<p>Just curious. My son is a freshman and thinks that his classes are mostly boring and too easy, and also consist of a lot of "busy work". (I think most of his classes are larger lecture style classes, except for recitations.) If this is true, does it get better later? What is it like for you?</p>
<p>where does your son go?</p>
<p>Yea... where does he go?</p>
<p>I'm a freshman and I have a pretty rough schedule with a lot of boring difficult work.</p>
<p>Wait until he takes some Engineering fundamentals classes...</p>
<p>Well... I'm a freshman civil and I can't say that my courses are really easy. I been working alot more than I expected to be. I'm taking calc 3, an engineering ethics class, law in literature course, general chem, and a 300 level history course. Some of my courses are honors which adds to the difficulty... also I only have one lecture hall type class and that is my chem class. All the others are around 20 kids. </p>
<p>Are his classes just mostly gen ed requirements?</p>
<p>He has 17 credits at Pitt, 22 hours of classes per week. (Calc, Hon. Physics, Chem, Engr. Analysis, Engr. Seminar and an elective.) Is this a respectable program? I know they are ABET accredited.</p>
<p>Marines920, may I ask why you find your work boring? Maybe you can offer some insight....</p>
<p>I'm at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at the moment, with 17 credits as well, and the work is boring simply because of the fact that it is not interesting. Static physics doesn't have a fun factor to it, and chemistry is a chore. I get a lot of work, and it ranges from really easy to insanely hard. I like engineering...... but I've never had homework I didn't find boring.</p>
<p>Well my freshman year I took the following classes:
1st Sem - 18 hrs - 22 hrs in class
Chem 202 - Acc Gen Chem. Hard hard and more hard. This was taught by Zumdahl so in his absence trying to find the right prof, we had 3. It was a chaotic year. This class also includes the hardest normal exam I have ever taken. Ever. Cool class. Never made me stop liking chem.
Chem 203 - Acc Gen Chem Lab - light years ahead of the regular lab. This is what ate up most of my time.
Calc 220 - This class went fast and had a ton of hw. I still hated math at this point.
Psych 100 - Moderately difficult. More b/c I didn't have the time but a ton of reading and frequent quizzes. Confusing questions. Good class tho.
Thea 199 - This was my campus honors course and was my favorite course that semester b/c it was easy and fun</p>
<p>2nd Sem - 14 hrs - 23.5 hours in class
Chem 204 - Acc Gen Chem 2. Really hard. Some of the exams were mind-beinding. The final exam was the hardest final I have ever taken. I did amazing tho. Liked the course.
Chem 205 - Acc Gen Chem Lab 2. This is the class that ate my soul. Any synonym of difficult cannot even begin to describe the magnitude of this course. 20 page labs every other week and then the Cobalt Lab: A 40 page, 20 Hour Experimental, 12 Hour Reseach Nightmare. Labs were by far and away the hardest thing I have done at U of I. So glad I can say I've taken the hardest 2 hr course at the school.
Phys 211 - Mechanics - Cool course. Bad lecturer (didn't have the main guy who was amazing). Fairly difficult but not overbearingly so. Well explained. I loved it.
Calc 230 - Interesting. Varied with difficulty a lot. Seemed a bit all over the place. I ended up liking math this semester tho.
Partially in: Eng 104 - Intro to Film - cool class wish I didn't have to drop it but I was going to 29.5 hours of class per week.</p>
<p>So overall a great year. Learned a ton. Challenged a lot. Wish I has done better but can't complain. Took a couple summer courses to raise my GPA. In case anyone cares here's this year.</p>
<p>1st Sem this year - 17 hrs - 23.5 hours in class
Chem 236 - Acc Orgo chem - Great prog with a guy who teaches who in the works of getting a miracle cancer drug made. he's incredible. he also has an asian mullet. Hard hard hard. Never gonna let up now.
Chem 237 - Acc Orgo Chem Lab - Chem Lecturer's wife teaches haha. Hard but not overly so. Labs got easier (one night to complete rather than 2-4) but pre-labs got harder. Labs also got harder and points off for going over time. In a extremely crowded lab this is a problem. (overcrowding b/c the other times were awful and one was over a mandatory chemE class)
ChBE 221 - Great researcher (I know I worked under him. Carbon nanotubes are the wave of the future) horrible prof. Luckily this stuff is easy but boring and repetitive. Very exhausting problems.
