<p>Hey guys,
I'm gonna be a freshman with a pref for petroleum engineering. I've heard people say that all engineers take basically the same classes as freshmen. My question is how hard is this intro to engineering class? Numerous have said that its the weed out class and that its pretty darn hard. For all the people who have already gone through this class, do y'all have any input on the nature of the class and any other tips in general for the class?</p>
<p>ENG 111 is not hard. It’s a class which tests you ability to work in groups, that’s about it. You learn basic engineering graphics and simple free body diagram stuff. Not need to worry about it. Calculus and Physics are the real “weed out courses” if there is such a thing. </p>
<p>I was in track A last semester, and it was absolutely awful the amount of work they gave us on top of not teaching any of material well at all. 3 group projects, “learning” teaching ourselves how to program, teambuilding skills, other random things, on top of a weekly assignment that takes several hours. Course was a mishmash of too many things that the professors just glossed over. I didn’t think it was that hard, just sucked immense amount of time out of my other classes. </p>
<p>As for advice, I literally have no idea how to give any advice other than make some friends in the class and work together on the assignments and study together.</p>
<p>^ That’s exactly the kind of thing my son said about the course. </p>
<p>And like chaoswithinthed said, my son wouldn’t describe 111 as a weed out course either, except for the fact that it turns some students off to the prospect of an engineering degree. It seems that the Dwight School would want to make the introductory engineering course more enticing and palatable! But what do I know anyway? :)</p>
<p>Thanks guys … This definitely gives me more perspective into what I’m about to face</p>
<p>They are completely changing freshman year for engineers, last year we choose our specific major and depending on the major we were put in one of three engineering tracks: A, B, and C. Track A engineering by lightyears was the most difficult and most time consuming as my roommate was track B and it was practically a blow-off.</p>
<p>But this year engineers just come in as engineers not the specific major, so I am not sure how Engr 111/112 will be treated and run. (I’ve heard rumors that it will be like track A last year).</p>
<p>What made track a so difficult ? I mean do all the majors not take the same engr-111 class? Also are the professors pretty good for these classes? My schedule doesn’t have an instructor for this class specifically</p>
<p>Yes, at least in the past, all engineering majors took the same engr 111 class – but in different sections. According to my son, there were wide variations in grading policies across the sections. I just learned from RadHealth’s descriptions on another thread that my son was in Track A. I wasn’t previously aware of the different named tracks. </p>
<p>Anyway, one of my son’s chief complaints about this course was that students in his section were held to an extremely high standard for all grading. Their writing had to be near-professional to get an A. My son saw plenty of A-grade papers from other sections that he said would not have earned any better than a D in his own section. He’s not petty, and he’s not that competitive. He’s very kind and likes to see everybody do well. He would not have been putting the other students down. His complaint was with the faculty’s uneven grading policies. Students in his section had to be so “professional” and “perfect” in order to earn an A, while students in other sections mysteriously got A’s on really vague and incomplete papers. It’s only in learning that there were (or are) various tracks that I came to understand that my son may have been viewing papers from other tracks and that the uneven grading policies may have had more to do with which section one was in rather than with which faculty member was doing the grading. </p>
<p>Anyway, I think the projects themselves were very time consuming for all of the students, but my impression is that some of the students’ writing assignments following those projects were under much more scrutiny for grades. My son got his A. But he did not enjoy the inequities that he observed between sections.</p>