Do we need a change in engineering books?

[babakta]

Are the conventional books enough to make a newly grad engineer ready to enter the industry? Aren't we wasting time on going to details of old topics which have no use in today's commercial product?

 

[JesterBR]

I guess that the conventional books aren't enough. Well at least here in Brazil they aren't. The technology of today is more complex than the book says.

 

[tpetar]

Are the conventional books enough to make a newly grad engineer ready to enter the industry?

Your question is relative, and answer also can be relative.

What are conventional books?
If newly grad engineer finish school we suppose he knows something. Any book can be useful, some of them more some less.

Aren't we wasting time on going to details of old topics which have no use in today's commercial product?

I didnt understand this. You mean on electronic tubes ?

I must admit I love to open device and look inside to see how manufacturers solve some situations. Specially I'm impressed with older devices ideas and solutions.

 

[dick_freebird]

Books are always obsolete, and when written by professors
doubly so.

But the book is no more a complete preparation for real work,
than a sack of flour is a birthday cake. Turning information
into accomplishment, that's all about you and your efforts.

 

[LvW]

Are the conventional books enough to make a newly grad engineer ready to enter the industry? Aren't we wasting time on going to details of old topics which have no use in today's commercial product?

It is not the main purpose of "conventional" textbooks to inform you on details of commercial products.
Rather they shall teach electronic fundamentals and present/explain different principles to solve certain problems.
And from the way these problems are solved you can (hopefully) derive other and partly new methods to solve actual problems.

 

[goldsmith]

Are the conventional books enough to make a newly grad engineer ready to enter the industry? Aren't we wasting time on going to details of old topics which have no use in today's commercial product?

Hi and greetings to all
For my opinion if a student just rely on books and what is teaching in universities then success will be around 10 or perhaps 20 percent ! what i mean ? i mean for example in a circuit analysis book , we will see many of the things . for instance how to analyze an LC circuit with different methods and how to analyze a circuit with RLC networks . in first vision it is possible you ask yourself why we need them ? or why we need to learn about a class A amplifier , because we know these days class D or E or F amplifiers are widely used instead of a class A amplifier !
Ok , with all of these considerations the answer is pretty simple . if we learn about principles of everything then we can handle things which are based on them ! for example a transistor can be analyzed by circuit analysis book . and if a person don't learn a class A amplifier it is impossible to learn about other classifications . and most of the times he/she will have gang of problems .
Books are dealing with the theorem behind everything then the reader won't be blind ! books are eyes of reader ! so then when you want design something you have eyes of design . you know behavior of everything . now you'll ask why we can't design nothing with books ? it is simple because books+experience+ practical trial and error + failures = a perfect designer .
I know many of the successful designers in the world . a common point between all of them is all of them are in this believe that if we know physical truth behind everything then we can use them and we won't be surprised if we see them in real world . a person which creates the knowledge learned these things before he / she starts to create !
Now i want bring an example .( a funny example ) we know how is taste of carrot and rice and radishes or a pumpkin ! these are constant ! the basic of art are such a things . then if you want make a food you'll need to know about behavior and taste of each one . you can not eat a pumpkin when it is alone ! ha ha ! but when you know about its taste you can use it with another things to make a delicious thing ! ( don't forget that a pumpkin is a pumpkin since some million years ago ! and humans are eating a pumpkin since they are on earth ! ) The same is applied about electronics . when you know behavior of everything then you can use them . so you need just a bit effort and interest . thus you can use all of the things that you could learn .
That's all i'm doing too . in university there are many of the students . but i can design many of the things but many of them can not design any thing ! one day one of my friends asked me : hey ! why my scores are much better than you but i can not design anything ! i told him because you just tried to learn what are in the books . you didn't try to use them and you didn't try to make mistakes and learn from mistakes . and also you didn't try to create something ! you just copied !
That is all i learned in these years !
I hope my sentences could be helpful to you .
Best Wishes
Goldsmith

 

[nitishn5]

Considering that you can't start learning the 'current' technology straight away, you would need books.
And the latest technology usually follows an earlier one.
Whenever something totally new happens it is mostly in academic labs run by physicists not engineers. And this would be also need books to understand what/why is happening albeit of a different kind.

In the industry, I can say since I work in one, that books are still referred to a large extent followed by papers and journals. You try to use your own ideas to make things better. We still refer to Razavi, Gray/Meyer and the like for analog design.

And here in India, even the students from the premier colleges/universities who have a strong project portions apart from the usual theory part are sill lacking in fundamentals only because they seem to think of textbooks as outdated.

Like goldsmith has elaborated there is more need of practical exposure in colleges than just the theory.
It is Theory + Practicals + Mistakes(Learning from them) + Experience(Gained from those mistakes) that would make a good engineer.

We need Theory strongly coupled with practical sessions in the lab so that students have strong fundamentals. This way they can easily pickup any new technology.