My younger daughter is an engineering major. She is having to work really hard and is holding her own. She has right brain activity as well -- artistic ability that skipped the family tree around me. Whenever she feels sunk in one of her burner classes I tell her to just keep faith in yourself. So far, so good.

If you are a college football fan at all, one of her classmates is Joel Stave. He was the Wisconsin QB during their strong run in the middle of the season, which ended when he blew up his knee. She was in a class with him last semester. She is not the star struck type but said he's a nice guy. I asked if he goes to class and she said he's an engineering major, of course he goes to class.

>re: firing vs. investing in staff
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>I believe that's the difference between an Engineering approach (with blinders on) and a Liberal Arts approach (with blinders on). You learn to see possibilities (but not necessarily probabilities) in a Liberal Arts education. You learn to focus on the problem at-hand in an engineering degree. That's actually a good mix, if they learn to listen to each other.
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>>I was working for a company in 1991 and worked for a VP. Our President was a Stanford grad, and the CEO was a Harvard grad. The meetings were a “bit” formal!
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>>During one of the meetings, after listening to the usual bombardment of acronyms used by the electronics industry, our VP said: “Using TLA’s is not professional”! The room went quiet and then the President and CEO both exclaimed, “TLA’s”? The VP said, “Yes. It is not professional to use three letter acronyms”! That caused everyone to laugh.
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>>We had lots of TLA’s in the military. :)
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>>By the way I did not know that Stanford turned out ultra conservative business people, and Harvard ultra liberal. Our two top executives had very different philosophies. The President from Stanford would state at every meeting: “If you are not firing 25% of your crew, you are not doing your job”!
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>>Our CEO from Harvard would interrupt, “No you cannot do that. It costs $20,000 to train one employee, and if you are having problems it might be your fault. You have to invest time in your staff and nurture your team”.
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>>>The sad thing is I have had a number of health care clients or employers in the past few years, have taken the annual refresher course three times, and still didn't have HIPAA straight. Please join my new coalition, BAF -- Ban Acronyms Forever.
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>>>>I made the same mistake until I had to start dealing with it every day.
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>>>>>My mistake. I knew there aren't two P's but there are two A's, not two I's -- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. I forgot rule #1 of correcting someone: be sure the correction is correct ;-)