Exempting ENGR103 a good idea?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Alabama
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<p>Still trying to wrap my head around students who have already completed Calc 1 and Calc 2 being allowed to exempt ENGR103. I assume it wouldn’t need to be replaced with a higher level engineering course later…</p>

<p>It would be nice to free up the schedule and get a quicker start on engineering classes but I’m wondering if if it is a good idea. If ENGR103 is mostly math review with a few engineering application problems thrown in it makes sense to skip it. If it is more a broad view of engineering and the soft/hard problem solving skills that go with the profession it may be a good idea to take it. Also it is a prerequisite for other classes - I assume that would be waived as well?</p>

<p>I would love to hear from sophomore+ students what they thought of the 121/131/141 series as I assume the content will be similar.s</p>

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<p>ENGR 103, from what we took away from BB, is a lot of application and team building. The biggest benefit to students is meeting and working with other freshmen on projects.</p>

<p>I would hesitate to suggest to DD to skip ENGR 103 (we also discouraged her from skipping Calc 2 and Physics 1 ad 2 even though she AP’ed out) because these are the courses where you meet your peers and learn about the pace of college work. </p>

<p>I believe that the idea of the First Year Experience (which ENGR 103 is part of) is to build a freshman community. I wouldn’t want DD to miss out on that.</p>

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<p>I’m not sure how the course is going to be set up, but I took ENGR 111, 131, and 151 my first semester. 111 was sort of a “What is engineering, why is it important, and how do I study it?” kind of deal. We did have a few team activities - mostly about creativity - and I have a couple friends from that class. 131 mostly dealt with unit conversions, dimensional analysis, estimation, and practice problems. Because my instructor was an Aero, most of the material was applicable to Aero/MechE. I have some friends from that class as well. Because of CBH, I skipped 141 in the spring, but I did take the general Engineering Drawing class (151). It was taught by TAs, and while I might never use that stuff again and I didn’t really get to interact with people in the class, it was a sort of fun stress-reliever class (because I’ve always loved drawing and never have time to do it outside of academics). While I didn’t come in with Calc II credit, if I had to do it over and had the option to skip the new combined class, I probably wouldn’t. There were some nice nuggets of wisdom and study tips that I gained from those classes. </p>

<p>Ultimately, though, it’s up to you and your personal comfort levels/values. Those extra credit hours might be pretty useful for another class, too. Hope this helps!</p>

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<p>Thanks for both replies! Sounds like it’s not just math recap. Maybe they put the calc exemptions in to give students transferring from 2 year schools a chance to move on.
It sounds like a great class for students right out of high school. The hands-on, teamwork, and engineering overview aspects sound great.</p>

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<p>If you have already completed Calc 1 and Calc 2 I would recommend skipping ENGR 103. As a motivated student, those intro engineering courses seem to impede progress towards the more interesting and more difficult courses. If your student has taken AP Calc BC and a handful of other AP courses they should be fine for the college workload here, if they want to be. As for engineering community, in the more difficult courses community is made fast through shared struggles.</p>

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<p>I have my own opinions on skipping 103, but I wanted my S to give his take on this first, before I chimed in. I was hoping he would have the same response as me, so here goes.</p>

<p>Re 111 - this class discussed the role of an engineer in society and in the future. ‘total waste of time’ says S.
Re 142 (he took that combined, instead of 131 + 141) - this class was used as a study skills class and to get people to meet one another and talk about how they are doing at UA. ‘a very enjoyable waste of my time and I looked forward to going to class’ says S.
Re 151 - this class is all about graphics and learning to sketch - ‘useful for later’ says S.</p>

<p>When I told him about UA combining the 3 classes into 1 class, he said that was a good idea; when I told him that UA was allowing those who skip Calc I&II to also skip 103, he paused…and said that with hindsight, he probably c-/would have skipped it too. But he can only say that with hindsight.</p>

<p>I am disappointed to hear about this opportunity/choice to skip Engr 103. Let me explain. The first year of engineering is all about finding out, FIRST, if this is something that you want to pursue as a career and, SECOND, to meet your peers and develop contacts that will follow you throughout your college and probably into your career. ALL universities that offer an eng’g program offer some sort of “first year experience” for this reason. Some schools will not allow any deviation and ALL eng’g students must follow the same curriculum, no matter what their previous coursework. Some programs hype it up more than others, to the point that you expect this kind of ‘first year’ rite of passage experience when you enroll in an eng’g program anywhere. I expected my S to experience this at UA. </p>

