Does an engineer major gets easy once prereqs are finished?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>I have read on a forum that claims a major in engineering becomes easier after one finishes the hump of calc 1,2, and 3. After a student finishes those courses, the burden is pretty much gone. Once a student finishes his/her 2 years, they breeze through the last 2 in undergrad.</p>

<p>Is there any truth to that?</p>

2

<p>haha… no.</p>

3

<p>WOW</p>

<p>I actually thought that the calc courses were the drop out courses.</p>

4

<p>According to our student, what you may discover is that you are finally taking courses that are interesting to you/your major. They may not be easy, but you will find them more in line with what you wanted to study from the beginning. Hope that makes sense!</p>

5

<p>That’s a definite NO. The courses get more difficult conceptually and are much more work intensive. Expect late-night projects and never-ending lab reports. It’s a more accurate statement to say that the “initial hump” of introductory calculus, physics, and chemistry are the principal weed-out courses, but only because those classes are many students’ first encounters with college-level science and some aren’t able to rise to the challenge. </p>

<p>Keep in mind these upper-level engineering classes will be (should be) of interest to you, so it’ll be easier to put in the time to succeed. Also, I found the grading curve to be a little more relaxed in senior courses, but your experience may vary…</p>

6

<p>My husband purposely put his heat transfer textbook on the bottom shelf so the cats could pee on it. Major factor in his dropping out of engineering.</p>

7

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<p>That’s how I feel about Mass Transport. The undergrad mass transport was more difficult than any class I had ever taken, including graduate mass transport.</p>

8

<p>The first year or so is the easy stuff. After that it becomes more confusing and complex. It will also require more work. And to top it all off, as the classes become increasingly more difficult you will increasingly want nothing more than to just graduate and get the hell out of there!</p>

9

<p>First year you get lumped together in a bunch of boring pre-req classes with 800 other students like an assembly line. After that things actually get interesting and you want to put the time in. But the time commitment doesn’t get any less, maybe it gets worse.</p>

10

<p>6 hours into my thermodynamics set tonight, and barely halfway done, I’d say definitely not.</p>

11

<p>That’s precious. You can see you are a naive freshman or highschool student.</p>

12

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<p>QFT</p>

<p>IMO, it never gets “easy” if you are properly challenging yourself. Though your time lines may become more laxed.</p>

13

<p>Calculus doesn’t have labs.</p>

14

<p>Easier: no
More interesting: possibly since you picked that major</p>

15

<p>mmmmmmmmmmm NO.</p>

<p>Some do get more interesting but keep in mind you’ll most likely still have to take senior level classes in your major which are required and not so interesting ;).</p>

<p>I found Calc 1, 2& 3 to be relatively easy though (And I sucked in Physics).</p>

16

<p>

Ditto. I actually did better in my upper level courses than the core prereqs.</p>

17

<p>IMHO, the material itself is more or less the same as lower-div classes (not that much harder or easier)… However, most students did better because:

  1. it’s something they have an interest in
  2. the classes tend to be smaller, so there is more interaction between the students and teacher</p>
18

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<p>Also, students are more acclimated to college (freshman have to worry about living on their own - juniors and seniors have figured that out), and they’re used to the coursework and how to study.</p>