Well i am an international student ( Asia).
I in my high school have always been in the top positions in my class. And have scored 90+ in almost all the science courses ( physics, chemistry, computer science ) and math. Well i like math i like to learn new concepts.
I was just surfing on the internet where i read a lot of articles regarding engineering in america being difficult to such an extent that people drop engineering as their major !
Is engineering really that hard in america ?
Because i will be spending alot of money as an international student.
Electrical engineering - My Major
Engineering is a challenging major. Some kids struggle with it because they come to college with weak prep in math and science. Some people view engineering as pre-business (biomedical engineering referred to as business major eventually). Another part of the problem is I think its over selected. When asked about what they are majoring in, a lot of kids say engineering (or pre-med) because it sounds good.
How competitive is your high school class? How well have you done on standardized tests? If your high school is competitive your class rank means more. Same is true for standardized tests which provide a measure against kids from other schools. Sounds like you do well in math and science and have a passion for them. I would say give it a shot.
Engineering is always a challenging major. If you do well in the intro college level math, physics, and programming courses required for an engineering degree, then there will be an engineering major you will be capable of getting a degree in. These courses are typically curved so that the average student gets a B-/C+.
Electrical engineering is quite competitive. At umich, EECS has more international students from China than other engineering departments. I am an American student and I had always thought that I was good at math. I did well in the core math courses required by all engineering students, but then realized that I was really not good at math when I started taking EECS courses. When you take the core math courses, you are competing with mostly engineering students. At umich, somehow it is the case that almost all students who choose electrical engineering as a major received some sort of A grade in their core math classes. This increases the competition.
High school classes tend to focus on learning scientific principles. Math in high school usually follows some kind of identify the type of problem and then follow the standard solution approach. College engineering is quite different.
Engineering is APPLYING those math skills and scientific principles to solve problems. Solutions are anything but rote. You need to understand the principles behind what you are learning and classes build on previous classwork. You start to fall behind or not understand the principles and it snowballs.
For these reasons, engineering can be tough program. But if you keep up with the work, understand the principles, it is a lot of work but doable (as many do).
Ok thank you all