<p>I'll only get up to pre-calc at my high school senior year. I think i just have a bad foundation and didn't try that hard in middle school, which i regret, but i just don't get math. My SAT math score is 660, but i'm definitely going to try to get that up. But my dream is to become an aerospace engineer, since I'm just fascinated with aircraft and i would love to design an airplane that can benefit whoever i'm designing it for.
The thing is, should i still consider it? I don't think i'm made for engineering.</p>
<p>Are you treating being bad at math and just being a little behind in math as the same thing? Just because you will only have taken pre-call doesn’t mean you are necessarily bad at math as a whole.</p>
<p>Aerospace engineering is definitely one of the more math-heavy flavors of engineering, though.</p>
<p>First of all, your math SAT score is not terrible, it’s technically well above average (which is somewhere between 500-550). Second, pre-calc is where most colleges expect you to be at when starting off as a freshman. You would start your first semester in college taking Calc 1. The more competitive students tend to have AP credits which allow them to start off at Calc 2 or 3, but these are special cases, and it’s certainly not required to have AP credits in order to be successful in any engineering major. Rest assured, your situation is completely normal. </p>
<p>Personally, I think as long as you are comfortable with math overall, and aren’t intimidated by it, you will likely do fine. What kind of grades have you been getting in your HS math courses?</p>
<p>i had a B+ in geometry, high got all A’s in Algebra, and currently i have an A in Algebra 2</p>
<p>Yeah, I think you’ll do fine. FWIW, Algebra is a real sticking point for calculus… you really need to be good at re-arranging/simplifying equations. If you can do that well, calculus will be rather straightforward.</p>
<p>As @fractalmaster said, all but the rarest schools have plans to accommodate freshman who enter having pre-calculus as seniors in HS. What’s more important than where you are in math is how well you “get it.” Don’t get me wrong, you’re ahead if you enter with advanced math AND you understand it well. If you can only have one or the other, comprehension trumps advanced status every day. It’s foundational, very difficult to backfill. </p>
<p>My Calc teacher said it best. “Calculus is easy, Algebra is the hard part”</p>
<p>I’ve met many engineering/computer science majors at my school that either finished their senior year with pre-cal or were taking pre-cal their first semester of school. Yes Algebra is vital in order to successfully pass the Calculus courses, as my Calc. 3 professor tells my class a lot, but many students who are willing to put in the time and effort to not just pass by the courses and actually grasp each concept can obtain an engineering degree.</p>
<p>You may want to check your algebra, geometry, and trigonometry knowledge with these placement tests:</p>
<p><a href=“http://math.tntech.edu/e-math/placement/index.html”>http://math.tntech.edu/e-math/placement/index.html</a>
<a href=“http://math.berkeley.edu/courses/choosing/placement-exam”>http://math.berkeley.edu/courses/choosing/placement-exam</a></p>
<p>Going to college with knowing up to pre-calc isn’t bad. Some people either only went up to Algebra 1 or turned out to not know anything they learned (probably not the case for you given your math SAT score) and get placed in intermediate algebra and have to take maybe 3 more math classes in college before they can start calculus. Most engineers at my school are ready to start calculus their first semester of college. It looks like you will be ready to start calculus your freshman year so it doesn’t really hold you back. The main difference will be that you could be in a classroom of students in your calculus 1 class that already took calculus in high school (liklihood depends on school, class etc.) which would give them an advantage over you. The greatest of math students that took calculus in high school would test out and not be in your class. The fact that you are finishing high school with pre-calculus should have zero effect on whether or not you choose to do engineering.</p>
<p>Your math grades and SAT score don’t indicate that you are “bad” at math. Sure, some other students are better at math, but that doesn’t mean that you are bad at math.</p>
<p>A better question is whether you like or hate doing math. Engineering majors have to take a lot of math in college, and if you hate doing math, you probably wouldn’t enjoy being an engineering major. </p>
<p>If you really want to major in engineering, you may be better off going to a slightly less selective University than the best schools that you could get accepted to, so that you would be more likely to be successful. </p>
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<p>I don’t know why some people think less selective = easier to pass. If that were the case, we should have tiers of engineering degrees based on rigor - Level 1 Engineering Degree, Level 2, etc… Not the case.</p>
<p>Calculus is Calculus. Differential Equations is Differential Equations… it doesn’t really matter where you take the class, it’s still going to be difficult, and the variation in curriculum is usually minimal. It is also statistically likely that there will be at least one high achiever in any class who will set the curve.</p>
