What's your occupation: Engineer or Non-Engineer

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What's your occupation

  • Engineer

  • Non-Engineer


Results are only viewable after voting.
I'm one. Not just in degree, but I actually design electronic devices, mostly medical. Schematic design, PCB layout, firmware, soldering, debugging. I have a 1-man consulting company. I know there are others here.

I just finished the board layout for a really cool O2 sensor tonight. It will measure the O2 concentration using light. I bounce red light off a tablet that contains a powder that fluoresces. There is a very small time lag (nanoseconds) between when the red light hits the tablet and when it floresces. I blast the tablet with a high-frequency sine wave then use FFT (fast fourier transform) to measure the lag in response. This lag is proportional to the amount of O2 where the tablet is.

The cool thing is that it can be used in liquid, so works with beer! Once I get it working I'll watch the O2 deplete in my carboy during fermentation. Can't wait.

board-image-57506.png

Works! It reads the O2 concentration inside the pink pipe shown there. The graph shown is room air, then the tube flushed with Nitrogen, then room air again. 21%. Woot.

festo-57609.png
 
I did 2.5 years of ME before I realized I wasnt very good at Calculus.

However I did get my degree in Logistics and Supply Chain Management, which is kind of like "engineering for business". Been in retail merchandising/supply ever since.
 
Engineering jokes?

A half glass of water would be described by an optimist as being half full, a pessimist as half empty, and by an engineer as being in a container twice as large as necessary.
 
Redneck Engineering Exam


1. Calculate the smallest limb diameter on a persimmon tree that will support a 10 pound possum.

2. Which of the following cars will rust out the quickest when placed on blocks in your front yard? a) '66 Ford Fairlane b) '69 Chevrolet Chevelle c) '64 Pontiac GTO

3. If your uncle builds a still that operates at a capacity of 20 gallons of shine per hour, how many car radiators are necessary to condense the product?

4. A pulpwood cutter has chain saw that operates at 2700 rpm. The density of the pine trees in a plot to be harvested is 470 per acre. The lot is 2.3 acres in size. The average tree diameter is 14 inches. How many Budweiser Tall-Boys will it take to cut the trees?

5. If every old refrigerator in the state vented a charge of R-12 simultaneously, what would be the decrease in the ozone layer?

6. A front porch is constructed of 2x8 pine on 24-inch centers with a field rock foundation. The span is 8 feet and the porch length is 16 feet. The porch floor is 1 inch rough sawn pine. When the porch collapses, how many hound dogs will be killed?

7. A man owns a house and 3.7 acres of land in a hollow with an average slope of 15%. The man has 5 children. Can each of the children place a mobile home on the man's land?

8. A 2-ton pulpwood truck is overloaded and proceeding down a steep grade on a secondary road at 45 mph. The brakes fail. Given the average traffic loading of secondary roads, how many people will swerve to avoid the truck before it crashes at the bottom of the mountain? For extra credit, how many of the vehicles that swerved will have mufflers and uncracked windshields?

9. A Coal Mine operates a NFPA Class 1, Division 2 Hazardous Area. The mine employs 120 miners per shift. A gas warning is issued at the beginning of 3rd shift. How many cartons of unfiltered Camels will be smoked during the shift?

10. How many generations will it take before cattle develop two legs shorter than the others because of grazing along a mountainside?
 
Im a chemical engineer and work in a fermentation lab doing process development.

E Coli? I do basically CHO cell culture purification, mab/fusion protein/recombinant proteins. Some of the guys i work with previously did some e coli projects at Amgen and other companies. Were currently looking for a chem e for our downstream group.....
 
Coast Guard Officer that's specializes in operations ashore search and rescue/law enforcement. B.S. in Professional Aeronautics with minor in Aviation Safety, and Master in Homeland Security. I'm far from an engineer but read ALOT on home brewing, I taught myself.
 
IT Guy, Food Network fan, but not an Engineer.

If I could escape, I want to get into some kind of Logistics-y field as well. Operations, Supply, etc.
 
Electrical engineering & Computer Information Systems, a hybrid Computer science degree. Brewing for me is 40 % beer & 60 % gadgets.
 
Electrical engineer working in ASIC design. It's all digital stuff for me -- I get more exposure to amps, watts, etc. in one hour here on the electric brewing threads than I see in a whole month at work! But the digital experience will come in handy if I ever build some computer control into my brew process.
 
I marked engineer, even though I don't have a degree in engineering, nor have a passed a professional engineer exam. But I work with a lot of radio and network engineers and do a lot of the same work, and find myself thinking like them. So I might as well be an engineer.
 
I marked engineer, even though I don't have a degree in engineering, nor have a passed a professional engineer exam. But I work with a lot of radio and network engineers and do a lot of the same work, and find myself thinking like them. So I might as well be an engineer.
In some states, you could be - not all states require an engineering degree to become a licensed engineer.
 
