Some do, some don't I guess. What aren't media? Most media scholars probably don't study social media or virality.
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I was mechE undergrad and we had to design/build a few things. Aero undergrads had to do a glider flight. Grad, I was aero and taught a lab that included stuff like wind tunnel tests. There were a couple of drone projects but they were super expensive then.
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Today if I were running an aero program I’d definitely have a drone requirement. They’re so cheap to build now. Rockets are cheaper to do but run into regulatory shit for the truly cool stuff like remote guidance.
Most engineering except chemical has cheap hobby/ed versions.
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Was talking to chemE clients if mine in fact about designing an “Arduino for chemE” type student program to market their tech. The problem is almost any level of chemE capability quickly enabled stuff like bomb making.
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Lots of people run production sides media curricula. I don’t personally but my background is more like cs/ux and I’d say the questions that obsessed me then are still the same ones now, just mediated in different forms.
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My sense is the chief reason there aren’t significant practice based Diss components is that you’d have to have people who can evaluate, same (importantly) for tenure cases.
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A tenure case involves applicants submitting key works & explaining their substantive intervention in field(s)/discipline(s). This is sent to external evaluators that you don’t choose, know identity of, nor know (I.e COI). They are generally full profs at peer institutions.
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So you get, to point yesterday, a sociology of knowledge situation. The candidate is maximally legible to people they know in terms narrowly defined. The process is designed to vet in almost opposite terms. Scope and legibility are key.
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I was mostly being flippant tbh, but it worries me when a theory-practice divide isn’t accompanied by mutual appreciation of uniquely salient experiences of the other side. Seeking Jungian integration with the shadow is perhaps too much to expect, but a bit if self-doubt perhaps.
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I am not a pilot, but for eg core pieces of the command and control models I came up with for my postdoc research were the result of conversations with a USAF veteran friend who flew missions in 1991 Iraq and was starting his PhD around the time I was leaving for postdoc
Engineering PhD programs produce their share of “spherical cows in a vacuum” work too but the redeeming feature is if they don’t talk to practitioners/industry at least they produce mathematically cute results that are pretty even if useless
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A client of mine who’s a legendary engineering bigwig in industry made the astute remark that unlike practicing engineers who like to solve problems, engineering PhDs often succumb to the temptation to admire the problem instead, which I fully cop to and own 🤣
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Blessed are the brokers, translators, and code-switchers. I don’t think it’s everyone’s ministry but it is crucial in the knowledge ecology. This might dovetail with the joy of always studying something.
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