[oliverobscure]

My degree course is split across my university’s Computer Science and Engineering departments, so I often get to hear both of the discussions you described. I would say that CS supervisors talking to their students are more direct in saying that the ideas that they come with won’t work or that their mathematics is incorrect, whereas engineering professors seemed to be a bit more subtle and guiding where their students falter, as though they perhaps had the exact same ideas when they were younger and want to gently discourage the same mistakes. That’s not to say Engineering professors wouldn’t tell you you’re wrong, it just feels that the knowledge gap between the experienced and inexperienced engineer is larger than that for the computer scientist, and so there is more room for small errors to grow into bigger problems if ignored.

[908B64B197]

> whereas engineering professors seemed to be a bit more subtle and guiding where their students falter, as though they perhaps had the exact same ideas when they were younger and want to gently discourage the same mistakes.

It's because once something fails, in engineering the work doesn't stop. You have to root cause it and understand the failure. That's a valuable exercise in itself.