It's good practice for real life (Score 1)

I've the unusual experience of being required to retake basic engineering classes after 28 years of being an embedded firmware engineer. (That's another story) My experience is at Arizona State University but, judging by the other engineers I've worked with and supervised, I believe it applies to other schools. I would note, that ALL the professors I had were trying to do their best (a pleasant surprise to me) but that does not equate to being a good or even adequate teacher. The counselors were very good and responsive but were too few to really provide the level of mentoring I would consider minimally required. Awful Textbooks -- One should read the manuals that come with many products, especially those written by engineers. Professors are rarely encouraging -- Try dealing with sales and marketing. Unreasonable expectations are often part of sales/marketing deals with the brunt of meeting them falling on engineers; being setup can be a way of life. Darth of quality counseling -- With the exception of Intel, you are pretty much on your own when it comes to planning your professional future. As to having a mentor, time alloted to projects does not allow for helping engineers come up to speed; too often it's simply sink or swim in a alligator filled swamp. Inflated grades -- Ask any engineer at Intel about ranking and ratings. Ask any engineers about their experiences with evaluations come review time. Funny how often the more well known a project the higher the ranking of an engineer will be regardless of challenge or difficulty. There's my favorite: the engineer that a "hero" because s/he has been working 24/7 to fix a bug due to sloppy work. And the corollary of the engineer that works smart so his/her work goes smoothly and therefore is ignored. Every assignment feels the same -- Only companies big enough to do research will give you the ability to bypass this one without job hopping.