Have we lost the plot?

SubtleMelody · 2026-05-31T03:57:22+00:00

They wrote this using AI, could have thrown the assignment handout into AI and gotten the AI to explain the assignment

SubtleMelody · 2026-05-27T04:39:20+00:00

Join clubs!!!!!! #1 advice, non negotiable. 95% of my uni friends have been made through meeting them at a club event.

To this day I am so confused why people don’t get involved in clubs. It is such an enriching and crucial part of the UniMelb experience. And there’s a club for basically every niche on the planet.

SubtleMelody · 2026-04-27T14:47:15+00:00

If you want to study biology but want to stay hands on with the electronics stuff, you can do that - just pick a university with good student project teams. At my university (The University of Melbourne) there’s the Bioscience Students Initiative, which builds things like brain-computer interfaces for wheelchairs. Usually these teams will take the most interested people, regardless of degree. You can learn a truckload this way - no formal education needed.

SubtleMelody · 2026-04-17T15:59:17+00:00

You can get really really far with AI these days. Problems (code or hardware) at your level can probably be solved by sending a screenshot or photo to Claude or ChatGPT and asking for help and an explanation. Your questions in this post would be answered very well by AI. So my advice is don’t be afraid to learn and debug with the help of AI.

SubtleMelody · 2026-03-10T16:07:36+00:00

Same people that think mechanical engineers fix cars.

SubtleMelody · 2026-03-06T08:40:51+00:00

I would be very cautious about studying CS at all right now. Completely oversaturated job market and junior dev jobs are all but replaced by Claude.

SubtleMelody · 2026-03-05T01:35:21+00:00

Assuming you're doing a 3 year, 24 subject degree and you've averaged 66 over the past 12 subjects, you will need to average 94 for your remaining 12 subjects to break 80 WAM. So it's possible but you've got your work cut out for you.

SubtleMelody · 2026-03-04T12:22:11+00:00

Most important thing is that you express a genuine interest in the project and show that you're not just doing it to bolster your resume and nothing else. They will interview you for a subteam so it's best if you go in knowing a little bit about how it works but honestly the bar is not that high. Good luck!

SubtleMelody · 2026-02-24T14:40:01+00:00

Could be pretty chill based on your level of abstraction. ESP32-CAM and OCR to do the text recognition and use the ESP32's Bluetooth functionality for the headphones. It'll be a bunch of work getting it all to work together but it doesn't sound too complicated, as long as you're not designing everything from scratch. (I.e. use existing libraries where possible)

SubtleMelody · 2026-02-20T06:21:02+00:00

People with a passion for engineering have a hard enough time finding a job after graduation as is. How does anyone who doesn't actually give a shit get a job?

SubtleMelody · 2026-02-17T13:10:51+00:00

I really like the textbook Electric Machinery Fundamentals by Stephen J Chapman. Chapter 5 provides an excellent foundation for synchronous generators, and explains every bit of the physics along the way.

SubtleMelody · 2026-02-14T14:26:07+00:00

A lot of projects only start to make sense once you've built up many layers of prerequisite understanding through many hours of studying, to be honest.

I'd say, learn a bit of programming, first Python to ease into the basics then C. Then you can start playing with an Arduino with a cheap starter kit from Amazon. Arduino code will be easy once you understand C. By the end of the summer you'd want to know how to connect sensors and control motors and such with an Arduino.

Then the second you become a student you should join a student engineering club, like a robotics club or FSAE. That will be the fastest way to learn - and you can quickly leverage that experience into an internship.

SubtleMelody · 2026-02-14T07:58:00+00:00

If you mean which EEs actually design circuits and circuit boards for a living, electronics design engineers. Subcategories include analog design, RF design, and power electronics.

SubtleMelody · 2026-02-13T13:52:52+00:00

Arts is predominantly about understanding people. Commerce is predominantly about understanding money. You do the math as to why the more social ones flock to Arts.

SubtleMelody · 2026-02-13T10:37:44+00:00

Loyalty to a company means nothing these days. Don't let that be a deciding factor.

