<p>i finished my first year of mechanical engineering at u of i. my gpa is a 3.1...will it go up or down from here? is it true freshman year is the hardest?</p>
<p>I'm in ECE and my gpa was a little bit lower the second year, but it all depends on what classes you take and how dedicated you are. I know people that got much better grades and others that got much worse grades during their Sophomore year.</p>
<p>As far as the first year being the most difficult, I would disagree. But that's just me. I think that the second year physics classes are pretty tough. Honestly though, I think that the difficulty of the classes is almost completely dependent on the instructor. I was terrified to take DiffEq after hearing so many horror stories, but got a great teacher who gave ridiculously easy exams. Bad teachers can make simple classes extremely difficult as well.</p>