Any current Purdue students around?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Purdue University
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<p>I will most likely attend Purdue in the fall. I have lived in cities for most of my life so coming to Purdue will be a big change. How is the atmosphere at Purdue, are the students friendly, is it really conservative as it is made out to be, are there a lot of activities on the campus, how is the city of west-lafayette? How is the food and the dorms?
and specifically for engineering students, how are the facilities and do you get a chance to network with fellow students?</p>

<p>Thanks for the answers.</p>

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<p>Me, my son and my son's friend created our own personal tour this past weekend and although I am a mom and not a current student, I can share what we experienced.</p>

<p>I feel like Purdue itself is a big city, lol...they have almost 40,000 students there and the town we are from is 30,000. Being such a huge school there is a TON to do. The counselor that the boys spoke with almost laughed when asked "is there stuff to do?" She said if you can't find something you are looking very hard! or something along that line.</p>

<p>The students were very friendly. I got us lost while trying to find a parking garage and then again trying to find admissions...both times students went out of their way to be helpful.</p>

<p>We ate lunch at Earhart and the food was super. Even my super-picky son found a ton of stuff he liked. The dorms? Like anyother dorms. The highrise tower dorms do have bigger rooms I was told.</p>

<p>My son if he attends there will be an honors engineering student and we bumped into two current engineering students while eating lunch, both his friends from high school. Both love it although they weren't in the engineering honors I imagine it would be the same.</p>

<p>Many first year classes are huge but the girl we ate with didn't see that as a problem if you get to class on time. Plus, there are help sessions everywhere in case you don't "get it" the first time. </p>

<p>Only there 3 hours but we had fun. Hope this helps.</p>

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<p>Mominin, did you get to see a room at Earhart? My son will be doing learning community there (that is, if Notre Dame rejects him in the next few days). I was wondering if they have the extra-long twin beds. He got his housing contract today but like I said, if ND rejects him, he's going to Purdue for sure; engineering major, too. We were impressed with Purdue's campus and the friendliness of the students, too.</p>

<p>Also, did you get any information on the Boiler Weekend? I was wondering when we get to pick which day we can go (we are out of state).</p>

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<p>The room we saw was in Harrison but I understand them to be very similar. At this link: <a href="http://www.housing.purdue.edu/HTML/HousingChoices/Earhart.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.housing.purdue.edu/HTML/HousingChoices/Earhart.htm&lt;/a> you can find out a lot about Earhart including bed size. It states 75", I think 80" is the extra long so 75 must be standard length?</p>

<p>I don't believe we got info on the Boiler weekend, at least I am not finding anything now. We did get a housing agreement which states that it is binding and must be returned by April 15th. Kind of makes me uneasy as I hope all the schools will have sent my son financial aid info by then! Kind of hard to make a decision on housing when you don't know for sure if it is "the school".</p>

<p>Best wishes to your son getting into Notre Dame. As great as Purdue seems, it was not my son's first or second choice. However, the first and second choice schools rejected him and one waitlisted him. Suddenly Purdue is seeming very appealing, especially for the instate tuition.</p>

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<p>i just got back from the SWEeties senior sleepover thing for high school senior girls interested in purdue engineering. we had a host, went to classes, stayed in earhart, ate at the earhart dining hall, and stuff like that. </p>

<p>i really liked the calc class i went to, but computer science just bored me out of my mind, but that seems to be a common feeling about that class. </p>

<p>Earhart wasn't a great dorm, but it was comfortable. I spoke to a bunch of girls there and they all agreed that earhart is the best, mainly because of the large number of engineering students and engineering students really need each other for studying, group projects, and stuff like that. </p>

<p>about learning communities, they had mixed feelings about that. The girls i talked with weren't in a learning community, though they considered their floor a pseudo learning community. they thought that while LC's provide a good academic support system, they felt that it kept you from really branching out and meeting people outside your community. while you can meet people, often people don't feel as great of a need to. </p>

<p>everyone i met there was friendly. i mostly met girls, but the few guys i met were nice. Something else i liked was that i met people that were more like me. Like i'm not exactly a social person and i prefer to just stay in and hang out rather than go out, and i met some people like that. </p>

<p>i also learned a lot about the engineering program itself. My host talked about which classes were weed out classes, the pros and cons of the honors program, tips on how to get through certain classes, just how rigorous freshman engineering can be because of the weed out classes, and also how to cope with a roommate, the importance of BGR, where to find good food, and a bunch of other stuff. if you want any detail on anything i mentioned, just ask. i figured my post is long enough as is, but i'll give more details if anyone wants it.</p>

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<p>Hey since you went there, can you answer some of my questions:</p>

