opinion of those who have experience

[Salcip]

I'm a hot one. I have always been passionate about fluid/machine interaction and therefore energy/machine (we therefore talk about engines, turbines, compressors, etc.).
I then actually went to work in the field, but I realized that - if these machines are also wanted to design starting from the white sheet - it is absolutely indispensable (repeat, absolutely indispensable) know in order:
1. mechanical design (without its thorough knowledge nothing is planned, but nothing);
2 (equal to the previous) mechanical technology: foundry, printing, treatments, processing - the additive if you want to put something extra, but in most cases it is not really indispensable;
3. design of machinery organs, which means both "machine construction" but also the applicable standards, as well as the ability to find and select components from the trade;
4. instrumentation, control and drives: even if we are mechanical, often half of the know-how lies in the management software, intimately connected to the hardware architecture and the choices on the drivers (this is especially true for automatic machines, but it is also for a fluid machine destined to the oil & gas, in which safety plays an essential role because of the energies in play): the designer of the machine, even if it does not plan neither sw nor hw, must be able to dialogue more or less "at the same" with the relative specialists of automation and control;
5. Product quality: the applicable directives and the way to satisfy their res (and therefore risk analysis, marking c, etc.), part often neglected because considered boring but instead extremely important, both for corporate protection and to compete with increasingly demanding customers, and that - if done correctly - makes you work in quality effortlessly.

I also add that of all the above at the university we teach above all point 3, and without getting used to the student to work with norms and catalogs. points 1 and 2 are quite neglected, and often one coming from theitis is advantaged. However, they are of the opinion that above all technology learns it "dirting your hands", which does not necessarily mean working directly the piece but visiting many suppliers and dialogue with them on the various possibilities of realization or less of a piece. point 4, when in the study plan of mechanics, it is always addressed in a very theoretical way, without concrete references, and point 5 almost even treated, and however without having to perceive the appropriate importance

very interesting also this point of view. I can only agree on a lot of what you said. For example my faculty proposes only one technical drawing examination (which is among other things snobbed by most students), then it is interest of the student to deepen, inserting optional cad courses, etc. normally a graduate who followed the “standard” path never had to deal with programs cad (repealed, always in my faculty).
about the other points I deduce that you feel very important, if not fundamental, those that are defined as “transverse skills”. I would then like to ask what you think of Italian universities that in recent years push very much on the acquisition of these skills, but then in practice they propose increasingly "specializing" master degree paths.

 

[meccanicamg]

the more time passes and the more educational proposals of the superiors and universities is worse.
It is normal, who fixes the guidelines has never turned, welded, mounted something....too many senseless theoretical and little reality. but it is enough to think that it has been 40 years that every year they teach in the course of turbulence that oil lasts 10/15 years... and it has passed 40.... but are you doing it or are you there?
you still teach lewiss and hertz for gears and you don't teach iso 6336.... yet someone with 10011 for bolts that haven't existed for a decade....boh. It is a world ovate in the theory of teachers who are not updated....then you see the gross at work.

 

[paulpaul]

very interesting also this point of view. I can only agree on a lot of what you said. For example my faculty proposes only one technical drawing examination (which is among other things snobbed by most students), then it is interest of the student to deepen, inserting optional cad courses, etc. normally a graduate who followed the “standard” path never had to deal with programs cad (repealed, always in my faculty).
about the other points I deduce that you feel very important, if not fundamental, those that are defined as “transverse skills”.

with regard to the design, I mean above all the definition of the shape and the surfaces, the couplings and the details, the placing on the table, the choice of tolerances and roughness, the definition of seemingly trivial but fundamental aspects in the success of a project such as thrifts, seals, bearing blocks, etc... all having in mind what can be done or cannot be done with the machines tools, the processes of melting and moulding (and less maintenance). I see the design and technology intimately connected. This is the difference between who calculates and who, besides calculating, draws (or draws) machines for production.
the use of the cad 3d honestly I give it for granted...and not to have a "best representation of the piece" as some say (I repeat some, not all) ultra- fifty-year designers born on the tecnigraphs (extremely formative moreover) and then moved on the cad 2d...but precisely (even if it seems absolutely trivial to say) to model the car without making the famigerato "studio" only I see this approach as an absolute loss of time, and an attempt to self-defense by the aforementioned designers linked to an old conception of design.
this obviously applies to those engineers who want to design "producible" objects, and not just be analysts/calculators or technicians/commercials (I say it without intention of offending anyone, it is different choices and however of very first professional level).

regarding the other two points ( automation/control and product quality): I see them important if you want to be really complete and succeed in completing a project "all round" from the white sheet to the documentation, necessarily not alone but possibly managing a team (also depends on the complexity of the products obviously!). I think we are talking about this.

 

[paulpaul]

I would then like to ask what you think of Italian universities that in recent years push very much on the acquisition of these skills, but then in practice they propose increasingly "specializing" master degree paths.

I have no such vast knowledge of the Italian university to allow me to express a general opinion, but from what I know also the tendency to specialize, thinking (and making students believe) that there is the functional designer, the structural designer, the technologist, the controller, the documentation officer, etc., for all "stagni" worlds among them.
in my opinion, in this way, it is assumed that the student ends up working in a reality of large and very structured, where everyone is a very specialized part: volent or nolenti, not always the company reality (and especially the Italian one) allows it. and then, if one wants to manage a team, he must still have enough transversal knowledge, and will be who is smarter (because more curious or willing to make them during or after studies) that will prevail in the role. I also add, for record duty, that many of these big realities subcontract much of engineering to external technical studies (fem analysis, cfd, but also sometimes the design of the machines), to favour within the commercial, productive part, service.

However, this does not prevent you from focusing on an area for which you feel particularly worn, such as the structural, warm or technological part: I only say that in certain companies and in certain positions we must have a more complete vision.
if you want a last opinion, I think that the part "hot" (meaning with this thermodynamic and fluidodynamic 0-d, combined with the knowledge of a scientific sw, like matlab or simulink, even if sometimes it is enough excel - I don't speak of cfd) is that where the companies (obviously those that have to do with machines to fluid or planting) are actually more "ignoring knowledge

 

[meccanicamg]

You're perfectly right. I strongly hate the "antiques" who have to do the "study". think they do the same with the 3d....and they have to reassemble....bah