<p>How much memorization is utilized in engineering? From freshman to graduation and on into the career field. </p>
<p>I understand there is some amount of memorization in anything we do in life, so don't think I'm ignorant to that.</p>
<p>I want to know, compared to biology, microbiology, biochemistry, zoology, and botany... as well as medical school, is there as much in engineering? Mostly concerning Electrical, computer, and Mechanical.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Many of my friends, most the MEs, have said the reason the picked engineering was because they hated memorization. One who is near the top of his class said the other week there is no way hed be able to pass with the ame grades as a biology major due to all the memorization.</p>
<p>If you can do a basic derivative without consulting a table, you’ve probably memorized a great deal in your studies. What are Newton’s laws? Maxwell’s equations? What is a differential equation and how do you solve it? You weren’t born knowing these things.</p>
<p>I’d say engineering has far less memorization than biology.</p>
<p>For the most part engineers only have to memorize a few rules and laws. But using those few rules and laws, an engineer then derives everything he needs.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Biology majors just memorize everything because they cannot derive anything from previous knowledge.</p>
<p>AMT, that isn’t the toe of memorization people are asking about. Observing a nursing student or organic chemistry student study and you will see a major difference between them and engineers. Almost all of them memorize things like all the functional groups and how they interact with things and all sorts of other crap without ever actually knowing why it is that way. Nurses/med students memorize all sorts of drugs and how the work and their side effects. That is totally different than memorizing F=ms (or more correctly F=dp/dt).</p>
<p>In engineering, you can memorize a VERY limited number of tiny, insignificant facts and using those, derive all the more complicated stuff. If you are trying to do rote memorization in engineering, you are doing it wrong.</p>
<p>F=ma obviously… My iPhone autocorrected and doesn’t let me go back and edit the post.</p>
<p>Yeah theres lots of memorization.</p>
<p>The other day I had a red ball, and I was trying to find the volume. I consulted my ball volume tables and flipped through dozens of pages, but I couldn’t find it.</p>
<p>Does anyone have a red ball volume book? Mine only has blue.</p>
<p>Engineering is not a memorization-based program. It is an analytical program that requires excellent mathematical and quantative thinking skills.</p>
<p>With that said, people that are good at memorizing information quickly will do better at engineering than those who aren’t very good at one. </p>
<p>One really good example: Most exams are open book. Those who can readily remember where information is located in books will do better at the exams because they spend less time finding the information and more time solving the problems. It’s not the memorization that you are talking about, but it is a form of memorizing.</p>
<p>Depends on the type of engineering obviously. Biomed & chem eng require more than say industrial or mechanical. </p>
<p>The more math based the less memorization.</p>
<p>For my steel design class, we had a visiting professor from a different state. He clearly stated that one test would be open book. When we arrived for the exam, he said he’d changed his mind and no books would be allowed! I sure wished I’d memorized more at that point. </p>
<p>It seems like I had to memorize a good bit of stuff in structures. I studied a lot, I know!</p>
<p>All you need to know are the fundamentals. You’ll find that concepts tend to overlap a lot between classes and once you make the connection, the concepts tend to stick very well :)</p>