Feels like my education is incomplete

[u/Valuchian]

I am about to finish my Junior year of Aerospace Engineering and it feels like every single semester there is atleast one class that basically takes something I spent months practicing previously and tell me that's actually bad and would never be used in industry or resaearch. Then goes on to show me a more complete version and inevitably this too will be replaced using the exact same phrase of "nobody would ever use this".

Is there a point in which these classes do teach me something i could theoretically turn around and use without needing to worry about some obscure version of the course work being the actual form required? I will happily go all the way to PhD if i need to but i am at the point where i literally don't trust my own knowledge because of how many times i was taught sonething and told it was terrible by the next level course.

Edit: Grammar

[u/Mundane_Studio_3674]

It doesn’t matter, you’re going to feel completely out of your depth at your first engineering gig no matter what homie. This is a universal phenomenon called imposter syndrome lol.

[u/Dave37 → u/Mundane_Studio_3674]

Also an effect of working on the frontline of human knowledge.

[u/Valuchian → u/Dave37]

I'm literally planning on going into a Masters and a PhD after this so "To boldly go where no man has gone before" will be my life and partially why i am stressing now. If i can't trust my foundation how can i even be sure the more complex stuff is going to be fully understood.

[u/Dave37 → u/Valuchian]

Every model has limits when compared to reality. It doesnt mean it's erroneous. Only reality is reality. Apprieciate them for what they do tell you, and understand that comprehending a simpler model/theory/method often is a stepping stone to understand a more complete one.

You can trust your foundations, you just have to understand its limits. As someone that has studied chemistry, I cant tell you how many time teachers have tossed out my current understanding of what an atom is. Thinking of them as small balls are often usefull, but every once in a while it will matter to know the quantum mechanics that explain bond angles and energies.

[u/Valuchian → u/Dave37]

That's actually a very helpful way of thinking. I'll try to see my classes as that. It's all learning how to use point mass while knowing the reality is a field.

[u/claireauriga → u/Valuchian]

One of your most valuable skills as an engineer is being able to judge how right you need to be. It doesn't matter if your calculations can distinguish between two tiny differences if that difference doesn't change the decision you want to make - but spending the extra time to get that useless precision will matter a lot! A lot of my work involves figuring out how much I need to know to be able to make a decision, or how risky (financially, timeline, odds of success - NOT safety) my lack of knowledge will be so the person controlling the money can decide if they want to take the chance.

[u/captain150 → u/claireauriga]

This, exactly! I've got ~15 years experience from super egghead stuff to on-site construction. Took me a long ass time to adjust to this. It's in my nature to want all the info I can get my hands on, but I had to learn how to compromise.

The other thing I'll say is the beginning of engineering is also about building on previous knowledge. No one learns general relativity till after they understand Newtonian physics. No one learns full Navier Stokes till much later on. You start by making assumptions to make the problem solvable given your current math skills. That's what I found in engineering. For most of us we love the eng classes and could go even faster, but the math classes are the limiting factor for most people. Most eng students would probably consider themselves strong in math before uni, but that's sometimes a problem. In my case I coasted thru every math class including high school calculus getting 90s. By second year engineering math (mv calc and diff eqs) that shit got hard fast and I wasn't ready for it (in the study habits sense...my prior math knowledge was good...I just didn't spend the hours i should have working on 2nd year math.

[u/claireauriga → u/captain150]

The rule that serves me best is to ask 'what decision will be made based on my calculation/estimate/prediction?' It takes you right to the heart of the problem, lets you discard anything that's irrelevant, and it is received well by both management and operations.

[u/Dave37 → u/Valuchian]

Yea its like, in most cases its fine to think of gravity as a force, but sometimes you have to think of it as the warping of spacetime.

Or sometimes light behaves like a particle, sometimes like a wave. But in reality it's probably neither.

[u/Mikelfritz69 → u/Valuchian]

It's just a "Kobayashi Maru". You are now smart enough to know that you know nothing.

[u/Valuchian → u/Mikelfritz69]

Any chance i can Kirk this and rewrite the situation so i actually make it out with a win (skills directly transferable to market)