<p>I am just finishing my first semester of my sophomore year. I have taken Chem 101 and 102, 2 Physics classes, Calc 1, 2 and 3. My GPA has taken a hit. I feel like I am almost finished with the "weedout"classes. My question is, during junior year when you get into your major (Civil) do the classes get more manageable or shall I say easier? Like do you get the feeling that the professors are just not trying to weed you out and send you on your way or is it just as much work and just as hard? I am looking for a little hope here.</p>
<p>Where do you attend?</p>
<p>I just finished my first semester junior year, and I don’t think school has gotten easier since freshmen / sophomore year. If anything, it was harder and it was definitely more work, but much, much more interesting which kept me motivated.</p>
<p>My instrumentation lab class was so much work with the design project and lab reports (uncertainty & error analysis was the bane of my existence this semester). I also had thermo and fluids, which, unlike statics / dynamics, is not just physics part II. A lot of the concepts were new and required some time to get through the problem sets.</p>
<p>But, everything was also much more interesting. I learned a lot of cool stuff in thermo and got to actually design build and test something in my instrumentation course.</p>
<p>As far as the “weeding out” comment, I am pretty sure I won’t be seeing some of the kids next semester in heat transfer b/c I am pretty sure some of em failed either fluids or thermo or both. You can’t just make it to junior year and say, “Oh I can slack off now, they aren’t trying to weed us out / fail us anymore.” You have to work just as hard or even harder because your classes get more challenging and they most certainly require more work. But like I said, you’ll actually be motivated to do the work because what you are learning has real life applications you’ll find very interesting.</p>
<p>So in summary, no, it does not get easier, but it does get more interesting which will keep you motivated. Hopefully I didn’t crush your little hope, haha.</p>
<p>it doesn’t get easier lol. my engineering classes are curved to a B- which is about the same as math and sciences prereq classes. Welcome to the ride :)</p>
<p>JimmyME and square-Thanks for the input- As long as they are more interesting and more applicable…Can I ask you what your type of engineering you are in?</p>
<p>It doesn’t get any easier, it gets much harder. And if you are at a large state school, they still try to fail you as juniors/seniors.</p>
<p>In my experience, it does get easier. I spend less time on schoolwork as an upperclassman than what I did as a freshman and sophomore.</p>
<p>I think it depends on when you hit the ‘oh man this is a lot harder than what i did before’ point. A lot of my classmates went to pretty good high schools and didn’t have to work very hard in intro classes. I wasn’t as prepared, so I worked pretty hard my first couple of semesters. After that, I got used to it, and it wasn’t hard anymore. My better prepared classmates hit that ‘oh man this is a lot harder than what i did before’ point later in their undergrad.</p>
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<p>In my experience this is true for required classes, but it is totally not true for technical electives, which are a pretty big amount of the classes you take as a junior and senior.</p>
<p>Your goal is to complete the degree with good grades. Even if you have to take just 12 CREDITS each semester until you finish…so be it. Employers don’t care if it took 5 years.</p>
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<p>In my experience, this is even true for some technical electives (at least at my school). And, while I’m just speaking for myself and my degree plan, technical electives are a very small if not zero percentage of junior year classes.</p>
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<p>I don’t think I’d necessarily agree with this. While it is important to get good grades, taking 12 hours a semesters with no incoming credit hours as a freshman, it would take most engineering majors nearly 6 years to complete their degree. At this point, time and funding has to come into play. And, even if you are not paying for things yourself, in 6 years many people can get an undergrad and grad degree. Also, if you don’t go to grad school, that’s nearly 2 years of missed income and thus a loss in most cases of $100,000 or greater. Good grades can be accomplished while also graduating in 4 years, many people here can attest to that.</p>
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<p>No.</p>
<p>12 credits per semester = 10 semesters = 5 years with no summers. Most semester-based degrees are 120 credits (give or take a few credits). Add in a summer or two and that decreases the 5 years. Engineering majors taking 5 years is very common.</p>
<p>As far as grad school? I am not as familiar with the full-time grad student route because I did grad school years after my undergrad degree. Unless that full-time research is REALLY going to benefit someone, I would opt for going to grad school part-time on the employer’s dime. At the end of the day, an HR department sees M.S. degree with X years experience and not WHEN the M.S. degree was achieved.</p>
<p>…but I’ll let you all continue buying into the M.S. full-time + thesis dream. :-)</p>
<p>If the majority (full-time students) can handle 16 credits per semester (that is at least 5 courses, usually) at the upper division, then you can too.
If you have a job, then that’s another story.
