Labs are useless

[El Bourricot]

I tomorrow have to convince a panel from a new university that labs are unnecessary to the teaching of engineering and are in fact rather cumbersome and generally useless. I have a couple of ideas for arguments already.

My current line of thinking:

- labs take up time that could be spent learning techniques for not much added knowledge (I myself got in trouble last week for spending too long on a lab report which stopped me from finishing my papers for the same week)

- because of the size of the year people tend to do labs spread all over the year - by january half the year will know how to use an oscilloscope and the other one won't

- work placements are much more efficient at giving practical training (and more relevant) with the added advantage that they come at no cost for the university once you've got the placement sorted - you might even get PAID

Any other ideas? I'm not just using this as homework help, I'm quite interested really: do you think labs are a useful part of teaching? Hopefully we can have a nice discussion.

[Whiffle]

I think they are useful. They provide hands on experience to make all that crap you write down on paper come alive, allowing students to learn the basic concepts better.

[Hum]

:unsure: Umm, labs are expensive, increase the cost of Education ?

[John S. Veteran]

There's a perpetual cycle at the Chemical company I work for with engineers. The management rotates them throughout different divisions like chess pieces to give them a broader knowledge of how things work. This in itself is not a bad thing.

But with the rare exception of a few, who actually had common sense and took time to listen to those of us who understand how things work and to learn the processes, most all of them like to tinker and attempt at pushing different pieces of equipment to their ultimate limit. This ultimately results in breaking something or crashing a piece of equipment leaving us to restart it, have maintenance repair it, and lose time and production.

So I would undoubtedly say anything that would help an engineer gain knowledge would be a good thing.

[Sensayshun]

We learn just as much in a classroom as in a lab. The teacher sometimes gets us to do stuff in the lab using practical, but so longas the teachers explained it well enough in the theory you know what's going to happen anyway. It just gives us a reason to mess around.

I do however find it good when JUST the teacher does stuff, so maybe if only the teacher had a bunsen and all the necessary chemicals. Because we all gather around the front and watch the teacher do the experiment and that's good.

[spacey]

- labs take up time that could be spent learning techniques for not much added knowledge (I myself got in trouble last week for spending too long on a lab report which stopped me from finishing my papers for the same week)

- because of the size of the year people tend to do labs spread all over the year - by january half the year will know how to use an oscilloscope and the other one won't

- work placements are much more efficient at giving practical training (and more relevant) with the added advantage that they come at no cost for the university once you've got the placement sorted - you might even get PAID

586858655[/snapback]

I disagree.

- labs are times where you can practically apply techniques and theory. how else will you really find out if you know how to do something? a textbook isn't going to cut it.

- i don't know how your school works, but at mine, everyone has to do the same labs in the same order. ie for a course, lab1, the intro, everyone does that. when everyone is done, then you move onto lab2. most of our labs require knowledge and understanding of previous labs so it builds on your learning.

- work placements, i agree offer much practical hands on experience. but it is often for a very limited scope. they teach you how to work with equipment to do YOUR job. thats it. the point of school, in my opinion is exposure to as much in your field of study as possible. as an engineer, you could have thousands of different jobs, even a specific field, say computer engineering, there are thousands of different pieces of equipment you could use.

Imagine you come from your university, with no lab experience working on any sort of equipment, versus another guy from a university where there are labs for each course. Who has more experience? Who would you hire? the guy who has actually done the hands on work or the guy who knows only theory? If you don't have lab experience, you will never even get a chance to get a work placement. Employers are not "free education" where you can just learn how to do things hands on, they expect you to come in to their company with skills that can be used already.

I'm less than a month away from getting my 5 year degree in Computer Engineering, which included 16 months of work terms and I would say labs were essential to me in solidifying and expanding upon basic concepts that were taught in class and read in books. Though, labs are annoying sometimes, like writing up reports that you know people will not read carefully... I can't think of anything more productive to replace them with, nor do I think it is a good idea to remove them.

[El Bourricot]

Well my personal opinion is that labs ARE useful which is why I was picked to argue the opposite (controversy is a favorite of our lecturer).

