<p>Hey future cloners I just wanted to offer my services to you guys. Ive lived in different dorms, out of dorms, eaten everywhere, got bad grades, got good grades. Theres probably not many questions you could run by me that I wouldnt know, so feel free to ask away or message me if you want a private response.</p>
<p>PS- Engineering Student whose transferred around</p>
<p>Which section of on-campus housing do you recommend for sociable students?</p>
<p>How do you think a southern California kid would like Iowa State? Are there many west coast students on campus?</p>
<p>@Drakemom, I lived in the engineering “sector” of campus housing. More specifically Helser Hall and I found it amazing for meeting people. Since most of the kids there are freshman it allows for easy connections between kids. Also the east side of campus (MWL) is alright for meeting kids. I would try to stay away from Linden, oak, Elm and dorms like that. I never personally lived there but a lot of friends have and they said its not as social as say Helser or Willow.</p>
<p>Another thing about dorms that I would like to note is that a lot of kids/parents want to live in Friley and I do NOT suggest it when your a freshman. A lot of Friley residents are sophomores and therefore already kind of have their group of friends set and arent as social.</p>
<p>@RPSD, I knew one kid from Arizona, one from Malibu, and one from Hawaii. The weather will defiantly will be a huge adjustment, but other than that you should probably fit right in. There might not be many kids form the west coast but that doesnt mean you wont be able to meet people. I didnt know anyone coming here and I was from Chicago and meet some of my best friends in the first semester. If your worried about meeting people or not fitting it that wont be a problem, theres all kidns of kids here and you’ll be fine</p>
<p>What’s the aerospace program like? My son has been accepted. It is a backup if he doesn’t get into the program at CU-Boulder. With the ISU scholarship offer it would actually be cheaper for him to go to ISU than our in state flagship so I’m curious. Thanks.</p>
<p>Since no one chimed-in yet about aerospace, I thought I would offer my 2 cents. I can’t speak specifically for the aerospace program, but in general ISU is a great engineering school (and I’m not knocking other majors). Plenty of opportunities for research and internships compared to other schools. My son is in his 2nd year, ChemE major. He’s done research since his freshman year, had a great summer internship, and recently helped one of his mentoring professors publish and present a white paper. ISU was a backup choice for my son, but when we visited the campus we were pleasantly surprised how much they had to offer. The staff and faculty treated us very well (and still do!). Anyway, I know I didn’t answer your question about aerospace, but I hope this helps. One word of advice though, freshman engineering students tend to change majors, so evaluate your school choices overall. Good luck with your decision.</p>
<p>Thank you Jasper. If Son doesn’t get into CU program, we may plan a visit.</p>
<p>I have 5 or 6 friends in Aerospace engineering and all I can say from my experience is that it is hard but rewarding. It takes a lot of time to program, build models and everything and I know it is one of the most dropped out of majors for freshman. But if you are willing to take the time to do everything and look for jobs I know it is also one of the highest paying out of ISU, plus with companies like Lookhead Martin coming to the career fair and sponsoring on campus events there are plenty of opportunity.</p>
<p>Thanks. Sail-Away. I personally haven’t figured out why S is applying for aerospace, unless it is the big Colorado presence of companies like Lockheed and Ball Aerospace. I expect him to switch to Mech or Civil after he actuallly gets a tstae of it.</p>
<p>Well, Im construction (subset of civil) and all my buddies are Mechanical so if he has any questions about either department I will probably know the answer to, let me know.</p>
<p>I’m a sophomore / junior in AerE.</p>
<p>Most people drop out of the first year, with the 160/ 161 sequence. They abhor the FORTRAN programming, and with good reason. FORTRAN is a dated programming language, however, it is awesome at crunching numbers. I have spent ungodly amounts of hours, at ungodly hours of the day, sitting in the 2228 Howe linux lab hashing out code after code after code.</p>
<p>A poster mentioned previously that it’s a harder one, and it is, but if you’re willing to spend the time, and forego a lot of your social time, then it isn’t very hard. I think most of the freshman drop out really because they want to party, and find that this major doesn’t give them very much time for that. </p>
<p>For example: this semester, I went about campus-town maybe twice, and that was back in October. Since then, I’ve been holed up in my room doing engineering mechanics problems and fortran programming.</p>
