October 2006

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... On "Backscatter: Helping the Kids, and Ourselves" (August 2006)

In "Helping the Kids, and Ourselves," Mr. Christiansen discusses the "hands off" attitude of college faculty toward improving the outcome of secondary school education. That jibes well with my experience, but I think it goes further. The colleges and universities seem also to take a laissez faire attitude toward the language skills of their own graduates. Kids coming out of good, accredited engineering schools are often technically adept, but functionally illiterate. I have been personally involved in arranging to have an English teacher come to our company to tutor recent graduates in report and proposal writing. Otherwise, it can take as long as five years for a new engineer to learn how to write a winning proposal. Surely we can do better than that!

G. Yale Eastman
IEEE Member

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... On "Interview Your Next Boss" (September 2006)

Some good ideas here. It seems like common sense but when it comes time to actually interview and ask some of these questions you might (well, I would) be a bit nervous and not thinking about them. I'll probably use these questions and tactics in my next interview, even if I have to put the questions on a 3x5 card!

Franklin Diaz
IEEE Member
Crystal Lake, Ill.

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This article is very helpful for graduating students. It lists out the different issues one needs to watch out for when considering a job and what questions to ask a prospective employer.

S<i>andeep Kanumuri
IEEE Student Member
La Jolla, Calif.

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... On "Forensic Engineering" (September 2006)

Very well written article that was clearly written by someone very familiar with the subject matter. Well done.

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Randy Down
IEEE Member
Cary, North Carolina

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