E Coli? I do basically CHO cell culture purification, mab/fusion protein/recombinant proteins. Some of the guys i work with previously did some e coli projects at Amgen and other companies. Were currently looking for a chem e for our downstream group.....

Yeah Ecoli. We produce biodiesel and fatty alcohol/surfactants through fermentation. I'm mainly a fermentation guy, but also do a lot of downstream/recovery/purification. I work on scale-up and process optimization mainly. So far, I haven't worked in pharma but might be looking pretty soon.
 
BSME from Uconn, but work as a Nuclear Operator. Just getting into home brewing, but have always loved beer.
 
wow looks like as of right now you guys take 40% when you consider the other 60 would be every other possible occupation, that is huge... unless of course the numbers are skewed because mostly just egineers are seeing this post going, sweet I MUST VOTE (in an efficient manner)
 
newb said:
unless of course the numbers are skewed because mostly just egineers are seeing this post going, sweet I MUST VOTE (in an efficient manner)

That's exactly why I voted. :) Especially the efficient part!
 
Its a tough call, because despite not being an engineer, I do have what could be called "the DIY spirit" and love to build/rigg together my equipment!

where does that place me?
 
skullface1818 said:
Its a tough call, because despite not being an engineer, I do have what could be called "the DIY spirit" and love to build/rigg together my equipment!

where does that place me?

If you designed it as well I say engineer for your homebrew, but the thread is talking about your actual occupation.
 
I have a bs in chemical engineering but I went into medicine. Unfortunately don't think I'd be of much help in an engineering need at this point. I'll still vote for engineer though!
 
DocScott said:
I have a bs in chemical engineering but I went into medicine. Unfortunately don't think I'd be of much help in an engineering need at this point. I'll still vote for engineer though!

I also got my bs and masters in engineering but i went into medicine too. So maybe i would vote for engineering also!
 
roymullins said:
"I have this feeling that a large percentage of homebrewers are engineers."

absurd and ridiculous...

How is that absurd and ridiculous if this poll shows 40%? Even if it is skewed due to the fact that more engineers voted just because it said engineer it'd still be a large percentage. He didn't say majority...
 
By education I'm a mechanical engineer (and have served as one for several years in the Israeli Army), but I no longer practice engineering, instead I work as a software developer for an Israeli telecommunications company.
 
Not engineer but do on the job engineering a bunch. Boiler systems and HVAC duct layouts in 10,000 sqf and up houses. I get piping schematics from engineers and make it 3D in the room and space I have
 
How is that absurd and ridiculous if this poll shows 40%? Even if it is skewed due to the fact that more engineers voted just because it said engineer it'd still be a large percentage. He didn't say majority...

This is a case of selection bias, more specifically a sampling bias. Because of the title of the poll, an engineer is much more likely to be intrigued by it and thus click on the thread and vote. The poll is fun, but not useful in any meaningful way. While 40% does seem quite high, we don't know how much this poll was affected by the selection bias. My guess would be that if a similar poll were set up for nearly any profession with a similar title that most any profession would be overrepresented.

If you wanted to get a better sense of the proportion of homebrewers who are engineers (well... at least those homebrewers who post here), a new poll would need to be set up with many occupational categories, to include engineers. No preference for occupation should be mentioned in the title or anywhere in the poll. However, even with this type poll, you are still subject to some sampling bias. You see, those who work lower-paying and/or lower prestige jobs are less likely to post what they do than a more 'respectable' (not judging here, just going by societal norms) occupation such as an engineer.

Before you can trust the results of a 'study' (or poll or whatever), you've got to be able to trust the methods used to obtain those results.
 
max384 said:
This is a case of selection bias, more specifically a sampling bias. Because of the title of the poll, an engineer is much more likely to be intrigued by it and thus click on the thread and vote. The poll is fun, but not useful in any meaningful way. While 40% does seem quite high, we don't know how much this poll was affected by the selection bias. My guess would be that if a similar poll were set up for nearly any profession with a similar title that most any profession would be overrepresented.

If you wanted to get a better sense of the proportion of homebrewers who are engineers (well... at least those homebrewers who post here), a new poll would need to be set up with many occupational categories, to include engineers. No preference for occupation should be mentioned in the title or anywhere in the poll. However, even with this type poll, you are still subject to some sampling bias. You see, those who work lower-paying and/or lower prestige jobs are less likely to post what they do than a more 'respectable' (not judging here, just going by societal norms) occupation such as an engineer.

Before you can trust the results of a 'study' (or poll or whatever), you've got to be able to trust the methods used to obtain those results.

I think we have a statistician in our midst.
 
passedpawn said:
Maybe not. I'm sure the engineers have been thinking the same thing. I have.

Me too actually. I guess anybody who has done research on any level is skeptical about the bias introduced from the get-go.
 
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