I think having a 3.0GPA is totally fine (engineering students tend to have lower GPA), if you are not looking for more scholarships or grants.</p>
<p>From another thread, people said that many employers don’t look at your GPA until you are admitted. But if you decide to cut down the amount of credit hours in exchange with research / internship experiences, then I don’t oppose that route. </p>
<p>For me, however, it’s better to finish your BS as soon as possible with a solid GPA, and then either move into the workforce full time, or grad school full time, or part time with grad school. I have read a lot that many companies are willing to fund graduate studies. I will let the professionals to back me up on this.</p>
<p>For the easy / hard part. If you don’t root a solid foundation from the early introductory classes, which are essential and are prerequisites of your future classes, you will suffer greatly. For example, my current circuit analysis course is a prerequisite for linear circuit 1 and 2. For one section, the professor is always late to class, and he doesn’t prepare students well (most people graduated from his section either fail or suffer greatly from future class, because he’s too easy). For my section, several upperclassmen did bad in his class (because he doesn’t curve at all), but did very well in future class. </p>
<p>If you have the free time, look over syllabus, and ask opinions from your own upperclassmen.</p>
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<p>That may have been true when you were in school. It is no longer the case. Most semester-based engineering degrees are between 130 and 140 credits.</p>
<p>As mentioned by someone earlier, the classes do not get easier. However, most people don’t struggle as much junior year and beyond because the classes get more interesting and thus they become more easily motivated. It is a lot easier to get excited by stuff that more directly applies to your future.</p>
<p>chris, your question is impossible to answer because it’s different for every student.</p>
<p>But I can tell you that for me, it most definitely became easier in the junior and senior years. (Pet Eng)</p>
<p>I struggled my first two years because I had a poor base in math, and all the physics, statics, dynamics, fluids, etc. were a huge challenge for me. I remember thinking that I wasn’t cut out to be an engineer, especially if my future work entailed using those kinds of skills on a daily basis.</p>
<p>But when I started taking pertinent courses in my major, it all started to make sense and it became easier to stay motivated. The work load actually increased due to many projects in upper-level courses. But because they were pertinent and interesting, it was easy to say on track.</p>
<p>BTW, I have been out of college for 30 years, and have rarely used anything remotely resembling the stuff you “learn” in the first two years of engineering school. Believe me when I say that the real world of engineering is much more enjoyable and rewarding than the college courses. Stick it out.</p>
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<p>Really?..well, I cannot comment on other non-computer science engineering degree programs but I can comment on CS programs.</p>
<p>There is NO WAY, one needs a 130-140 semester credit CS program. I would package those CS courses in a Math or Physics program (most “broad” science degrees are still at 120)…put on my resume “B.S. in Math/CS or B.S. in Math with CS option” and keep it moving.</p>
<p>I know I am ranting but these colleges are really throwing all of this “bait” in making folks think they need this, that and the 3rd and most HR departments of these engineering firms do not care.</p>
<p>Well, using UIUC as an example, they have two versions of their CS program, one in the engineering college and one that is through the math department. Their engineering version is a 128 hour program, while the other is 120. It looks like 128 seems to be the norm for most other engineering disciplines there as well. Looking at other places, I see numbers like 134 popping up a lot. I did see one 128 for computer science.</p>
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<p>No. As said by someone previously, most engineering degrees are not 120 hours. Mine is 135, which is a near average engineering degree plan. Under your plan, that would take 5.5 years (plus 3 hours) with no summer, no failing, and taking only necessary classes (no minors, etc.). While employers may not care if it takes you this long, you are spending more money for the same degree others are getting. To people like me, who individually finance everything themselves, this plan is not ideal… and that was what I was trying to portray in my other post. If you have parents who pay for everything, by all means, spend as long as you wish. </p>
<p>As far as grad school goes, there are many that take advantage of the non-thesis master’s. If you pursue this route, it is not uncommon to finish in 2 years (4 semesters). I personally know an individual that just accomplished this, funded as well (not through an employer).</p>
<p>The intent of my post was to point out that while you can graduate late and have no difficulty finding jobs, consider what you could do in that extra time you spent working on your undergrad. Two extra years in undergrad could be someone else’s equivalent of a master’s, work towards a Ph.D., or two years salary plus not having to finance two additional years of college. 15 or more hours per semester can be accomplished with discipline. I just completed 15 hours in what is notoriously the toughest semester in my major’s degree plan with a 3.6, while completing research, and getting engaged to my girlfriend. It’s doable.</p>
<p>I stand corrected on engineering degrees now being more than 120 credits. I was unaware of that. </p>
<p>I would still tell ANYONE who wanted to go into computer science that they might as well take a 120-credit Math program and squeeze in the CS courses there.</p>