I never went back to that engineering department.
I ended up befriending a former Northrop RF Engineer and a (sadly) homeless genius who was involved in early silicon valley. Those two guys were incredibly impactful on me and got me all the way up to building RF equipment.
> that world has definitely not stood still, and the prices have come down considerably. But I'd love to have my old frequency counter and pulse generator back
My whole workbench is mid to late 90s HP equipment I've picked up very cheap at swap meets. I love this older stuff but it is really crazy what you can buy out of China now. The Rigol Oscilloscopes and Spectrum Analyzers are crazy. They can actually replace a lot of other test equipment and do some pretty complex analysis.
> I'm really happy that you found an alternate path because such a put-down is terrible and should have never happened in any mature education institution.
I actually had a near identical experience at a different university when seeking advice about how to read Hegel. I think this is a common issue with our academic system.
Very neat. I'm in the midst of some interesting hacking and I really regret giving away a lot of my workshop tools in the mid 90's when it all went to software. I still have a lot of hooks in electronics and such but I just couldn't justify lugging around a couple of cubic meters of parts stock & gear. But right now I'm seriously wondering whether that was a wise decision, on the other hand that world has definitely not stood still, and the prices have come down considerably. But I'd love to have my old frequency counter and pulse generator back :)
I'm really happy that you found an alternate path because such a put-down is terrible and should have never happened in any mature education institution.