<p>im planning on going to grad school for mechanical engineering. for those of you who have already done so, can you tell me how the difficulty compares to what you experienced undergrad? i realize it depends on the schools but im looking in general. is it much harder, a little, or similar?</p>
<p>Im doing M.S. in mechanical engineering, thermal/fluids concentration. The textbooks in general are less user friendly and more time is needed to understand the material because of this. Unlike undergrad where u can take 18 credits (~6 classes) where it was not that bad (relatively speaking), it is difficult to take more than (15 credits) 5 classes in grad because of the amount of work and level of difficulty. You learn about tensors first thing in grad school although i did have some experience with it in undergrad and alot of equations are PDE’s. Since i am doing thesis i will take a total of 2 years to complete my degree, where the first year involves mostly classes and the second very few classes and thesis.<br>
The classes i took first semester are: Numerical methods (PDE’s), Composite Materials, Applied Fluid Mechanics, Mechanics & Physics of Materials.
2nd semester: Convection heat transfer, CFD, Engineering Law, Applied Stress Analysis
3rd semester: Intro to Engineering Analysis, Steam/Gas Turbines, and will start thesis
4th semester: Focus mostly on thesis and probably take 1-2 classes
Almost all schools go by the credit system (I know MIT and some other schools go by units) and usually 30 credits are necessary for graduation. I will surpass the 30 credit limit but i am taking 2 years to get my degree so it shouldnt be unusual. You may prefer to do an M.Eng degree where instead of doing a thesis you do a project and this degree can be finished in 1-1.5 years. </p>
<p>Overall i would say, its been good so far, just make sure you take classes you are interested in as it will be easier for you to learn. Unlike undergrad where you have to keep up a 2.0 you must keep up a 3.0 in grad school, which shouldn’t be that bad if you don’t take too many classes or slack off. Again this is for my situation, there are many different schools out there where the experience can be very different.</p>