(EE) Difficulty: Freshman-Sophomore v. Junior-Senior

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

Hello guys.

Electrical Eng.

I have been wondering which is considered more difficult: the first two years of uni or the last two, or if they are equal?

I have numerous times that people have been filtered out by physics courses. On other occasions, the forum named /sci/ told me that physics and calcs were a breeze compared to the later courses, however I am not sure if they were being sarcastic.

I’m personally going to CC for the first two years to take care of physics and calcs (although I’m thinking about doing it in one year).

I know that the CC is less difficult than the uni courses. So how will the Junior-Senior classes differ from the Freshman-Sophomore or (in my case) the CC classes? What causes the difficulty to differ: workload or something more based on fluid intelligence (thinking, IQ)?

2

edit: I have heard numerous*

3

Take this with a grain of salt, as I’m not an engineer. I’m relaying my son’s experience. He’s a ME.

I’d say the last two years are the hardest, for several reasons. First, the coursework uses and builds on the knowledge from the first two years to create even more complicated subjects. Probably just as importantly, for him, the volume went up, pretty substantially. Typically when you solicit opinions regarding the hardest course someone encountered, it’ll be something from the back half.

CC versus Uni highly depends on the CC and the University. In general, the CC courses are less rigorous and demanding. That can create a shock when jumping to the next level.

4

I am also relating this vicariously. IMO making it through the math and science courses of freshmen year and basic engineering courses of sophomore year requires persistence and discipline. Mastering those courses not only gives you the academic base for your future courses, it also requires you learn the skills needed to be a successful student. The course work is harder in your final years but you are a better student and you will have the core knowledge you will need to be successful. My D is experiencing some senioritis this year but she rarely talks about how challenging her courses are anymore unless she is prompted. It’s all over my head anyway.

5

Also keep in mind that there are two types of people you mentioned…people who thought year 1 and 2 were easy (probably because they have been exposed to much of that in HS) and then found the later years hard.
The second type found year 1 and 2 hard but never got to 3 and 4 which would have been much harder.

Also you may need Chem and programming as well as Calc and Physics. Look at your 4 year college of interest and see what they require for year 1 and 2. You will still need however many credits the 4 year school requires to graduate so you can’t just take year 1 and 2 in a single year.

6

For students on the CC -> university transfer path, there are likely three groups of students:

  • Lower GPA at CC, finds first/second year courses harder, not admitted to transfer to university.
  • Higher GPA at CC, finds first/second year courses easier, lower GPA at university, finds third/fourth year courses harder.
  • Higher GPA at CC, finds first/second year courses easier, higher GPA at university, finds third/fourth year courses easier.

A similar grouping may occur at universities where frosh are in a pre-engineering program and must compete by GPA for admission to their engineering majors.

For frosh who start at universities with direct admission to the major, or where there is no admissions gate to the major, a fourth group could theoretically exist, which is students with lower first/second year GPA and higher third/fourth year GPA. This is probably uncommon in engineering, due to the prerequisite nature of the courses, but could happen if the lower first/second year GPA was due to lower interest while the student is more interested in the third/fourth year course material. Also, students with lower first/second year GPA may be more prone to changing out of the major even if not required to.

7

In my experience, difficulty increases each year until senior, which is relatively easy. The reason for this can be seen in the rough layout of my alma mater’s (Penn State, admittedly a while ago) course requirements:

Freshman year is tough because it is a new school and a more rigorous pace and the students are newly independent, but it is basic math and physics and general education courses and really is not that hard.

Sophomore year gets harder because hardly anyone has ever seen this material before and it gets into a fair amount of depth. This was also the year that you get your first core EE course, and however hard the science and math were to learn, applying them is harder. A lot of people get weeded out this year, especially by that first EE course.

