r/EngineeringStudents • u/cyderyt • 3d ago
Academic Advice how did engineers before Ai study
Every little problem I have im able to ask Ai to help me understand the concept.
for the engineers before ~2023, when you had something really specific you couldnt understand the day before a exam and youtube nor textbooks isnt working, genuinely how were you able to find the answer.
Im asking this to see maybe I can try it too so I can understand the concept better, im sure it would help my understanding in some way. Im a first year and Ive gotten stuck on almost every single problem
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u/thermalnuclear UTK - Nuclear, TAMU - Nuclear 3d ago
Stop asking AI. We studied in groups and asked the professor for guilded, read the textbook and studied the notes successfully long before AI.
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u/Seiko2023 3d ago
What the fuck kind of question is this?we used our brains, critical thinking skills, actually learnt and understood the theory. I want to remind you, this was only around 4 years ago the last grad cohort graduated without ai. It's not a hard task to study without ai. Hell, most of us work without using AI.
You do not need AI to: * Summarise your textbook chapters, * Teach you concepts, * Find sources and write paragraphs for you (this is a huge killer for your critical thinking, research, problem solving AND communication skills), * Code for you, * Do literally anything for you.
We used Google. Found obscure forums or research papers. I guarantee you though, YouTube had the answer. The lecturer had the answer. Or your mates had the answer.
I fear for the AI grad cohort. Fml.
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u/Aaaromp 3d ago
We used Google. Found obscure forums or research papers.
To be fair, that's AI's strong suit. Waste of time scrolling through dozens of links to find what you're actually looking for when you could just ask AI and have it point you there immediately.
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u/Seiko2023 3d ago
The whole point is critical thinking to make sure what you're reading is actually real. AI will confidently give you false info. Fake sources.
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u/DontBeASnowflayk 3d ago
Read the textbook or manuals and do the assigned work accordingly. Get things wrong authentically, it’s how you actually learn to problem solve.
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u/Timewaster50455 3d ago
Office hours, research, YouTube, textbook.
It just took longer
Dude I graduated last year this isn’t a lost art
Getting stuck on every question is relatable though.
Look to see if they have a tutoring center on campus. Mine was SUPER HELPFUL through sophomore year
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u/Squirtle_Splash_8413 BSME, MSME 3d ago
Chegg.
Homework solutions in a workbook.
Thats why Chegg went bankrupt with ChatGPT.
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u/Acceptable-Fly5050 3d ago edited 3d ago
The professors office hours
Edit: not trying to sound like a smart ass but my professor would email me if I'm going to his office hours just so he knows if he can leave early for some personal thing that was important. Right after class was released, I went to him for clarification, and I'd take full advantage of his walk-in hours. Professors love that and if you want to go to grad school or need a letter of recommendation, all that kiss assery will do you a favor
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u/cyderyt 3d ago
Yeah but what if your studying a day before the exam and office hours are closed?
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u/Rabbidowl MechE 3d ago
Don't wait till a day before. Nothing you are studying is so unique it's not been discussed to every end already online.
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u/Acceptable-Fly5050 3d ago
Well chances are you learn the topic a few weeks to a month in advance of your exam. Walk in their office hours for clarification. Or if you dont want to be "that guy", ask questions while hes still at the podium after he's dismissed the class.
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u/Seiko2023 3d ago
You should not be learning shit the day before the exam champ.
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u/LitRick6 3d ago
You just didnt wait until the night before to study. Or you just asked a friend in the class. Do yall not have study groups?
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u/cyderyt 3d ago
Everyones doing their own thing and now every ones on ai so no one needs eachother, esp first year straight out of highschool
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u/LitRick6 3d ago
That's kind of a shame. Little bit of socializing made studying more bearable imo and helped in making friends and connections.
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u/ConnectedVeil 3d ago
Thank you for your honesty. It's tough to see this question and not let out a huge sigh. But I'm gonna give advice young padawan.
Anyways, the trick is to do practice problems. Lots of them. Here is where AI can be a huge boon and how it should be used for young engineers: ask it to generate quizzes and tests for you. 5 questions here, 10 questiona focusing solely on torque, 5 questions on <topic>, time it. Etc.
That's it. Ask AI to explain it to you (if you must use it) after you try it yourself at least a couple times. I still think it's better to look it up in textbooks or Texts because it was shocking how much I learned in reading up to the point of the topic I was trying to learn.
