<p>DS met with his ChemE advisor for spring. He said she <em>strongly</em> advised him to take the second Physics during summer school. Said it is too hard to take it during the spring.</p>
<p>He is following the catalog exactly so far and planned to have:
Chem102/112 (slightly different from other engr disciplines b/c ChemEngr requires 101/102)
Engr 112
Math 152
Phys 208</p>
<p>How can the school claim that these are even close to 4 year degrees when the advisors tell you not to take even close to the load that the catalog suggests (catalog has these classes + an elective + a kinesiology for this semester)?? Seems kind of "bait & switch" to me.</p>
<p>Did you guys take these classes together? Would like the opinion of someone who has successfully done this - or who tried and didn't do well!</p>
<p>In my opinion …
Chemical Engineering is a very difficult degree plan.
Advisors are trying to get your son through some of the very difficult semesters without his gpa suffering. Physics is just a hard course! How did he do in physics 207? my daughter is just holding onto a B and she never feels confident she knows the material. Math 152 is extremely difficult, the chem classes are difficult. Getting through the basics is just difficult.
Getting out of A&M with a Chem E degree in 4 years means going to summer school or taking some winter & may “mester’s” to get some courses out of the way.
By all means, have him take advantage of taking a course at Blinn or a home college - an on-line course, etc. My daughter got through Math 142 in 8 days over the christmas break on-line!<br>
I don’t think it is a bait & switch. I think your son’s advisor is trying to keep him in the program with a decent gpa and not wanting to poke his eye out by the course load. There may be some that can finish a Chem E degree in 8 semesters, but I bet there are very few.</p>
<p>Oh… and by the way, I have a BS in Industrial Engineering & Computing Science. It took me 9 full semesters and 2 summer sessions.</p>
<p>NewToMe: My DS is also a freshman engineering student at A&M and is in the Honors program. From everything he has heard from his RA & SAs, Physics 208 is a very difficult class; moreover, there doesn’t seem to be any one prof who is a “must take because he’s/she’s easier” type. Also, in response to your 4 your degree comment, most of the kids in engineering don’t end up graduating in 4 years. It’s more like 4.5 to 5 years because of the difficulty of the program and the fact that they need more hours than say your average liberal arts major. I know my son’s major requires 134; many degrees liberal arts degrees require 120. The engineering degree plans are written for four years with kids taking 17-18 hours during some semesters. That is a huge amount considering that there aren’t really any “fluff” classes in engineering. Also, many of the classes require labs in addition to the lecture. My son was advised to take 12 hours the first semester and maybe 14 the second semester. We were also told that the students in engineering who do manage to graduate in 4 years usually can do so because they start at A&M with a large number of AP credits. I hope this helps. :)</p>
<p>I am a sophomore chemical engineering major and i DID take 208 during the school year.
it was RIDICULOUSLY hard! the exam averages for my prof were always in the 40’s and the class quality was pretty bad in general. I was VERY lucky to pull off a B in that course. I hear taking it at Blinn is really easy though. I would agree with the adviser that taking it over the summer would be a good idea.</p>
<p>to answer your other question, I took engr 112, math 251, physics 208, and chem 102 last spring. Chem 102 is really easy (BASIC chem) engineering 112 isn’t that bad either, the hardest classes for me were 208 and 251, although 251 isnt nearly as bad as 152. See if you can get Amy Austen for 152, i hear shes an awesome professor!</p>
<p>Amy Austin is one of the few teachers that actually teaches. I’m going to try extremely hard to get her next semester for 152. I’m a freshman in my first semester, before entering college over the summer I took ENGL 104, and HIST 105, over the winter break I’ll be taking HIST 106 online, then this coming summer I’ll be taking my two POLS classes and PHYS 208. My advisor said they “don’t like 208 being taken elsewhere” but I couldn’t care less if they like it or not because all of those courses are way too much to survive. I’ve heard many other advisors say what you have said and recommend taking 208 over the summer.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t attempt it, just go the summer route.</p>
<p>klparker - I realize the advisor is recommending the safest (gpa-wise) route, but I think if A&M advisors have these “recommendations” then the course catalog should reflect them too. I think I needed 124ish hours in BSEE but even with that I went to summer school to get out in 4 years. I don’t have a problem with the 5 year plan, but let’s call it what it is. He has a lowA/highB in Phys 207, but he attends the tutoring (A+) which has helped him a lot.</p>
<p>others - thanks. I will relay the information.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of an engineer having to take 207 unless someone just means the class before 208 which is actually 218. </p>
<p>We’ll see if they post professors by the time the registration windows open up. Everything is completely dependent on which professor you get. I think I’m one of the last registration windows which sucks. Even for common courses like Math 151, everybody learns from Amy Austin’s videos. Our class has 8 kids go out of 90 because he is such a poor teacher. Unfortunately the professor we have would like to make himself feel better instead of us actually being able to learn by having that time to watch her videos so now anyone that misses a class will lose 25 points on their next test. Sad that some professor’s egos get in the way of people really learning.</p>
<p>it is interesting that the Engineering degrees require more than the other Colleges on A&M campus. Business Degree & Architecture Degree are 120 hours. I checked a few other degree plans and they also are 120 hours.
It does look like at least one full semester is added to the Engineering programs if they require 134 hours to complete.
