<p>Perhaps one of my worst fears is that I'm not intelligent enough to successfully pursue a major in my main field of interest: computer science/engineering. I work extremely hard in comparison to my friends and classmates, but I'm not the most intelligent. I hold myself in comparison to the "geniuses" that take Calc BC their junior years, and vector calculus at a community college their senior years. My mind is not as quick as theirs. Instead, I take precalculus as a junior and am due to take Calc BC as a senior. I love my math classes and cruise through them (precalc and AP Stats this year), but their focus is on algorithmic problem solving. Where I truly suffer is logical problem solving, as with the math tested on the SAT.</p>
<p>My Physics C (mechanics) class also exemplifies this. The teacher is really, really bad. The problems are tough, and I often have no idea what to do in order to solve a problem (as the problems are very open-ended). These factors combine to produce disaster for the majority of the students in the class. Yet, somehow, there's one kid in there that has had no previous background in physics, hardly ever pays attention, and still aces the class without effort. Physics has been one of my favorite classes this year, but I just suck at it - maybe I'd be better if I had a better teacher? I have no idea.</p>
<p>Overall, I'm just not as intelligent as these "geniuses." I assume that CC is made up primarily of these geniuses, as an SAT score below 2000 is very rare around here. Well, my SAT score (first sitting, only sitting so far) was an 1860, with a 600 on the math section.</p>
<p>Do you have to be a "genius" to become an engineer? Can I make it through an engineering major at a college like Berkeley and become a successful engineer? I took AP Comp Sci A last year and absolutely loved the class, and I got a 4 on the AP exam. I'm just so ridiculously scared that I'm not intelligent enough, that the classes in college will make no sense to me, and that I'll drop out and have to pursue some major that I'd really dislike (like English) to survive.</p>
<p>You sound similar to me… In more ways than anyone who isn’t me could figure. </p>
<p>Anyway, I sucked at BC. I’m doing okay in my mechanics class in college (I didn’t take AP Physics), and I did pretty well in my intro C++ class in college (I guess it was equivocal to AP CS AB…?). I had a 29 ACT, which is about equivocal to that 1860 SAT (though I had a 34 Math I think). </p>
<p>Anyway, I was probably one of the dumbest kids in my BC class (literally… probably bottom 20%). I go to a strong state university, and found that most of the kids here (at least that I’ve met) are no where near as smart as the kids in my BC class were. Not being as smart as the other kids in BC doesn’t mean you’re not as smart as the average kid at Berkeley (given, Berkeley is stronger than my school, but not much). At my school, the average ACT is a 31 (mid 75% is 29-33), the average GPA is a 2.9, and my GPA is a 3.4. Despite test scores telling me my GPA should end up at about a 2.5-2.6 (assuming a very strong correlation between test scores and college GPA) I’m nearly a full point beyond that. </p>
<p>To interpret that for you, test scores don’t mean ****. The geniuses in your high school will still be geniuses in college, and there’s a good chance that if you go to a strong high school there’ll be fewer of them in college. And if care about doing well, you can do well.</p>
<p>Don’t believe the hype. If you do your homework and go to class, you’ll be ok. You are way ahead of where I was when I decided on engineering. I had to take precalc in college, and lots of others did too.</p>
<p>If you already know everything then school is a waste. you’ll be fine, just study hard. Engineering isn’t about being a genius, it’s about admitting what you don’t know and the “figuring it out”.</p>
<p>You don’t have to graduate from Berkeley to be a successful engineer. You can graduate from nearly every college that offers engineering and be successful.</p>
<p>Yes, the vast majority of people can study engineering and be successful… well, at least out of the people who would be successful doing anything. If you want to do engineering, go for it.</p>
<p>This is awesome! I find myself in the same position, though my test scores are higher. I go to a fairly competitive high school very bright students. I’m definitely smarter than the average person, but I am by no means a genius. While I work hard and work my butt off to get a 3.5, my friends do all their homework in the morning in the cafeteria before school starts and get 3.9’s. I am top 14%, but I am having revelations. </p>
