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BS Mechanical Engineering here from big name school. I wish someone explained this to me in college. I realized my deficiency one day senior year when I let my car overheat and had no idea what to do. I left engineering as a result and came back to it 10 years later.

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Some of my classmates in college all went to a city a couple of hours away for a weekend, in a not so new car, and the car quit them about half way there. Turns out a car full of "mechanical engineers" drove an hour on the interstate with the car in 3rd gear because the gear selector didn't quite make it to D. Cooked the engine and I think they ended up totaling the car. They were top students too. That definitely reaffirmed my belief that GPA is a poor indicator of a quality engineer.

There's an episode of the Big Bang Theory where all the fancy scientists mock the internal combustion engine for being primitive technology... But when their car breaks down, Penny has to come and help them out :-)

I think your deprecating comment should be directed at the engineer who designed the shifter.

But.... an hour with the car at redline? They joked about it for months afterward. I think even they wouldn't have placed the blame on the aging shifter.

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