<p>1) What classes are the weed-out classes and what tips did you get to get through them?
2) How is the freshman engineering program?
3) Can I get AP credits or take placement tests to get out of certain classes like I am taking AP calc, physics B, econ and english lit, I also want to get credit for chemistry, can I do that thru placement test?</p>

<p>Thanks for the help and the answers.</p>

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<p>1) weed out classes are ENGR 106, which is the intro to engineering problem solving using comuters or something like that, and the physics class is the other one. the key to getting through them is to not procrastinate. do all the homework. homework is only worth one point for each assignment, but the assignments add up and it really helps you learn the material. just do all the work and you'll pass.<br>
2) The freshman engineering is a challenge. first you have the weed out classes which will give you a lot of work, then you have all your other classes, which don't give as much work, but it all adds up to a huge amount. You'll be working long and hard for that first year. there are many sleepless nights, and a 4.0 is out of reach for many. in high school you might've gotten all A's with no problem, but at purdue you could very glad for C's. if you get below a C in certain classes, you'll have to retake them. It's a tough year, but it's doable as long as you're willing to work for it.<br>
3) with calc AB, you can take this accelerated calc course where you go through calc I-III in 2 semesters. if you take calc BC, i think you're able to go straight into calc III. english lit, won't get you anything except an english elective that will help you satisfy gen ed. it won't get you out of comp. same with econ and physics B (physics actually won't give you any gen ed credit, which is mostly social studies, english, fine arts classes). also about getting out of chemistry, you can do that by either taking an advanced credit or CLEP exam. I'm assuming you're not going into a chemical related field, like ag/bio E, biomed, chemE, nucE, materials, and whatnot. if you are going into something like that, you should take the class to make sure you have a solid foundation.</p>

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<p>test out of com 114 and chemistry. com 114 is the biggest nonsense class ever and the grades handed out in that class are very arbitrary and highly variable amongst the TA's. i hear this is similar with freshman english ( i tested out of english). chemistry is probably the hardest class that i have and is the one class that you should DEFINTELY TEST OUT OF. i find this somewhat interesting, because i'm taking junior level math courses that i think are easier than freshman chemistry. </p>

<p>from what i have seen from some of my peers, i learned in my hs ap calculus class than they teach here, same with physics (i mainly self studied physics C senior year). the general consensus also seems to be that calc 2 is fairly difficult, as i tutor quite a number of kids before each test</p>

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<p>does anyone know if one can double major at Purdue? say engineering and economics.</p>

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<p>thanx for the information about the campus etc. I have found that pretty helpful . Like boomer01 , I too will find it difficult to adapt as i am currently living in the world 3rd largest city [mumbai,india] which has 18.5 million residents which makes purdue's 40k look a LI"L "small" TO SAY THE LEAST >> HEHE !!</p>

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<p>you can double major if you want. its important that you look at the requirements early though so you dont get started on it late. the advisors will almost certainly tell you its hard and not recommend, but i recommend go through the first semester and ask yourself i you want to do it and if you can handle it. my roomate is a cs major who is minoring in math and ece and got a 4.0 last semester and probably didn't work half as hard as other cs majors. it really depends on the individual.</p>

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<p>p.s. econ 251 (if you decide to take it first semester) is ridiculously easy. most of my friends took it and got A's in the class w/out going to class.</p>

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<p>boomer01</p>

<p>I would suggest taking the Physics 152 test out exam it is all stuff that you covered in physics B and possibly before. ENGR 106 and PHYS 152 are the weed out classes...they are very time consuming more than anything. Like CK61188 said, you just really need to keep up on the work. It isn't hard stuff; just a lot of busy work as soon as you start to get behind you will stay that way. ENGR 106 is a very important class. I still use the information that I learned there in most of my engineering classes and I believe all other engineering majors are similar. Calc 2 is more difficult than Calc 1 and I think all the other math classes after that were easy. I would suggest trying to test out of as much as you can especially foreign languages. The foreign language exams are really easy, you will be very grateful for the credits later, and there is no harm in trying even if you don't pass. I earned 6 credits for Spanish when I only took it for 3 years in a very poorly taught high school program and hadn't seen any of it for about 3 years. Best of Luck. If you have any more questions, you are more than welcome to email me through the forum.</p>

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<p>i didn't really think that physics 152 was all that time-consuming. the first test in physics 152 had like 40-60 people who received 100's on the exam. most people i knew didn't have too much trouble with this class. more people i knew had trouble with engr 106, but i dont really think its a 'necessary' class. conceptually engr 106 is very easy; honestly i think you could learn the stuff in engr 106 by yourself in a few weeks.</p>

