On-the-job training

Not everyone agrees that the solution for the shortage of analog design engineers is more focus inside the big engineering schools. Longtime analog design guru Bob Pease, who currently serves as the dean of the Analog University at National Semiconductor Corporation , Santa Clara,

EB : Are engineering schools focusing enough on analog design?

BP : Very few colleges offer more than a minimal course on op-amps [operational amplifiers] these days, and we have to support the ones that offer good courses. On the other hand, we have hired several very good technicians from the College of San Mateo, a local two-year school. We hired them as technicians, and many have worked their way up to be engineers, and very good ones, with the right attitude.

EB : Wouldn't it be better if the big engineering schools were graduating more students with analog design experience?

BP : They haven't been training engineers in large numbers, but I don't think industry really needs that. What they ought to educate is some finite number of excellent engineers. The world does not need a glut of lousy engineers, in any field. That's not to say that colleges don't play a part. Some colleges do very well, and some teachers inspire their students to great enthusiasm and talent. But some students are averse to inspiration, and that cannot be helped.

EB : Doesn't that mean that design firms will have to do a lot of on-the-job training?

BP : It's always been that way. You can't learn how to design analog circuits in school. It's only when you're actually working on real projects that you can expect to get things right. The problems are simply too complex to teach adequately in a purely academic environment.