For my major (Biomedical Engineering) we had an intro to engineering class that did a pretty good job of laying down some basics. It was taught using a chemical engineering book (which I won't actually recommend) and we spent the lectures learning how to do mass/momentum/heat/energy balances using Chem E block-flow diagrams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_flow_diagram).
Then there were the tests. How would you lift an elephant? How many liters of syrup are used in a Waffle House each day? Design a dishwasher. Explain why you think implanted blood glucose meters are difficult to design. All in an hour and with demands for equations, pictures, assumptions and models. These aren't just Fermi Questions.
You couldn't study for it. You were graded like a kindergartener for "points achieved" instead of percentage correct and yet you still somehow failed the tests all semester long.
But at some point during the semester you start to enumerate assumptions, apply math as a tool to create and communicate an engineering model of the world, and then make designs and conclusions with error bounds and a good understanding of your personal confidence in them. It was pure survival-motivated.
In short, the class did exactly as advertised and we took one step closer to thinking like engineers. I'm not sure that CS degrees cover something like that, but I'm curious to know if I'm wrong.
So try that kind of thing. You're already used to modeling (building) information processes. See how good you can get at building/modeling/analyzing physical processes. Not knowing things won't hold you back from learning the philosophy. It'll just make you less accurate.
Then there were the tests. How would you lift an elephant? How many liters of syrup are used in a Waffle House each day? Design a dishwasher. Explain why you think implanted blood glucose meters are difficult to design. All in an hour and with demands for equations, pictures, assumptions and models. These aren't just Fermi Questions.
You couldn't study for it. You were graded like a kindergartener for "points achieved" instead of percentage correct and yet you still somehow failed the tests all semester long.
But at some point during the semester you start to enumerate assumptions, apply math as a tool to create and communicate an engineering model of the world, and then make designs and conclusions with error bounds and a good understanding of your personal confidence in them. It was pure survival-motivated.
In short, the class did exactly as advertised and we took one step closer to thinking like engineers. I'm not sure that CS degrees cover something like that, but I'm curious to know if I'm wrong.
So try that kind of thing. You're already used to modeling (building) information processes. See how good you can get at building/modeling/analyzing physical processes. Not knowing things won't hold you back from learning the philosophy. It'll just make you less accurate.