<p>calc 2 is hard if you thought the ap calculus test was hard. although i didn't take calc 2 @ purdue (tested out), i tutored about 4 people in my hall and looked at the tests. the questions are about ap-level, so if you thought the ap calc exam was a easy 5, then you will have no problem with it. </p>

<p>if anyone is taking ma 271 (testing out of calc 1 & 2), the class is somewhat difficult, because you move through calc 3 very rapidly. with the teacher i had, we covered ALL of calc 3 +vector calc in about a month. ma 261 is the non-honors equivalent, and from the comments of people who dropped 271 is much easier. </p>

<p>in my opinion, the hardest class i had was chem 116. i believe our class curved by about 12-14 pts. A 78 was an A in that class.</p>

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<p>I don't think that PHYS 152 and ENGR 106 were difficult classes at all...I just think they took time, lots of busy work. I do use what I learned in ENGR 106 all the time, just about all of my classes require work with Matlab and you will have to do Matlab work in Linear Algebra. I know a lot of people who tested out of calc 2 but couldn't handle MA 271 and decided to take calc 2 instead. I know most of them had trouble with calc 2, but not all of them. There are some fortunate people who had a great high school program and had no trouble at all in MA 271. I think Chm 116 wasn't too bad at all but not the easiest class either, and I didn't have Chemistry since 10th grade. A lot depends on who you have for an instructor. If you have Nurrenbern you will do much better. Some of the other professors for CHM 116 try to make the exams really hard. You will realize that a lot of professors do that in engineering. Just don't get discouraged. I guess a lot of this you will realize after you get into your engineering school. It would have been nice to have someone telling me this when I was starting Freshman engineering.</p>

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<p>yeah i can see where your coming from in chm 116. i didn't really attend class for chm and phys, and mainly just self studied. i had already tested out of physics, but took it anyways for an easy grade. chm was pretty difficult, but i dont think i would have benefited from attending lecture/recitation because my lecturer was pretty bad to begin with. i didn't have matlab when i took linear algebra (i took 351). mine was a bit more proof-based, but maybe you were talking about 265.</p>

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<p>what kind of programming course do the engineers take in the first year?
Also can you choose to attend different lecture section than the one assigned to you if the lecturer is not that good?</p>

<p>Edit: For Engr 106, is there a lot of group work, what makes it "busy work"? where do you guys go for help if you are having trouble with a class?</p>

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<p>In every class you will have TAs that have office hours so you can get some help from them if needed. Some profs are willing to help you too. There are also some classes that have supplemental instruction. This website has a list of the classes that have supplemental instruction and when it is <a href="http://www.cla.purdue.edu/asc/si/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cla.purdue.edu/asc/si/&lt;/a>. If you don't like your prof, you can always go to your advisor and try to get your section changed. If you decide to just go to the other section, I would go to your assigned section too until you find out how the exams will be. There are a lot of profs who don't agree with the others teaching so they make their own exam rather than collaborating to make one. </p>

<p>I think ENGR 106 is busy work because all of the work they assign you will be VERY time consuming and easily learned with having less work than what they give you. </p>

<p>If you don't take honors courses, you will take CS 158/156 Intro to C programming. I don't know much about the course now because when I went through it, the prof was leaving PU after that semester and wanted everyone to have an A. He gave us every answer to the final and would do the labs and projects for you if you just looked like you were trying. Honors programming ENGR 117 is fortran and C. </p>

<p>If you go to <a href="https://engineering.purdue.edu/ENE/FirstYear%5B/url%5D"&gt;https://engineering.purdue.edu/ENE/FirstYear&lt;/a> you can get a lot of info about first year engineering, the classes you will be taking, and some help on deciding an engineering school to go into, if you don't already have an idea. Hope this helps.</p>

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<p>CS 158 is taught by the most imcompetent individual EVER right now. His name is Bill Crum and some facts about him:</p>

<p>he does not have a Ph.D.; never majored in computer science. he studied earth & atmospheric sciences undergrad and studied GENERAL SCIENCE for his master's. he does not know what he's talking about and in general most people have a very low opinion about the class and the teacher. in fact, my roomie (CS major) had to take a C programming class (100 level higher though) and said that a lot of the stuff they teach you is wrong. class isn't horribly hard, but the incompetence and stupidity of the class will def. get to you. classic examples were the 2nd test where 9 questions were completely wrong on the answer key....</p>

<p>anyways, i have found that doing research and trying to learn things by yourself works the well. of course get in contact with your prof or ta if your totally lost, but i've found that doing research just online about topics that are somewhat confusing in class helps a lot. sometimes online resources can give you a lot better visualizations or examples that can easily clear up confusion.</p>

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<p>squirrelly's interpretation of engr 106 is very correct. they make you learn some very basic things in unix and excel that could easily be solved by pressing the f1 key.</p>