>It isn't really needed in much of engineering. Plenty of high school level students can do trig and algebra. You can get by just fine in much of the engineering world,
A certain amount of People can get by, but the project itself cannot get by without a minimum people on that project knowing this stuff.
For your typical software project, the entire project can get by without anyone knowing anything from algebra and beyond.
>Linear algebra, trig, even basic diff eq and calculus is relatively easy to pick up independently IMO.
Less likely for people learn this stuff outside of a school. It can be done without school but the likelihood of learning these things without school is low because learning these things is about 10x harder than programming. Developing the intuition and familiarity with this is very rarely done independently.
Additionally, these are the bare minimum required for engineering. Complex analysis, control system theory, kinimatics, physics, circuit analysis and much much more are required for systems engineering. And almost nobody starts learning this stuff as a "hobby." Basically people pick up learning django or rails as a hobby or something along those lines.
>Do you work in ME? It sounds like you have a glamorized idea of what a lot of other engineers do.
I'm EE, switched to CS after graduation and I work in embedded systems with mechanical engineers and other EEs.
Yes the day to day doesn't require solving an ODE. But the basic knowledge is required in some aspect of the project. The same is NOT true for software.
>There are many areas of software and computing that DO require specialists.
Very few. ML or Data is mostly what I see but you're average web development shop has sw guys who are roughly homogeneous in terms of skills. Any specialization is domain knowledge as in he's the guy that coded that maze so he's the guy that knows it best.
There are "specialists" but the crossover is so close that all these specialties can combine and you encounter tons and tons of people who are "full stack" engineers.
A certain amount of People can get by, but the project itself cannot get by without a minimum people on that project knowing this stuff.
For your typical software project, the entire project can get by without anyone knowing anything from algebra and beyond.
>Linear algebra, trig, even basic diff eq and calculus is relatively easy to pick up independently IMO.
Less likely for people learn this stuff outside of a school. It can be done without school but the likelihood of learning these things without school is low because learning these things is about 10x harder than programming. Developing the intuition and familiarity with this is very rarely done independently.
Additionally, these are the bare minimum required for engineering. Complex analysis, control system theory, kinimatics, physics, circuit analysis and much much more are required for systems engineering. And almost nobody starts learning this stuff as a "hobby." Basically people pick up learning django or rails as a hobby or something along those lines.
>Do you work in ME? It sounds like you have a glamorized idea of what a lot of other engineers do.
I'm EE, switched to CS after graduation and I work in embedded systems with mechanical engineers and other EEs.
Yes the day to day doesn't require solving an ODE. But the basic knowledge is required in some aspect of the project. The same is NOT true for software.
>There are many areas of software and computing that DO require specialists.
Very few. ML or Data is mostly what I see but you're average web development shop has sw guys who are roughly homogeneous in terms of skills. Any specialization is domain knowledge as in he's the guy that coded that maze so he's the guy that knows it best.
There are "specialists" but the crossover is so close that all these specialties can combine and you encounter tons and tons of people who are "full stack" engineers.