WP34s Birthday Gift @ ISU

[MarkHaysHarris777]

(02-26-2015 01:03 AM)troll80 Wrote:  I'm surprised to hear kids still even need calculators these days, with phone/tablet apps, Excel, Matlab, and Wolfram Alpha.

The engineering department at ISU pushed Excel pretty heavy first term. My son has a trove of hand-held calculators (mostly TI vintage, a Casio, & now the WP34s; he also has an HP35s that he doesn't know about yet). For his classwork he tells me that he really prefers Excel (or the LibreOffice counter-part).

Be sure to see 'Sliderule's' post above: my son's professors will *NOT* allow his calculators on exams (no graphing devices, nor communicating devices, nor notebooks|iPads &c). They will permit what he calls a 'dumb' calculator (the TI36x Pro) for instance. The bottom line is that to prevent cheating (which is at an all-time-high in American classrooms today) the professors are only permitting calculators that, well, just calculate. So he can take the 36x Pro, or the FX115es, or his fx-260 solar. That's it.

Of course the NCEES has the same issue/ and they will only permit the HP35s, HP33s, 36x Pro, or FX115 models on the FE exam(s).

My personal opinion on the matter is that exams (including the FE) should be structured so that the exam is about engineering, not about how well you take exams nor how well you can use your calculator (makes the exam harder to construct, but its doable).

Cheers,
marcus