<p>To the first point, then: if you are at all uncertain if eng’g is for you as a career, taking all available introductory classes in eng’g is vital so you learn whether you want to pursue it, because engineering is difficult, and you have to have the ‘chops’ to do it, sure, but you also have to have the interest in the subject matter to succeed with it. Engineering is one of the very few professional degrees that you can finish in 4 years. (think law, medicine, dentistry, physical therapy - all require more than 4 years of training; nursing is technically 4 years, but getting harder and is requiring more study now). For this reason, engineering is pretty crammed as a 4-year degree, and you don’t have the luxury of ‘finding yourself’ in this field like you might in other, more liberal arts type degrees. You almost always need to go into it knowing that this is the field that you want to study. Because my S is so passionate and interested in his aero major, there was no doubt that he wanted to continue with it, and therefore he could have skipped these introductory classes for that reason alone. That’s why, with hindsight, he can say that he would skip them, if given the opportunity to do so.</p>

<p>To the second point, about meeting contacts, I think this is vital too. My S skipped Calc I & II as well as Physics I & II, and I feel he has missed out on meeting his peers in these classes. Because the aero major is kind of unique in that all of the students from Junior year go through the series of courses entirely together, he will not join up with his peers until then, because some of them are not at the stage he is. He has a few peers in classes here and there, but the bonds that I expected him to make with his aero peers early on just aren’t there, yet. This disappoints me. I realise that this was his choice to skip ahead, and by doing so, he has been able to do some other things instead that his peers cannot do at the moment…but I’m still disappointed.</p>

<p><em>HE</em> on the other hand, is not at all disappointed! So, I really wanted to explain both sides of this. As a parent, I would definitely not recommend my student skip Engr 103; I hope I have explained why I think my S answered the way he did, because I think it is important to understand that he may not be the typical eng’g student. He <em>loves</em> UA: loves the engineering department, loves his classes, loves his professors, loves his peers, loves his dorm and suitemates, loves the campus, loves his extra-curricular activities…loves the whole enchilada. </p>

<p>I do not envy your choice in this matter. Each student has to make up his/her own mind, with perhaps a bit of nudging by the parents one way or t’other. Good luck!</p>

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<p>Of course all this is based on the belief that the content of 103 will be the same as the content of the 111, 131, 151 series, but since it’s a new course, there may be differences…it’s really unknown at this point.</p>

<p>I’d agree with aeromom in that I would have hesitated to allow my son to skip the courses. 111 is an overview of the engineering field and if an incoming student is 100% certain about the field they want to pursue, it may not be very useful, but if they are undecided engineering or are deciding between two fields, it provides a basic overview of each field and may hep them to make a decision.</p>

<p>151 is drafting, which is followed the next semester by a CAD course. It’s generally better practice to learn to do something by hand before you learn the automated method or you may never take the time to learn to do so. After taking both courses I asked my son which he preferred and he actually said it was generally quicker to do drawings by hand. This course may not be as critical for some fields such as chem E, but for fields like civil and mechanical is a useful skill that is unrelated to their calc background.</p>

<p>131 is the math/problem based course and those with strong calc skills probably won’t get much out of it, but it should be an easy ‘A’.</p>

<p>If the classes were still separate, I could understand allowing students to bypass 131, but the content of the other courses isn’t based on calc knowledge, so I don’t quite understand why calc knowledge allows an exemption from that content.</p>

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<p>ENGR 111 does very little to give an overview of the engineering field. It would be much more beneficial to explore for an hour a week on your own. MIT OpenCourseWare would be a great source for seeing what University Engineering classes are all about. Drafting is probably useful for MechE and Civils but if you go into the course bad at drafting you will leave bad at drafting.</p>

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<p>I like the fact that the class is a hands-on, team-building, opportunity. for an OOS student who is coming to Bama knowing few or no other people, it seems like a great opportunity to make new friends.</p>

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<p>“nursing is technically 4 years” </p>

<p>Many people don’t realize nursing is not a four year program. Nursing at Bama is 9 semesters…four semester in lower division plus five upper division semesters. The ninth semester is not covered by the Presidential scholarship, so students are responsible for the cost of the additional semester’s tuition. :)</p>

<p>Great post, aeromom.:)</p>

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<p>Sorry to have opened up this can of worms! To be honest, I don’t think either S or I really thought about whether it was a good or bad idea for S to skip the class. We were just so shocked to see that he didn’t need to take it that we first made sure it was true, and then came up with an alternative class. Some good points have been raised here and I will have my S read this thread and make up his mind.</p>

<p>A couple clarifications for CS majors only - ENGR 103 does NOT replace ENGR 111. However, instead of needing to take both ENGR 111 AND CS 121, now students only need to take one or the other. ENGR 103 replaces ENGR 131/141/151. ENGR 103 is not a prerequisite for any other CS classes, but I have no idea about the other engineering disciplines.</p>

<p>Also, I am unsure whether some of the points made above are as relevant to CS as they are to the other engineering disciplines. CS seems to be fundamentally different in many ways and so some of the concerns might not be as important for CS majors. For instance, how much does a CS major need to worry about drafting?</p>

<p>I do agree that team projects and interacting with other freshmen are valuable experiences, so I will make sure S considers that aspect in making his decision.</p>

