Hello! I am about to embark on my freshman year of engineering (Yay!) and I am looking for any advice on how to make my college experience and post graduate plans easier. My plan is to be a design engineer and I plan on getting a BS in Mechanical engineering with a MS in Visualization (TAMU art/science major) or Material Science. Here are my tips so far:
Earn a 4.0 Freshman year
Spend 45 to 60 hours a week studying / in class
Earn an internship or Co Op
Join an Engineering Team (To begin creating a portfolio)
Join an Engineering Society (to network)
Join a non-engineering organization (to not over load myself)
Start assignments, projects, and studying for tests early.
If you are unsure of whether to start in a more advanced course using AP credit, try the college's old final exams for the courses that you are allowed to skip with AP credit. If they are easy, skip. If they are difficult, retake. If they are mostly easy, you may want to review the few difficult topics before skipping.
Try for a 4.0 Freshman year, but don’t be crushed if it does not happen.
Engineering courses are HARD, it most students have to work much harder than hs to get an A. The important thing is to keep up with the homework and really learn the material (understand it for the long haul, just don’t learn it for the test grade). Your other classes will often build upon your knowledge/skill from those classes.
Yes, don’t get discouraged. I got a B and a C in freshman physics, and I had never gotten any grade lower than an A all through high school. I worked hard and ended up graduating with high honors. But that first year was a bear.
I have a few more based on your stated objectives.
Don’t fret over this. If you get a 4.0, great. Don’t set a 4.0 as some requirement for you to be satisfied because this is college now. You simply aren’t going to get a 4.0 the whole time, so it’s best not to attach your happiness to that qualification.
Spend exactly as much time as you need studying; no more, no less. Different people study at different rates. You have to learn how you study best.
Absolutely do this.
Engineering teams can be fun. Only do them if they interest you, though. Don’t do them just to do it or you won’t get anything out of it.
Absolutely a good idea.
How is joining a non-engineering organization supposed to help you not overload yourself? Join organizations that interest you and only those that interest you. Also, don’t overcommit.
Do you need this to pay for school? Otherwise you are better off focusing on school and trying to get a paid undergraduate research position if interested.
I TOTALLY forgot the have fun thing this year. Thanks for the reminder! Also here are a few concerns I have.
The 4.0 requirement is not exactly necessary- its mainly to help guarantee that I keep my scholarships / possibly earn more while in school. Because most of mine require a 3.0 and a 4.0 gives me wiggle room in case I mess up in the upper level classes. (Plus I could use some continuing student scholarships)
Non-engineering club
I want to take a non engineering club so I can have at least one part of my life that doesn’t have all the pressure that comes with being an engineering student. [ex) I’m a composer, so I want to audition for an a cappella group] Is that a bad idea?
Why i want a job
And while I suppose I don’t exactly need it my first year, I have never worked a job before and I don’t think I will be successful in a internship hunt with a purely blank resume with no references or experience. Is that a bad idea?
It’s not a bad idea if you are genuinely interested and it doesn’t put you in an unmanageable time crunch. You absolutely should cultivate hobbies of some sort outside of your scholastic work, whether they are part of a club or not. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t adding them for the sake of adding them because someone told you that was a good idea, that’s all.
It’s not that uncommon to have a resume for an intern candidate with little to no experience. Experience that isn’t relevant is only weakly helpful anyway. Your grades will be more important, and most likely research experience would be a more relevant job to have for the resume anyway. Also, keep in mind a part time job is going to really torpedo your free time for those non-engineering clubs you mentioned (and engineering clubs).
@bodangles I plan this summer is to take my final Gen Ed class during summer. But finding a job is a smart idea. I just hope I can find someone willing to hire me!
@boneh3ad
Oh I understand. I am definitely screening these tips and only using the ones I think are relevant to me. Thank you for reminder and helpful advice! (because I’m sure some high school juniors will see this thread and think these are all mandatory to be a good engineer)
It could be doable to do both (I took calc 3 alongside my retail job after my freshman year). Check out Walmart – $9/hr to start, jumps to $10 after three month training program. Or whatever else is available in your area. It’s nice to have discretionary money, and my work experience (three summers plus breaks) actually was a selling point for internship interviews this year.
Wow, Walmart is paying $10/hr now? Did they finally get tired of taking shots constantly for paying their employees absolute dirt?
For what it’s worth, most universities pay about $10/hr for undergraduate research assistants, and that job is actual engineering work and relevant to your resume.
Yeah, probably. They’re trying to improve employee satisfaction – didn’t you see that news story a while ago about raising average store temperatures by a whopping 1 degree?
It really wasn’t a bad place to work, as retail goes. A typical summer job might be good for this summer for OP, before they’ve taken any relevant engineering classes to help with research positions / internships.