But to answer your arguments:

1. i agree

2. Our year is about 300 people big, so the labs have to be spread out over the term/year so that people can do them in groups of say 10-ish on a certain lab, then the next group does it the next hour/day, etc. etc. Some of my friends have already done all their electronic instrumentation labs, but we were doing the structural design labs first so we still have 2 left over the next 3 days. The labs don't really follow each other in our first year at least.

3. Maybe if you get specialized placements? e.g. work in certain departments. But yes it's very true, labs have the advantage of being exactly what you need to perfect your technique, and you're expected to screw them up as well so you learn from your mistakes! Which would cause a loss if done in a company.

4. We have a guy from Shanghai university over to finish his degree, he is able to do all the papers pretty much instantly, and his super-strong theoretical knowledge (they don't have ANY practicals in that uni) means his structure in the structures design was both the strongest (withhelding FIVE TIMES the required load!!!) and amongst the cheapest built - he actually lost marks for making it too well! So whilst I see where you're coming from, sometimes a sound understanding of theory would help a lot. I've also done some work with a research company who differentiates itself from competitors by basically analyzing the situation theoretically before creating a solution to problems. The result is that their technology is about 10 years forward on ALL their competitors who to save costs and time go for the "trial and error" method. So maybe the guy who's done more theory is better!

Report writing I'd say is where the lab system needs updating. Writing a report isn't that hard really, and the lab report writing is just one big joke - the lecturers here tell us to rush them so we can get on with learning techniques necessary for the course. I recon labs shouldn't have reports, or maybe only one report a term or something.

[spacey]

Heh, thats quite a challenge. To argue for the opposite of what you believe. You have my respect for that.

I would definately pick on the lab report writing part. In my school at least, you can write like an amazing report that is detailed, clear and concise and you can write a rush hacked up report that doesn't really say anything that would allow someone to reproduce your results, and often, you get the same marks. I agree, "one big joke".

Your point about extensive theory is interesting but I don't think strong enough to be your main point. Simply because it is a little vague, saying you will just do more theory if you don't do labs. What exactly is benefit of more theory, you learn more so your designs are better? A lot is learned through experimentation of labs though, so someone could argue they would learn more in labs and perfect design concepts that way. It is all about your method of learning, some people learn well theoretically, others (and I vote majority) learn better by hands on practice and experience. But thats not saying we should remove theory and go only labs, I think its important to have both to balance. So expect that kind of argument.

One thing you could argue, is that labs require a lot of financial support. And it is almost useless to have an out-dated lab equipment, so you need to keep buying new stuff. So there is a big cost there for the University to support them.

Thats all I can think of for now. Good luck.

[El Bourricot]

The motion (labs ARE useful) won, simply because "certain person" on my side decided that "labs should be replaced by computers", which the motion basically ripped apart. Oh well. We did try.

[neowin_hipster]

I think labs are the most useful thing. We do more than enough textbook work and theory. There is far too much that you can't learn in a textbook. A good lab will show you design issues, tradeoffs, performance, available devices, techniques, construction issues, and will get you thinking like a real engineer. The worst labs i've had are basically plug+play scope **** labs which are basically more involved textbook questions. The best labs are almost like projects where we have to design a circuit to do a particular task or program a chip or something like that. Even just by Touching and feeling you can get a greater understanding than by reading about it in a textbook. Try learning poker by reading a book. Wouldn't get you very now would it? *stole that poker quote from Data on Star trek*

[spiegel]

i LOVE my engineering and robotics labs i make stuff with my hands and is very interesting.

right now im trying to figure out what i gotta do for my senior project. :D

[Laurë Veteran]

I used to love my physics labs at uni, and learn from them. Three hours on a Monday afternoon and about another three hours to write the report.

Many of my physics lectures bored me to death and would be missed or I would fall asleep in them. Like right at the front of the class of 6 students! :blush: I never missed a lab session though.

[Guest]

I know how you feel - Ive got 6 hours of lab on Fridays which is always a welcome relief. The report writing/planning for next lab however can be a bit of a bore.

I always read the labscript, never really fully understand what im meant to be doing, then enter the lab and it all becomes stupidly clear :-P