My daughter came into A&M with 27 hours from high school dual credit & ap exams. Since Architecture is a program where the courses have to be taken one after another - she will still be there for 4 years - but she is now considering a business minor as well as art history minor.</p>
<p>TxAggie92, sorry, Physics 218 is the Physics he’s taking now! And 208 is the one that is supposed to be super-hard and the advisors says take over the summer. I tried to check if you could take 208 in CommunityCollege, but I didn’t see it in the Community College Matrix List.</p>
<p>klparker312, I think that is often the case! Kind of ironic that they are offering the $1000 “incentive” for getting out in 4 years without taking more than 3 ‘extra’ course hours while keeping students like your daughter from being able to finish early due to curriculum scheduling requirements.</p>
<p>My son is now a sophomore ChemEng (CHEN as TAMU calls it). He received and heeded the same advice from (very likely) the same person. It is great advice. His friends are all the high achieving honors kids, and they universally have complained about the Physics course. It has consumed hours of their time every evening. These complaints have been made independently of the grade received. The A students are complaining also. Every big engineering school must have its weed-out mechanism. I believe Physics is it at TAMU. Son loaded up on other electives that spring, took Phys over the summer, and is now in great shape.</p>
<p>If you ask, you will find that this advisor has the grade distribution records for that course to back up her assertions. I believe I know her. Listen to her.</p>
<p>Yes, we met the advisor at my son’s NSC and she did seem wonderful. She was a big help to the freshmen getting them into the first Physics classes even though they were supposedly full. </p>
<p>Did your son take Physics from A&M over the summer or from a community college?</p>
<p>My S2 Junior EE, did well in both physic 218 and 208. He took them in Freshman year TAMU-CS Fall and Spring. He said you cannot fall behind, must kept at it constantly. For 218, he seek out 2 weeks of tutoring from a graduate student after midterm. It is somewhat helpful, I think?? By Spring, he know how much he had to study. By god grace, he is keeping up. I do know, he still felt apprehensive at time. All we can do, it encourage and at time felt helpless. Engineering no matter what major is difficult. I have 2 children in it and I know. Best wishes to all of you.</p>
<p>Son took Physics at a major university in our home state. It was our cheapest option. It was an interesting experience as the class consisted of mostly locals that were going to school at other states. He enjoyed an urban college experience for 6 weeks. He commuted via public transportation. For some reason, he enjoyed the 1.5 hour commute each way. I guess he was able to study during the ride. It was a big contrast to TAMU.</p>
<p>I assume finishing in 4 years an economic goal for the family. The advisor also mentioned that an extra semester is common, and there is usually some scholarship money available for good students to help defray the cost at least a little. I have no experience with that, but I was able to take some comfort from it. We feel really well taken care of at TAMU. A co-op arrangement can pursued of cost is a critical issue.</p>
<p>Getting through the program is a worthy enough goal. Getting out in 4 years should be celebrated. Getting out in 5 years should be celebrated.</p>
<p>My grumpiness is just with the catalog versus reality. I would certainly like my son to get out in close to 4 years since he’s hoping for med school afterwards, but it’s not critical. I just don’t agree with printing the catalog to say that the kids can just take 17-18 hours every semester when that is clearly NOT the case for 90%. I think the catalog should acknowledge that it’s at least a 9 semester degree.</p>
<p>A&M bills tuition on a flat 15 hr fee basis. You have to get aproval from your advisor to take more than 15 hrs - and if you do, then basically you have gotten any hours over 15 hr/semester free.
Interesting? maybe</p>
<p>I am a current freshman student. I will be taking 208 elsewhere for the many reasons mentioned above. There are no good profs for this course. The only decent one that I have read about gives over triple the amount of homework as other profs but has easier exams. In all honesty, in response to the OP, taking ENGR 112,PHYS 208, MATH 152, and CHEM 102/112 all at one time is going to be very difficult, doable, but it will be a headache. 152 and 208 are regarded as major weedout courses here. My experience with ENGR 111 has been of similar nature: they don’t care about how well the class does, it is a weedout and probably so will 112 (but not near as bad as 1152/208). CHEM 102/112 is going to be difficult too however, a chemE major should handle that relatively well. The thing is, why create a situation that could be a major headache? If the advisor is saying to take 208 elsewhere, then I would take their advice in a heartbeat. These advisors know what they are doing and have probably seen countless engineers to be get wrecked by this loaded type of schedule.</p>
<p>@TXAGGIE92: If you have preregistration take advantage of it especially in regards to MATH 152. Amy Austin is more than likely teaching the TR 8:00 am sections. I say this because it says this section is taught in the same room as she is teaching this semester and she also has taught this class before recently for 8 am sections. In my opinion, this is worth it.</p>
<p>I would register for whichever time amy austin is teaching just to have her. I think I have a general idea of which sections she will be teaching but maybe you could PM me your info about what section she may be teaching. In my situation I don’t register until December 7th, one of the last slots, so I’m hoping they keep her name off of the registration system as long as possible.</p>
<p>That’s a load of crap. If anything, taking PHYS 208 is more difficult in the summer, as you have less time to learn the same amount of material (and do labs/lab reports for that matter).</p>
<p>My second semester at A&M I took:
PHYS 208 - 4 hours
MATH 152 - 4 hours
CHEM 107 - 4 hours
ENGR 112 - 2 hours
POLS 207 - 3 hours</p>
<p>for a grand total of 17 hours. It was challenging but completely do-able, as long as you can manage your time.</p>
<p>I’ve said this before, but all underclassmen engineering majors have to get used to challenging workloads with little free time such as these – it will only get more challenging in upper level engineering. For example, next semester I will be taking four 400-level engineering courses, as well as one 400-level math class. Engineering is not easy, and often times it takes people more than 4 years to graduate. Summer school can help in graduating in 4 years.</p>