<p>Since probably Freshman/Sophomore year, I knew I wanted to do something with computers and engineering, so I figured my best route was Computer Engineering. But after looking at some course lists, I’ve found a lot of these courses focus solely on circuits, which, Freshman year honors physics - we did a chapter on circuits, and I wasn’t spectacular, but neither were many of my friends (we had a VERY, VERY tough, almost professor-like teacher that I’ll have next year in AP Physics again).</p>
<p>I mean, I held my own on the circuits, but I definitely hit some rough patches - I didn’t fly through it as many people discover their passions while doing.</p>
<p>And sometimes, I feel like I am going to be left behind doing Computer Engineering at these “good” universities I’m going to be going to (GT is maybe a low match, UIUC is probably a match, Purdue College of Engineering is probably a high match, Carnegie Mellon a low reach, etc…). The kids I will be in classes with will probably be freakin’ geniuses and already have research to their name and have already taken these Freshman classes at Community College/summer programs. And meanwhile, I’m going to get discouraged and fall back and eventually have to change majors. It does make me really, really nervous to be honest.</p>
<p>While I learned a lot of valuable skills in high school, none of them were academic. Everyone whos mentioned their scores on here has done better than I did in high school.</p>
<p>In any case, work ethic and ambition will carry you a long way. I work harder than most people I know here, but I take pride in that. Youll find that having the intellectual power that some people do is a complete waste when they have no common sense or work ethic. Despite the fact that I work harder than most, it makes no difference on paper and with a little luck Ill be graduating with a 3.5 in the near future. Ive had more offers and interviews for internships than nearly everyone I know, and without a doubt Ill have a slew of options when I graduate.</p>
<p>Not my family, nor my friends, nor my high school teachers would have told me I could succeed at what Ive done in college. Set extreme goals with a clear picture of what you want to do and put in as much effort to realize them as it takes. Use what youre naturally good at to your advantage, for me, Ive managed to create an extensive network of people to rely on for academic affairs and in turn I help them out socially and with job hunting ventures.</p>
<p>Any goal that you wish to achieve in life requires confidence. If you have no confidence in yourself, then you might as well just give up now. You know engineering is extremely difficult, don’t give yourself the kind of room to start thinking like that. If youre familiar with Ronaldo, international soccer superstar, and you looked at him when he was 11 and you’d say that there is no way this little twig of a kid could ever play a sport. Now he offers up his services to a Spanish club to the tune of around 80 million euros. All he did was work hard. I know teachers and people who weren’t the smartest but they hold doctorate degrees because they were willing to get in and get their hands dirty and do what it takes.</p>
<p>Believe in yourself man, it’s the only way you’ll get through it.</p>
<p>There’s no such thing as “genius.” There is only determination and experience. Take 5 random individuals you consider “geniuses” and you will discover the characteristics they shared amongst each other were the ability to focus for extended periods of time and loved their work.</p>
<p>One often hears about Einstein’s work on the photoelectric effect and relativity but rarely about the long, frustrating years formulating his ideas while working at the Bern patent office; one also hears about Newton and his “apple” that led him to the idea of gravity but seldom about the 2+ years he spent studying the concepts that led to his discoveries. </p>
<p>More examples? Mozart, Leonardo daVinci, Adam Smith, Descartes, John Locke, Galileo, Feynman, Marie Curie, etc. all these individuals loved their work and were able to focus for long hours on “boring” tasks.</p>
<p>And this is the reason we consider them “genius.” How many of us are willing to spend years of our life searching for an answer that we might or might not find? How many of us are willing to repeat boring, repetitive tasks in search of that goal? Are you willing to spend days and nights doing homework in order to obtain knowledge?</p>
<p>^I believe “genius” is simply defined as someone with an IQ 3 standard deviations above the median on most scales. Lots of those guys were probably geniuses, and had the traits you describe. I don’t know if you didn’t know that or if you were just trying to imply that our common usage of the word “genius” is inappropriate, but as “genius” is defined, geniuses do exist. Infact, there’s about 9 million of them.</p>