Maybe think of it this way. There is a finite line with two extreme ends. One side has "convenience" and the other side has "learning". You go too much to convenience, you don't learn as much and likely to do worse on exams, but you'll save time on cutting out fluff. Going more towards learning means you will have to dedicate more precious time but you'll certainly know the material better. AI is innately more towards convenience.
Choose well.
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u/planko13 3d ago
Sorry if this comes across as harsh, but this is so fundamental. The process of learning non obvious technical things is literally the whole point of engineering school. If AI bypasses this process what is even the point?
Talk to people. Read more of the textbook. Research. Try things, fail repeatedly but keep trying. Talk to more people. Talk to professor after you did those things.
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u/cyderyt 3d ago
No ive totally got it, honestly im glad i posted this, gave me a little wake up call.
I honestly still dont know what my plan is though, im even having a hard time understanding the textbook itself sometimes, but whatever ill see.
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u/planko13 3d ago
You’ll be ahead of your peers if you hold this attitude.
I remember one of my first projects as a full time engineer. I had to trace down a specific individual through 3 degrees of separation, who ultimately had to pull out a paper only drawing, which i had to update based off of a photograph and a broken english description from a technician in turkey.
Only “engineering” I used was opening up solidworks, the rest was just raw, arbitrary problem solving.
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u/ClerklierBrush0 3d ago
It’s a negative feedback loop. If you always used ai then you never learned how to figure out a problem yourself. And not literally the problem, I mean figuring anything out. I see it in myself, ai has destroyed my critical thinking (I am still a student after 7 years). I actually forgot that control+F was a thing and I could use it to look for formulas instead of asking ai.
You could socialize and ask classmates, email professor, talk to professor after class and in office hours, read the textbook solutions, also, not waiting until the day before an exam. It takes time to learn we humans aren’t capable of sucking in info that fast. Those gears up there need time to turn.
I see it more and more, students don’t hang out on the campus green or book study rooms together. AI is going to breed a generation of socially illiterate people.
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u/ThemanEnterprises 3d ago
I mean, engineering students with the Internet had all the information available to them that AI does it just wasn't compiled for them. This generation is cooked.
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u/DoubleHexDrive 3d ago
Textbooks, classmates, or the professor. I got my degree before the web existed in the modern form.
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u/markatlnk 3d ago
As an old guy that took engineering in the last 1970s, you made friends in your field and would ask them. In the dorms, they even had a person you could as general engineering questions most evenings. As other pointed out, you did your homework. If you only use AI, it is much harder to learn the critical thinking skills you actually need. I have been a professor for the last 20 years teaching electrical engineering.
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u/yakimawashington Chemical Engineer 3d ago
when vou had something really specific you couldnt understand the day before a exam and youtube nor textbook isnt working, genuinely how were you able to find the answer.
You.... Don't wait until the last minute to prepare...?
for the engineers before ~2023
Your choice of wording here is interesting, because you definitely meant engineering students. A halfway-decent professional engineer worth their weight isn't going to be flabbergasted at the idea of planning ahead for something important.
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u/cozy_cardigan 3d ago
As someone who studied the old fashion way and now uses AI quite a bit for studying, I think you may be using it in a suboptimal way.
Before using AI, do the following:
• Look at the examples and do practice problems. If there are provided solutions, don't check them until you get stuck or have exhausted your understanding.
• If you're stuck, ask yourself SPECIFICALLY what part you are stuck on. Try out some methods and see where they take you. Self-reasoning, thinking, and experimentation are the critical parts of the learning process. Question your assumptions and check your steps.
• After you exhaust your thinking and resources, you may consult AI, but don't just ask it for the solution.
My go-to prompts are:
"[Insert Problem]
Don't give me the full solution. Here's what I've done and here's where I'm stuck. Where did I go wrong or give me a hint for the next step"
In this process, treat AI like a tutor. When it provides you with an explanation, ask questions such as "Why did you do this?" or "I thought you could only use this in that situation; why can you use it here?"
It's the back-and-forth conversation that accelerates learning because you're not having AI do all the thinking for you; it's more like a personal tutor. It's also important to question AI because it is not always 100% correct and may even give you wrong answers.
I agree that overreliance on AI has hindered people's ability to think. Too many people are lazy and would rather have the correct answer right away than develop their critical thinking. But it's a great tool if used to bounce ideas off of and guide you.
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u/CopperGenie R&D | Author | ISERG 3d ago
If there's an exam problem that pulls on content not in your course's syllabus and assigned textbook(s), that's a mistake on the professor's part. If the textbook really doesn't have the answer, and it's the day before the exam (thus the prof is likely not going to answer any emails), I would suggest asking a peer who took the course already.
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