Among the older set, the phrase "young and stupid" is considered to be one word.

Consider: When you were 15 years old, if you bothered to think about it, you would have thought that you were pretty dumb when you were 10. When you were 20, you should have known that you were pretty dumb when you were 15. Apply inductive reasoning.

No matter how old you are or how much you've learned, you're pretty dumb. You always will be. Deal with it the best you can.

Given our finite lifetimes, it's not overly useful to know that we'll always be dumb. So apply a relative scale of dumbness. Among engineers it breaks down pretty much as follows:

Under 30: Wet behind the ears newbie. Doesn't have enough knowledge or experience to be useful.

30 to 40: Might have learned enough to do useful work. Not great work, but useful.

40 to 50: Should be able to do acceptable quality work. You wanna hire these guys.

Over 50: This is as good as it gets. If you absolutely need top quality work, hire this group.

Now I know all you young guys are not going to be very receptive to this. You're convinced that you're really good engineers. Get a dictionary and look up the word sophomoric. Also consider the results of recent research that shows what most of us already knew through experience and common sense: that in most cases incompetent people don't know they're incompetent.

If you're one of the younger set, please don't let this discourage you. We all gotta start somewhere. If you don't start at all, you don't have any chance of learning to be useful. But be aware of the fact that there will always be those who are more experienced, knowledgeable and useful than you are. There's room enough in the boat for all of us.