<p>How are you guys handling the engineering courses in college and how many hours per week on average do you spend studying? Are there any free time left for fun? I am a high school senior.. planning to enter Cal Poly SLO as either an EE or ME major. Any input would be appreciated.</p>
<p>The first two years of engineering for me were tough because I didn't understand anything (CompSci is too weird for me). After transferring to a different school (and changing to mechanical engineering) everything became clear. I used to be at my desk from 6pm-12am every night doing work. Now I don't do nearly as much because the assignments are less busy work and since I have a very strong understanding of the fundamentals I am able to finish most of the assignments quickly. But unlike other programs, my profs don't flood us with more work than is necessary. At my school it is very common for students to have jobs to pay their own tuition and that is imbedded in the culture. Students have so many obligations in addition to schoolwork that some profs don't go overboard with handing out assignments. My brother is in a more rigorous program and his workload is much more intense than mine because the nature of his school is to assign complicated assignments and lots of them.</p>
<p>im an EE major also and im spending like 7-12 hours a day studying. its do or die.</p>
<p>Daughter is in first year in engineering at UIUC. Her friends in A&S are studying about 20 hours a week. She is averaging about 45 a week.</p>
<p>Well I have taken a few Computer Science classes, and I have to say I studied far less in my Comp Science classes than I did in my advance math classes. So it depends on the person.</p>
<p>what classes are you (future)engineers taking?</p>
<p>You should be or should have taken AP Physics, probably AP chemistry, AP calc BC. Engineering courses if your school provides them(my brother's school offered civil engineering). Not only should you take courses but you should really ec it in some way. Contests mostly. Reading/learning it on your own. Some people are more lost than others when they enter their first year of engineering becuase they just decided that it would be an interesting field and did not dedicate time before college to study it.</p>
<p>Instead of taking AP Chem (which is a double block at my school), I took AP Comp sci, and AP Stat, that wasn't too bad right? (this was junior year, and i got a 5 and 4 on the AP exam)</p>
<p>Your courses should have been really science oriented in some way. AP chem is not necessary but it does open up options when you get there and you want to narrow down your engineering field choices.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies. Another question... what engineering majors are least difficult in terms of classes?</p>
<p>It all depends where your talents are. But generally I hear that electrical and chemical is among the most difficult and mechanical is in the easy range. I am MechE and it must not be too hard because I have some dumb people in my classes who manage to stay afloat. Not everyone will agree that MechE is the easiest but it definitely seems to be the most popular of the engineering majors.</p>
<p>I have to say Computer Science and Engineering are the easiest.</p>
<p>I have to totally disagree with computer science being the easiest. It may depend on which school you go to but I tried to be a CS major at Cornell (no pre-college experience with CS) and it killed me. I could never get above a C+. Even a MechE major I know (who has a 3.9 GPA) quit the second level CS course after seeing the first project. I guess some peoples' minds aren't configured to understand solving problems with code.</p>
<p>CS usually have to compleate the fewest number of courses, and their courses are not to difficult. I took a few CS classes, and my advance math classes were much more difficult.</p>
<p>Justinmeche, what do most mech eng. graduates usually do (what is the nature of their work) and how's the job outlook for ME grads?</p>
<p>Mechanical engineering is still one of the most demanded degrees so I imagine the job outlook is good (example: <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/12/pf/college/degrees_jobs/%5B/url%5D">http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/12/pf/college/degrees_jobs/</a>).</p>
<p>The main focus of the MechE courses is to get the students to be good at designing things and making sure they meet the specified requirements. This is a big part of my stress analysis course. My other courses deal with fluid mechanics, kinematics, thermodynamics, etc. However, not all MechE graduates go on to design things. For example, I had an internship as a project engineer in a manufacturing facility. The engineers that I worked with didn't design much of anything. It was our job to coordinate projects. The means dealing with money, manufacturing personnel, contractors, etc. If we needed any engineering analysis done we had to bring in engineering contractors to do it. One project that I did involved installing an additional some extra machines. I had to write up requests for the money, review piping and instrumentation diagrams, hire contractors to do stress analysis of the floor system, etc. In addition to project I had to help with the day-to-day tasks of keeping the plant in good shape.</p>
<p>So what you end up doing as a mechanical engineer depends on your talents and what company you work for.</p>
<p>umm...may i ask if any materials engineers out there? i applied for materials engineering at Cal Poly SLO and the only information that i can find is that they deal with polymers, metals and stuff that relates to chemistry. how is the employment for this field and is it really hard? </p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p>Do you engineer students get a lot of on hands training? I can't learn if I'm doing nothing but reading a book</p>
<p>I've planned on EE as well. From what I've heard from some of the kids at SLO, it's a very tough course. My dad was an EE major as well - I think he told me his study time was anywhere from 8 to 10 hours a day during college.</p>
<p>The payoff is rewarding though. About a couple of months after he received his degree, he landed a job a Western Digital and later went on to work for Toshiba, after the massive layoff at WD.</p>
<p>Courses for my major this year:</p>
<ul>
<li>AP Calculus BC</li>
<li>AP Physics C (Though my teacher tells me we'll be taking the test on mechanics, not electricity and magnetism).</li>
</ul>
<p>Unfortunately, those are pretty much the only classes at my school that I would find suitable for engineers.</p>
<p>Probably going to enroll in some JC courses during summer - differential equations perhaps.</p>
<p>meh, 8 to 10 hrs, sounds really scary. I assume I won't have a life anytime soon. </p>
<p>I am an EE major(1st yr) as well.</p>