Junior year gets harder still, because there were 5 different core courses you had to take: Circuits, E&M, Controls, and Systems & Signals (all junior-level), as well as a Sophomore level CompE course. Each of the EE courses are harder than that intro EE course and they all require different skills, so almost everyone struggles in at least one of the four - at one point, the department realized that only about 1 out of 4 students were completing the series on their first try, although it was surmised that some who dropped one of the courses would have passed but chose to repeat it for a higher grade. Regardless, this series of courses was widely regarded as trying even for those who had “breezed” through the first two years.

Senior year… is easier. It is easier because your senior year is all about specialization, and no specializations require you to be good at everything so students largely choose specializations that match their strengths. And while some of the courses are hard, most are about applying what you already know so the added difficulty level just isn’t that high - you’ve already learned the hard stuff, this should be the stuff you enjoyed and want to do as a career.

Now, that assumes you take the courses in the suggested order, and may certainly vary between schools - it all depends on what is put into which courses in which years.

I don’t think there is a clear answer here. Some of the material gets harder simply because it is more complicated, and some gets harder because it is much more abstract - I knew a ton of people who struggled with E&M simply because you can’t see electromagnetic waves and are extremely hard to visualize. The workload increases and some higher level of intelligence is required for some of the material, but I don’t think that overall it can be pinned down to any one thing.

Also, as the courses get harder, the resources required to complete them increases, which means students need more of those resources to succeed - intelligence, time management, discipline, good study habits, etc. When students fail at higher levels, it can be because of deficiencies in any or all of those areas - smart kids who don’t study fail more often than kids of average intelligence who study well, for example. So students don’t struggle or fail because of one consistent reason, but rather because of a variety of individual reasons that mean they didn’t bring to college everything they needed to succeed.

8

We experienced the same as written so well above. Freshman year - ok; Sophomore year - a little harder; Junior year - very difficult coursework (but much more interesting). I am hoping that the above posters are correct that senior year will be a little bit easier because so far this year has been a challenge.

9

For me (chemical), senior year has been the most stressful – my major classes are about the same difficulty as last year, the lab I’m taking is more work, my research is coming to a head, and overall I’m just way busier. Next semester is my senior design course (and thesis) and I’ve heard that’s a lot of work as well.

10

I’m an engineer (but went to school many moons ago). I’d say in general it depends on the school, the program, and the particular students high prep and strengths. For CC students, usually Jr/Sr is harder. However my husband went to a VERY rigorous CC program (designed to transfer to specific schools), and for he says Jr/Sr was easier. I suspect part of the reason is that he was a full time student, no longer working 20+ hours/week.

11

It varies depending on both the student and the college. At the college I attended, the first 2 years were more of a general foundation that involved taking prerequisites to EE courses, such as math, physics, and a basic programming class. Most also knocked out the bulk of general university requirements, unrelated to STEM. If students took EE courses, they were generally basic intro ones, the type that help you decide if you want to major in EE or not. In contrast, the latter 2 years emphasize the EE courses within the major requirements, almost all of which are electives in which you can choose the specific EE courses you want to take (within concentration in some cases), far more flexibility than the lower level foundation classes.

Which years are easier in this situation depends on a lot of factors. For example, are you better at more theoretical math/physics or more applied EE? Are the general university requirements easier than STEM for you? Will being more passionate/interested in EE courses you choose yourself than assigned foundation classes impact the apparent difficulty? How well did your HS prepare you for the foundation math/physics classes? … There is also a weeding/self-selection effect, which was reflected in the grading – classes with a larger portion of excellent students doing well tended to have higher median grades. The median grade in underclassmen foundation classes was typically B or B+, while the median grade in upperclassmen EE classes was typically A-… in a few cases A. Grades below B- were extremely rare in upperclassmen EE, but were not rare in most foundation classes.

For me personally, I found the later years slightly easier. By then I had found my groove and was used to taking classes emphasizing problem solving, had my methods for preparing for midterms/finals, etc. I also benefited from the increased flexibility in choosing classes, and lack of general education requirements. However, if you are taking the first 2 years at a CC that is less intensive than your university, then you’ll likely find the reverse to be true.