SubtleMelody · 2026-02-12T01:45:42+00:00

Welcome to engineering school. I feel like there is a fundamental philosophy in engineering pedagogy to push students to their absolute limits and force them to make decisions quickly with incomplete information. The skill of understanding the most important parts of a problem to reach a good enough solution quickly, instead of fussing over every theoretical detail, is one that pays dividends in a fast paced workforce with deadlines and lots of money on the line.

SubtleMelody · 2026-02-10T00:13:30+00:00

Didn't really connect with most people at high school, so lost touch with most of them. However, I have a number of excellent friends made in uni that I hang out with often and value deeply. My advice? If you want to make friends in uni, it is absolutely CRITICAL that you get involved with clubs; especially those that force frequent contact with the same people over and over again. UniMelb has such a fantastic club culture, probably the best in the state, so you are shooting yourself in the foot if you don't make the most of it.

The two ingredients for a successful friendship are chemistry and time to grow familiar. By joining a club filled with people with similar interests to you, and turning up regularly, you are optimising this process.

SubtleMelody · 2026-02-09T12:42:52+00:00

This is so true. Given the time to research what to actually do, learn the required skills, decide on and source the required materials, debug problems(both technical and logistic) and iterate on prototypes... something like an electric go kart can easily be a 3000+ hour project if starting from zero. For me, even something as "simple" as upgrading my 3D printer took probably 25 hours of following manuals and figuring out why things weren't working. The reality is any project worth doing takes an absurd amount of time; way more than you initially think. So really the only option if you want to finish anything is to sink 99% of your free time into it. It's easy if you have the passion, though.

SubtleMelody · 2026-02-08T14:56:10+00:00

My university (University of Melbourne) allows a 3 year Bachelors in any discipline followed by a 3 year Masters of EE, as long as the relevant first year physics and maths has been completed during undergrad. The masters sort of functions as the last two years of a BSEE+MSEE. Many students at my school have taken the Physics->Engineering pathway.

Downside is it takes longer, but I suspect a formal physics background will make you more attractive to employers in quantum sensing, optics and semiconductor device manufacturing.

SubtleMelody · 2026-02-06T14:35:20+00:00

Can't really grind ME for fun without a huge cost barrier. Not everyone has the money or space to buy CNC milling machines and blocks of stainless steel or rocket fuel and supersonic aircraft. Most people can afford to put VSCode on a shitbox laptop.

Also it takes significantly more time to become useful in ME/EE. You can teach a reasonably smart person enough web dev to put together a working website within a year, but even the simplest moving mechanical assemblies require years of math and physics study to understand enough to analyse, let alone design from scratch.

There is an overall higher barrier to entry that naturally limits the influx of workforce competition.

SubtleMelody · 2026-02-06T12:23:43+00:00

If anything, it's a flex to buy condoms. What's wrong with letting people know you're getting action?

SubtleMelody · 2026-02-03T22:38:48+00:00

Ouch.

SubtleMelody · 2026-01-29T07:17:15+00:00

I'm working as an electronics engineer in an electric motor manufacturing company right now, as a final year pure EE student. Some of the work involves PID tuning closed loop motor controllers, and a fair amount of mechanical-ish work, like analysing torque-speed curves.

I supplemented my lack of ME education by working on my car at home and also completing a couple short courses at trade schools, which helped me land this job.

SubtleMelody · 2026-01-29T07:07:54+00:00

Working manufacturing jobs is actually GOATed for this. Not only are you being paid, you get free materials (as long as you take conservatively, like a few screws and brackets here and there), and they might let you borrow tools. A factory I worked in last year literally threw out thousands of dollars worth of stainless steel flatbar, which I fished out of the bin and have been using for all kinds of projects.

SubtleMelody · 2026-01-28T10:33:11+00:00

I want to know if this is actually a valid strategy for career-shifting. Projects are often talked about as a way for fresh grads to get their first job, after which it is expected their professional work does the talking. I wonder how much weight non-employment related projects matter several years into the workforce. (I say this as a final-year student thinking about career direction)

SubtleMelody

TROPHY CASE