<p>FWIW, Dr. Cordes did not hesitate at all to suggest that S skip ENGR 103.</p>

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<p>No worms here. Just great discussion! Further to this, we had an interesting conversation around the dinner table tonight: me as a dumb (but passionate!) parent; my S, budding engineering student who, by contrast, ‘knows everything’; and husband who is a Chem Eng’r by trade, and can add the real world perspective.</p>

<p>My S said that someone who has an obvious aptitude for math (e.g., able to bypass Calc I&II prior to joining UA) should not be limited by taking Engr 103, and SHOULD OPT TO SKIP IT, DEFINITELY. He said that my arguments about making sure that eng’g is ‘right for you’ as a career WILL NOT be decided by taking/not taking 111/131/141/151 or the new 103. A student will decide this when they take either Calc III and/or Statics, where the math and the problems get way more difficult, and that is when the student will either know that eng’g is for them of not. Unfortunately, for some, that will not be until they are Sophomores. So, my S felt that someone who had obviously taken enough Math and/or Physics in HS, they obviously have enough skills to go into eng’g, and taking 103 will NOT be the limiter or ‘weeder’ class that I was thinking it was. </p>

<p>Dr. Cordes is the professor who my S talked w/ @ BB last year about skipping Physics and going directly into Statics as a Freshman. Dr. Cordes, again, without hesitation, based on S’s AP results, said ‘go for it.’ He seems like a very progressive guy. I like the fact that UA obviously does not hold back its incoming eng’g students who they feel are capable of succeeding, by moving them ahead in the curriculum. I do worry a bit about doing so, but my S told me to ‘get over it’ and so did my husband.</p>

<p>I like the student Ghengis95’s original post #5, above, which basically says the same thing my S did: if you are smart and motivated, you will be fine with skipping ahead. My S is not at all concerned with making/not making peer connections. He is looking forward to next year when he can do so in the upper, harder classes; but he didn’t feel any ‘loss’ by not doing so (nor really needing to do so) in Freshman year.</p>

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<p>My S can’t opt out of it, as far as I know, so it’s a moot point for us. But, a couple of things to consider: The honors Engr 103 class fulfills an honors requirement, and I suspect that it’s not too difficult (please correct me if this is a bad assumption) so it is a good class to ease into college life the first semester. Taking an easier first semester will allow him to get calibrated. If it is too easy, he can always overload in later semesters.</p>

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<p>Not a bad assumption at all. And, it is always nice to take honors credit wherever possible!</p>

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<p>@lisa6191:
As for the CS side of things, the only “Engineering” courses they take are ECE 380 and ECE 383. Most CS majors I know don’t like those two classes because they are more towards the hardware side of things. They are digital logic and microprocessors. The rest of the classes for that curriculum are Computer Science designated.</p>

<p>All of that to say, what the intro engineering courses are teaching isn’t really directed towards CS majors. CS is different than a lot of other Engineering majors because it is directly separated into upper and lower divisions. Make sure that you keep that in mind when looking at classes.</p>

<p>From every CS major I know and have talked to, I would say take CS 121 and skip ENGR 103. Look at the latter part of the flowchart. Your S can take ANY course and have it count as a Free Elective towards the total hours required for his major. He can have his cake and eat it too.</p>

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<p>My S just completed the 131/141 track. He is also an ME to be, so he took 161 this year also. His opinion of 131, and especially of 141, was that it was far too much work for just 1 credit hour. I think he would have been better served with 103, and I think that UA sees this as well and this is why they made the change.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the feedback, especially aeromom and Ghengis95. I suspect my S will stick with skipping ENGR 103, but it has been an interesting discussion. Assuming that the only real reason to have him take it would be the freshman bonding experience, I think he will be fine - he is taking EN 103, UH 155 and his STEM MBA seminar, all of which will provide freshman bonding opportunities I would think. (and all of which provide honors credits, which was another good point).</p>

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<p>DS was not planning on skipping Calc II no matter his BC score. (Took AB last year and is confident to skip Calc I). This exemption will be a game changer for him. </p>

<p>If he gets a high score on the AP exam, I am 90% sure he will opt to skip Calc II and ENGR 103.</p>

<p>He has 2 other areas of interest, and this will permit him to easily get a minor by Summer 2014 in one of the areas.</p>

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<p>Our school doesn’t offer AP Calc, but my S took that AP Calc AB test. I was concerned about him skipping Calc I and someone suggested he get UA’s final exam. He looked it over and thought it was fairly easy so I figure he’s good to go. You may want to consider that for Calc II if you have any concerns.</p>

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<p>Following this thread with interest! Our oldest dd, a rising senior with her heart set on UA, will be in a similar spot next year. When she toured in the spring the CE folks let her know that would likely have the option to opt out of the intro courses as she’ll have Calc 1-3 done and her Physics out of the way via dual-enrollment at a local uni. that is well respected. Most all of her electives will also be done, but I am concerned about her jumping into year two of the sequence socially. I wonder how set study groups, etc. will be.</p>