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<p>Sorry, but that is just the reality. As an engineering manager, when hiring, I can make assumptions about the quality of engineering education received at MIT vs. no name directional state U. But if this student somehow miraculously got accepted to MIT, he or she would be highly unlikely to graduate with a degree in engineering there, because the expectations would be too high, and there would be plenty of peer students who could meet those expectations.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that engineering is easy anywhere. All engineering schools will meet a high level of rigor. But professors do need to teach to the ability level of the students in their classes, so the level of rigor will be higher at stronger schools.</p>
<p>To follow up to the above post, an engineering student can graduate with B’s and C’s. But the academic level required to get B’s and C’s will differ at different schools. </p>
<p>As an example, consider SUNY Buffalo, which has a good engineering school and which I recommend to students whose stats are not good enough for more selective schools. If a SUNY Buffalo students gets a B in a physics class, for example, do you really think that the same student if transplanted at MIT could do the same amount of work and would get a B in the physics class? </p>
<p>@Fractalmstr wrote: “Calculus is Calculus. Differential Equations is Differential Equations… it doesn’t really matter where you take the class, it’s still going to be difficult, and the variation in curriculum is usually minimal. It is also statistically likely that there will be at least one high achiever in any class who will set the curve.”</p>
<p>Your first sentence is absolutely true. It is your second sentence that I disagree with. I had plenty of classes (math, physics, thermo, etc) where one or two people would get 90s on a test but the class average would be very low and the prof would curve to the average and not the highest score. </p>
<p>Imagine in a 100 person class that you had 97 people in the 40s and 50s on a test, one person with an 85, and two with 90’s. No prof is going to fail 97% of his class. </p>
<p>^ I took Calc 1 and 3 at the public state flagship but took Calc 2 at a local CC over the summer. The CC course was taught very differently and the assignments and exams were easier. That summer was the only time I got an A in calc. I don’t know how true this is in math, but in economics there are different textbooks targeted toward different quality colleges. So an econ 101 course would not be the same everywhere and I guess that is true about calculus. </p>
<p>Earlier in this thread someone wrote that one drawback to only having pre-calc in HS is getting to college and having others in your class who are already familiar with calculus. When I got to college my calc prof asked the class on our first day how many had taken calc before and I was the only one who didn’t raise my hand. I went on the take all the math that an engineer takes but I can tell you that I struggled at first because I was behind the other students. </p>
<p>You can absolutely do engineering, but I would highly recommend getting tutored in calc the summer after your senior year so that you go in on a more even footing. </p>
<p>“Calculus is Calculus.” - True. But some schools cram more topics / depth into a semester than others. </p>
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<p>True, although the difference is most noticeable at a very small number of elite schools – MIT (calculus is accelerated so that first semester covers what is ordinarily two semesters of calculus), Caltech (calculus is accelerated and taught at a theoretical level, requiring previous “regular” calculus experience), Harvey Mudd (like Caltech).</p>
<p>At most other schools, the difference in pace of covering material between different schools is probably on the order of 10-20%, since going any slower would be too slow for an engineering (or math or physics) major to graduate in eight semesters. Of course, even the slowest paced calculus for engineering majors course in college will be at a significantly faster pace than high school calculus AB courses.</p>
<p>What may be most noticeable in math courses for engineering majors at less selective schools is that linear algebra and differential equations are separate courses instead of a combined course, and not all majors require both (where the 10-20% slower pace results in that material not being taken in the typical amount of credits of math the student needs to take).</p>
<p>Physics may show similar small differences between various non-elite schools. For example, the first two semesters of physics for engineering majors may include just mechanics and E&M at some schools, but may include other topics like thermodynamics at other schools.</p>
<p>^ Agreed. </p>
<p>I went to a more typical engineering school. But I have a hs friend that went to MIT (and was stunned by the pace of her Calc classes). DS t applied to MIT and Mudd… .so I’ve noticed the related .comments in CC threads. </p>
<p>Note - Calc and higher level math are mportant to engineering academics, especially for those that go on to grad school. You have to survive it. But you might not use after graduation. </p>