just don’t know which one ...



When I read Habr, especially the DIY section, I most often find myself finding a smile on my face. I was always impressed by those who were making something, tried and continue to try to construct something. Any inquiring mind is worthy of silent admiration. And it always seemed to me that the overall high engineering culture is our national trait, something that is never taken away from us. Are we ready to lose all this? Or has it already happened? Do we suppose that in our country radio electronics with a higher education are not able to name the types of harmonic modulations, and that modulations cannot, in essence, explain the difference between alternating and direct current. Where is the diode anode and cathode. What questions should be asked of graduates of radio engineering universities? “But isn’t amps measured by current?”. After all, Ohm's law, they have already forgotten, and some have not even received a diploma.