Every once in awhile I come across a book I wished I would have had when I was an engineering undergrad. 101 Things I Learned in Engineering School, by John Kuprenas, a PE, with Matthew Frederick, an architect, is in that category. It spans just 101 pages in handbook size (about 7 x 5 inches).
The wonderful thing about the book is that the authors organized it into small bites. Each of the topics occupies two pages and is covered with a diagram and a few paragraphs at most.
And the topics are bound to be genuinely interesting to engineering students, though a lot of them are civil engineering-centric. Here are few I found particularly worth reading:
The heart of engineering isn't calculation; it's problem solving
An object receives a force, experiences stress, and exhibits strain.
When a force acts on an object, three things can happen.
Harder materials don't ensure longevity.
Get even more out of a beam.
More inspections and fewer inspections both produce more errors.
In all, there are 101 topics like these, including one on what the heck a vector really is, which is one I wish I'd had access to during the first month of my undergrad career.
The list price for 101 Things is $16. You can find out more at Hachette Books.
