<p>Any other impressions or perspectives from current engineers? Sorry for the bump, but I'm still curious as to how hard it will be. Are the classes in Cornell comparable to AP classes?</p>
<p>Also who is this Arjun character that the OP referred to? I know its not relevant but I'm just really curious.</p>
<p>As an alumni of COE, so take my words with grain of salt. From my personal experience I can tell you that COE is probably hardest school to get a high GPA. Your curriculum is set at the beginning of your freshman year, so you really don't have a lot of freedoms to take easy courses (i.e.,rural sociology, native american study) that have A/A+ median grades. My friends from A&S or Ag were able to take all those easy courses to make up their B/B+ from econometrics or organic chemistry. Also, the median grades for 200's and 300's engineering courses are around B/B-. I have seen so many of my friends (especially those ones who took a lot of AP courses back in high school) went from almost 4.0 in freshman year to around 3.5 at the end of their sophomore/junior year. </p>
<p>That being said, my advice to you all is major in something that you truly enjoy. Please don't choose a major based on the outlook of GPA.</p>
<p>I agree with ecc. my roomate used to be in engineering and he nearly died from working on those physics problem sets which take forever. he said that not only did he not enjoy the classes at college of engineering, the content was so rigorous and unforgiving that anyone who wanted to "explore" engineering w/o serious interest in its courses was severely punished with horrible grades. but, if u truly enjoy the classes that are within engineering, then u should be fine.</p>
<p>How is engineering physics compared to the rest of the engineering majors?</p>
<p>I think engineering physics is supposed to be one of the hardest majors at Cornell.</p>
<p>My Mech.E. friend spent 4 hours on this one problem set from his mechanics of solids class and solved only one problem out of four, and he gets two of these a week. It gets pretty hard.</p>
<p>I know of a Electrical Engineering senior who has around a 4.2. When he takes classes that don't give out A+'s, it brings his GPA down. Pretty crazy, I know.</p>
<p>I mention this not to make you guys feel bad, but just to let you know that it is possible to do well in CoE. This kid isn't a nerd by any means, he just has great time management skills. The tennis coach has asked him to play a few times after hitting with him, he's founded a few clubs, and he already got into some great med schools. </p>
<p>Plus, he's really humble. I have a lot of respect for him.</p>
<p>There are always people who get 4.2 and 4.0. One of my good friends who did not study much finished his undergraduate year with a 4.0 GPA. There are always really smart people out there.</p>
<p>Hiawatha1919 brought up the most important thing, "time management skill." One of my friends who doubled majored in CoE and A&S ended up graduating in 4 years. He sometime took 30+ credits a semester and finished with close to 4.0 GPA. Yet, you still see him hanging out at parties and starting clubs on campus. He was able to do that because he was able to manage his time very efficiently. </p>
<p>I found myself only capable of balancing school and life with less than 20 credits a semester, so I chose not to sign up for more than 6 classes a semester. You just need to know your own limit and ability. I would recommend you guys not to push yourself too hard. I've been there and done that. I once went over my own limit and sacrificed my lifestyle. Although I ended up with 3.9+ for that semester, I was pretty much studying all the time and I did not have any fun that semester.</p>
<p>Once you graduate, no one really cares about your GPA. As long as you have a respectful GPA, no one is going to question your intelligence. Don't kill yourself to get a 4.0 GPA. Spend more time with your friends, get to know more people, involve in on-campus activities, and explore new things. These are the things you will remember years from now. These will be the fondest memories of your college years.</p>
<p>^--- I agree with this man.</p>
<p>^^^ very well said</p>
<p>Myarmin, when you say Engineering Physics is hard, do you mean it has a lot of work or it's just hard to understand?
Is it easy to discover and learn about the different majors before plunging into one?
Also, is anyone here in engineering physics?</p>
<p>So far to me it looks like all engineers get a decent amount of work, and I think AEP is supposed to be especially hard to understand. (I've already heard horror stories from other freshmen about honors physics, etc.) I think it helps to have your possible choices narrowed down... for instance I discovered after taking circuits this semester that ECE probably isn't for me, so I'll probably go for MechE.</p>