<p>I'm going to be a senior in HS next year, and I was just wondering:</p>
<p>At your school, how busy are engineering students? Do they have any free time? I've heard it's very tough, and I am considering engineering, but I do want to have some time in which to do things. Any responses would be great!</p>
<p>If you're good at math and science it's not that intense. You might be doing some more work than most people.</p>
<p>doesnt taht extra work tend to be rather enjoyable though?</p>
<p>Enjoyable?</p>
<p>No not at all. If your doing a seemingly simple assignment for 12 hours you tend to get very angry at it. Engineering is not easy no matter how good you are at math and science. It takes a lot of time because there are many many pages of work that must be done for a very simple problem.
As an engineer you have free time if you plan your time wisely. If you don't you have none. Either way you will be doing problem sets on a sometimes daily basis that can take upwards of 12 hours to do.</p>
<p>Well I want to major in chemical engineering and I guess I'm good at math and science, but I hope it isn't too difficult</p>
<p>Chemical engineering is the most difficult branch of engineering. I have seen Chem E's work through the night. A friend of mine who is Chem E brings her lunch to the computer lab every day. If you are a going for it just because you love chemistry, then know this: the more you get into the major the less chemistry is involved. The engineer doesn't care about the reactant or the products just the reaction. </p>
<p>Anyways, engineering is not something that easy. I have known to work on my CS programs 4-5 hours a day to get all of the kinks out of it. I am not gonna get into my EE problems sets. The easiest work I had was calculus. One hour and I'm done with my homework (double integrals are my best friends). Let's not forget learning Mathcad and Matlab. It took me hours to get used to both of them and I am still having trouble with them. I'm a Java and BASIC man so C++ is a little tricky and I can't make a vector field plot. </p>
<p>This is not for the lighthearted. I know two guys who wanted to major Computer E and after CS 101 and 201 they went Civil E. Another one was Mech E and dropped out of the E School all together. Don't be a fool and expect to do well easily and keep your HS GPA because that might (or will) never happen. The hardest workers are up there but not perfect. 3.8(HS) ---> 3.4(1st year)</p>
<p>I'm a BME minor at UVA and I'd say e-school classes are definitely a grind. I have a ton of e-school friends and I understand the time and effort they have to put in.</p>
<p>My friend recently graduated in MechE and he barely got a 3.0... it took him 5 years of full-time school to graduate and he used to be a social butterfly...engineering has turned him into an emotionless brainiac who, quite frankly, is not very easy to be around for too long, because he analyzes EVERYTHING.</p>
<p>you should not concern with how tough it is because the tougher the better -- you'll be paying them money to educate you, and if they assign you many hours of homework and make you go through grueling exams, at least you'll be learning something -- consider other "easy" majors where for tens of thousands of dollars you or your family puts out eevry year you'll be coming out with almost a clear head after four years</p>
<p>Yea I know it's pretty competitive and extremely difficult. But my uncle's a chem engineer and it looks pretti cool, and it also seems like you guys are trying to scare prospective engineers out of pursuing it. Lol, but yea I'll just try my best</p>
<p>Jesus no kidding, I mean, engineering looks cool but you guys are making it seem pretty scary. Maybe I'll just go for the hard sciences... sheesh.</p>
<p>I'm a chemist, not a chem Eer. My fellow chemists & I tend to discriminate against the Chem Eers because they don't take as many chem courses as we do and thier depth of understanding is limited. I actually had a lab partner last quarter in an advanced analytical lab who was a chem Eer.. he didn't even know what a pipet was or how to use it. How the heck did he even survive general chem without knowing what a pipet was!?! (everyone in this class were seniors or juniors too.. he should have already been done with gen chem, ochem, ichem labs)</p>
<p>Anyhoo.. besides that little rant, most of my friends are mech E or EE and they are always complaining about how hard thier classes are. But they form study groups & help eachother out and survive. One of my EE friends has a gpa of 3.8. So even though it's hard & scary, it's do-able if you try hard & have a support team. Just don't go somewhere where everyone is super competative & only out for themselves.</p>
<p>I was in no way trying to scare anyone. I was just putting things into perspective. I trying to get point across that this is no picnic. You will be learning a whole bunch of new things. If I was scaring people away from engineering, then why would I be an engineering major? I would love for everyone to go into engineering, but that is not possible. It's just that some people have preconceived notions about engineers. They think that we are social outcasts who stare at a computer screen for 12 hours a day. That is not the case. Engineering is a major that demands teamwork. One engineer can only so much. I always have study groups for my classes to understand what's going on. Also many classes demand group projects so this is no one-man show. Also, my Chem E friends are the biggest partyers I know and they still go forward with staying in the computer lab. Many intro courses can be unorganized and sometimes unhelpful with the majors which make people drop majors and sometimes the school itself. It hurts me to see people drop out of engineering and claim that we who stay are not smart enough to leave as well.</p>
<p>I say go into engineering but without the hope of not doing a lot of work because we do the work that helps others do their work.</p>
<p>Yea I understand that, but I hope I don't work so hard that I'm cut off from my social life.</p>
<p>Engineering students have social lives?</p>
<p>It's all about time management and realizing that you won't get a 4.0 in engineering. Once you understand that, you can study first, then go out and have fun with friends a little at night, but mostly it will be on weekends. College is a learning experience for both your academic and social life!</p>
<p>(junior in aerospace engineering)</p>
<p>Yea I'll study for chem engineering during the week and party hard on the weekend</p>
<p>Not every weekend haha. One step toward becoming a true engineer is the first time you say to yourself, "Yeah I definitely need to stay in this weekend (and maybe the next) and just ignore everyone else going out." Or experience the Nerd Spiral: When I looked up the time the library closed (nerdy) on a Friday (nerdier) and was sad when they closed early (nerdiest). Never thought I'd reach that point but there I was. It's hard but I think it's worth it. Btw, sf, I'm a chemE and think it's great and didn't like math at all before college (love it now) and thought physics was ok (I love that too) so you never know what you might end up liking (or hating). Anyways it will make you nerdier (it gets in the best of us haha) but you can still have a good social life.</p>
<p>Engineering is a lot of work. There's no getting around that. It can get intense sometimes. And you can't let bad grades discourage you - you just have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back to work pulling your grade up. Absolutely no one has a 4.0 GPA in engineering.</p>
<p>That said, the word I would use isn't "enjoyable", rather, it would be "rewarding". Because it is rewarding - you gain so much knowledge and appreciation for the thousands of things around you. </p>
<p>Your cell phone for instance - depending on the type of engineer, you can describe how it works. Not just at a superficial level, but everything about it, from how the button works, down all the way to how they make the integrated circuits inside through fabrication of silicon cmos, the chemistry of the lithium-ion battery, the communication protocols used by the antenna, and even beyond that. And you realize how many thousands of years of innovation and literally hundreds of millions of man-hours went into this compact little phone.</p>
<p>Yes, it is truly rewarding in ways like that.</p>