"Fake" Engineering Courses

As a high schooler, my High School offered a few engineering courses. Introduction to Engineering, Principles of Engineering, Digital Technology, and Engineering Design and Development. Although these courses had the name engineering in the title, I would soon come to realize these courses were not recognized by many universities including the entire University of California system. They felt fake, in that sense.

When I came to my community college where these courses came from, I realized they were given the designation “ETEC” as compared to the other “ENGR” engineering courses. Looking more into these names, ETEC means engineering technology while ENGR means engineering. From my own experience, engineering technology courses tend to focus on more hands-on work using software and hardware, while engineering courses tend to focus on theoretical engineering focusing mostly on the physics and mathematical uses for engineering. I found that these engineering technology courses were made for people who wanted to become engineering technicians, and not engineers with a bachelor’s degree. I feel that it's good for those who want to go down that route, but it’s not the pathway for me.

Even though these classes aren’t meant for me, I’m taking an engineering technology class right now (Aerospace Engineering). I find that the class is alright, it feels a little dumbed down due to it using myPLTW which is something I frequently used in high school, but at the end of the day it gives me insight into another facet of engineering. For all prospective engineers, I would recommend these courses as a more fun take of engineering from the constant math and physics that can be tedious and stressful. However, I believe that this is the last engineering technology course I will partake in forever.