I’m planning out my courses for junior and senior year, and my goal is to go into engineering at Notre Dame. If you’re an engineering major, what did you take and was it beneficial?
Both my parents were engineers, you should take these courses if you have the chance,
Physics 1,2, and C
Calculus AB/BC/Multi Var
Chemistry
Statistics
Computer science
And if you want to specialize in, let’s say, biomedical engineering then follow common sense and take biology and Human anatomy.
At a minimum, get through Calculus in Math.
Take Bio, Chem, Physics (or AP Physics 1) and then AP Physics or AP Chem or AP Bio (only if Bio medical Eng)
It would be helpful to take a CS so college isn’t the first time you learn to program.
I had no need for Stats. Worry about Calc first.
But that doesnt mean you shouldn’t avoid other classes such as English or history, which are equally important because colleges want engineers who are, ya know, literate
Start with the high school college prep base curriculum:
Pay particular attention to:
Math: minimum precalculus; take calculus if available to you. A sufficiently high AP calculus score may give you advanced placement in math, which could give you more schedule flexibility in college by shortening some prerequisite sequences. If an engineering major needs statistics, it will likely want calculus-based statistics, so AP statistics is unlikely to give advanced placement or subject credit.
Science: of the three sciences that you should take, physics and chemistry are the most important (biology also for biomedical engineering); take more advanced or AP courses in them if available.
Academic electives: AP CS principles is a good idea generally. AP CS A is sometimes useful for advanced placement in computer science or engineering at schools with a Java-based data structures course.
Note: if you want to use scores in AP calculus or physics (or chemistry if you need to take additional chemistry courses) for advanced placement, it is best to try the college’s old final exams of the courses that you are allowed to skip, to ensure that you know the material well from the college’s point of view. You may need to review a few topics before going on to the next course. Or retake the course if most things on the old final exam are too difficult.
My engineering senior daughter took math through AP Calculus A/B and AP Physics, her high school also offered AP Chem but she didn’t take it. She re-took those classes freshman year to make sure she had them solid which worked out well for her. She ended up on the Deans List each semester (at Purdue where happy grading doesn’t exist) and had no problem getting into her desired engineeering major. If you go to a high school that offers higher level math, you might want to take more than that but from what I can tell the colleges are look at your program rigor (in the context of what your school offers) your GPA and - very important - your standardized test scores. Engineers are very numbers oriented. They’d rather take a kid with great scores and grades and teach them college level math and science than to take someone who got mediocre grades in those same classes in high school.