<p>I doubt that he/she is a magical student that completely aces this apparently terrible physics with no effort. I would ask this student how they achieve these good grades. Maybe, he/she has a tutor, a favorite website, a specific review method etc. Press for answers and and ask for specific details.</p>
<p>Try asking to be his/her study partner for a test or two to find his method.</p>
<p>If you’re hard working you will do fine. You probably won’t get a 4.0 GPA but you shouldn’t have too much trouble doing well. You just have to keep up the hard work for four more years.</p>
<p>Being smart definitely makes engineering easier but is not necessary. Obviously you need to be somewhat intelligent, but work ethic goes much farther than intelligence.</p>
<p>In college, attend office hours as much as possible and ask questions when you don’t understand. Professors and/or TAs will answer your questions. Study in groups.</p>
<p>The “Intelligent Quotient” or IQ is another useless phrase many people use to attempt to quantify the “worth” of an individual. The original purpose of IQ testing was to determine the level of mental retardation in an individual but somehow branched out into an “intelligence measuring” system. The problem is that this “intelligence measuring” system is flawed in the sense that it only measures how well you perform during a timed test and little else. An IQ test attempts to measure your level of accumulated knowledge but can not measure how efficiently you apply said knowledge, where you obtained that knowledge, how you obtained that knowledge, etc. </p>
<p>Let’s take Richard Feynman, for example. Feynman’s IQ score was measured at 125, brilliant yet not at the “genius” level (generally considered to be 140+); yet, Richard Feynman is widely considered as one of the most important physicists of the 20th century. How did he reach this point? The man loved his work and began from an early age.</p>
<p>It is preposterous to think one’s genes or “IQ” predetermines one into a specific path. How did Einstein get to be such a brilliant physicist? As a kid, he was fascinated by magnetic forces acting on a compass; Mozart began his training at infancy; Leonardo daVinci began his training at infancy; Alexander the Great was tutored from an early age by none other than Aristotle!</p>
<p>Ask yourself, how many students with high IQs currently enrolled at top universities are publishing Newtonian, Einstenian, or daVincian level work? How many of them possess the willpower to actually produce that level of work? Presently, achievements in science and technology are the result of group effort after a number of years.</p>
<p>IQ is just a convenient excuse for those of us who lack the willpower to focus on borderline impossible problems that might or might not have a solution. The ugly truth is that willpower is what differentiates the vast majority of us from those we place on a pedestal.</p>
<p>so many things will determine your success…some of the most important are</p>
<p>1.support structure:
Family and friends supporting/motivating you when you are frustrated or having a difficult time with getting good grades…if you lose your confidence in this game you’re done. </p>
<p>who you associate with:
Making friends within engineering college is good, making friends within the engineering college that are top of the class is better</p>
<p>habits:
consistent sleeping habits, clean study environment, study ethic</p>
<p>passion:
a genuine passion in science, learning the material, the knowledge means a lot to you etc. </p>
<p>Resilience:
almost all engineering students will fall on their ass in the beginning, but it’s those that get back up and blame themselves (as opposed to their professors/grading/etc.) and then adapt or improve by changing study habits that will succeed.</p>
<p>Just don’t let engineering psych you out. You don’t need any special monk powers to do well in engineering. It’s a subject you enjoy, and it’s a hard subject, but it’s a subject. The same thing you have always done to do well in subjects before will work again here. The material isn’t any harder than that of other subjects… if anything, it draws on a skillset that many people are not as comfortable with.</p>
<p>Just take a deep breath and go for it. If you go in thinking that it’s going to be an epic battle to get through with a 3.0, you’re probably going to end up being right.</p>
<p>For me, this is the most important aspect of being a good [insert anything here]. Discipline and proper planning is the essential key to learning/mastering any subject.</p>