<p>I would suggest that your son buy a fortran book during the summer BEFORE joining the program, and practice a little. It will make 160 a breeze. Also, during the break between 160 and 161, your son should still practice FORTRAN. I would also suggest visiting the engineering software website and downloading a free copy of Matlab and toying around with that. In 161, Dana throws a project at you right off the bat where you have to “force” fortran to do something it’s not designed to do. This program kept me up late at night, and burnt more cups of coffee than I can count.</p>
<p>Really though, it’s not too hard. It’s just that the aero core classes are pretty time consuming, and they don’t leave much time for the harder courses, like PHYS 221 and 222, or mechanics of materials. </p>
<p>On the plus side: the Aero faculty is, in my opinion, one of the best at ISU. This is evident by how the students are allowed to call most of their prof’s by their first names, and are even encouraged to! John and Dana really care about getting the freshman class past 160 / 161, and sometimes (not always, they’re still pretty busy) they will go out of their way to make sure you understand what’s going on. </p>
<p>Bottom line though: tell your son to be prepared to watch his friends party from his dorm window. Also, tell him to be prepared for the jealousy he will develop towards business and LAS majors :P</p>
<p>AerE here is pretty rewarding… Just this semester alone I met and had lunch with NASA’s chief technologist (who gave us hints at how we might get internships with NASA) and Lockheed Martin’s former CEO (who is an ISU alumnus).</p>
<p>I look forward to seeing your son in the audience when I give my senior presentation in a couple of years :D</p>
<p>On a side note, I was wondering if anybody has taken any classes with Sturges? I have him next semester for Dynamics… what should I expect??</p>
<p>also, don’t get upset with your son if his gpa isn’t dean’s list material… it’s really hard stuff here.</p>
<p>my korean friend said that ISU is harder than any uni in korea</p>
<p>Wasn’t aware Fortran was still in use! Is the programming requirements as heavy in the other engineering disciplines?</p>
<p>I would say that it is heaviest, with the exception of electrical and computer engineering. Your first two years have a very heavy emphasis on programming, but it is a really good thing… the programs that i have had to write have helped me in other classes, especially calc and physics.</p>
<p>For instance: at one point, the batteries in my graphing calculator were dead, and I didn’t have any money to buy new batteries. In 161 we had to write a set of programs for various numerical methods, and one of them was a matrix solver (systems of equations). Helped immensely. We also had to write a numerical integration approximation code, which is also very useful when you want to check your answers. Doing it in your program is a lot easier than doing it on a TI calculator.</p>
<p>We have to use fortran, c, and matlab… i don’t know if there will be more introduced later.</p>
<p>“What’s the aerospace program like? My son has been accepted. It is a backup if he doesn’t get into the program at CU-Boulder. With the ISU scholarship offer it would actually be cheaper for him to go to ISU than our in state flagship so I’m curious. Thanks.”</p>
<p>I guess I was in a similar situation that your son is in.</p>
<p>CU Boulder was where I wanted to go for various reasons after I got waitlisted from UW Madison, my first choice school. It was in the mountains, great looking campus, cool people, lots of parties, snowboarding/skiing etc…I could go on. To be honest ISU definitely has a more reputable engineering program and definitely with better facilities. (especially aerospace)</p>
<p>I have a few friends who decided to go to CU and let me tell you, they sure haven’t learned much. Luckily they weren’t engineering majors. If you want to do AerE at any university or any engineering really, you need to understand that you cannot do the same things that other people do. You will have too many priorities ahead of partying. If you give in and party twice a weekend, you WILL fail. How do I know? That’s what I did the first few weekends at ISU and learned the hard way. I was a great student in highschool and I couldn’t even manage partying that much.</p>
<p>Now besides that, Iowa as a state is pretty boring but I’m sure it will pay off.</p>
<p>Best place to get books for next semester (spring)!
I don’t care if they are used or rentals as long as they are the cheapest and not falling apart.
Is there such a place?</p>
<p>Half.com and Chegg.com are really good.</p>
<p>Plus on Chegg.com, use the promo code “CYCLONES” and you get like 5% off or something. Thank you Iowa State!</p>
<p>Try that or I know you can rent some books at the book store so check the bookstore website. Also look on facebook or other social networks, usually kids will just sell them cheaper. ORRR amazon</p>
<p>"If you want to do AerE at any university or any engineering really, you need to understand that you cannot do the same things that other people do. You will have too many priorities ahead of partying. If you give in and party twice a weekend, you WILL fail. "</p>
<p>This is so true, especially with this schools engineering, and even more true for aero! Its only into the third week this semester, and i’ve already had to pull two all-nighters :(</p>