Calc 242 - Cool class. Like the Vector angle (took Matrix theory over the summer with CS 101. Nice having classes that interplayed with each other so much) for calc. Esp now that I like AND understand math now. Horrible TA tho.
Phys 212 - Blech, much worse designed than mechanics. Main prof is great, luckily I got her. Lots of work. Exams are ridiculous. people are too smart anymore for me. Luckily it's on circuits and that I get.</p>
<p>Alright it's late and have a ChemE test tomorrow. Blech Sorry for babbling no one prolly cares.</p>
<p>I care</p>
<p>You have made my life have true meaning.</p>
<p>Illij -- I've got a Junior Son that is talking about applying to Illinois in another year, going into Engineering. (He's also looking at U of Mich, since it's 50 miles down the road!) I have printed out your comments, and will pass them on to him to give him an idea of what college is like. You seem very level-headed, and I always read your comments, along with a couple of the Michigan students. You guys have really helped me a lot!</p>
<p>Peg</p>
<p>P.S. But I think I'll wait until after Homecoming Float and THE big soccer game of the year to talk college. Right now, all he can think about is chicken wire and crepe paper and beating Lumen Christie!</p>
<p>i'm also a sophmore right now in engineering @ a top 10 school for engineering. most of my first year classes, i didn't think were overtly difficult. a lot of them gave me meaningless work that i felt didn't really need to take exams. i thought the most interesting courses i took were my math courses (took ordinary diff eq's, honors vector calculus, honors linear algebra. vector calc was pretty damn hard (but it was curved a lot so still did good). linear algebra was not too difficult (class was proof-based, but homework was much harder than tests). and diff-eq's was extremely easy up to the point where we hit laplace T's. chem was pretty difficult (2nd sem tests avg. ~50 for most of the class). i thought chem was pretty useless for the most part. engineering definitely takes its share of the time, but i find that i can get good grades in it and still have a good deal amount of time to do a lot of recreational stuff. i just got off a week where i had 5 tests, so now its time to do my share of drinking.</p>
<p>Introductory courses tend to be quite painful and boring, it gets a lot more interesting come 2nd and 3rd year when you get to take electives for your major</p>
<p>For me, linear algebra and diff eq were the bain of my existence. both had good profs but were heavily proof based and extremely difficult. calc 1/2/3 really weren't bad and you see them so much in other classes that you get used to it quickly. i found that most intro courses tended to be quite challenging so that the profs could get a good curve so they usually have test averages in the 50s or 60s (2nd midterm is physics had a 37 average, its nice to get a 55 and have an A)</p>
<p>a lot depends on the school you are at but more importantly in the prof teaching the course.</p>
<p>my first year was harrrrd. totally not expecting the workload. however, i think they put some fun classes in the beginning just to let us know that it -can- be fun, despite all the work. physics, chem, and math were almost completely theory, proofs, never-ending pages of symbols i'd never seen in HS. (i went to a bad HS, though.)</p>
<p>classes definitely get more interesting because you go into stuff that you actually want to do. plus, the profs choose to teach classes on material that they like themselves. nothing keeps a class awake like funny experiences and life lessons that the profs share.</p>
<p>This semester Im (and the rest of my fellow freshmen) having my rear kicked and learning to put it into another gear. We are all taking a solid engineering core though wich to me is whats making us work hard. This is making us do many things we have never done before, like learn many many computer programs buy spiral learning method. We still have the basic Calc and Physics and humanities class, we just dive into basic engineering a lot earlier than most.
And thats why I spent till 1 am in the computer lab trying to get a large format poster to print the other night.</p>
<p>Freshmen engineering blows. More work then you can think of in your wildest dreams. I don't watch TV all week except for tuesdays for two hours usually. The rest of the time during the school week is spent in class/ studying/ or sleeping. Thats it. The core classes, take A LOT of time. Especially if you load up, its bye bye free time. I hope it gets better though, good to start off college really tough. That way you are prepared for whatever comes your way.</p>
<p>For me, freshman year was a lot of work but it wasn't terrible.</p>
<p>As far as sophomore yr goes so far, I feel like a 300000 lbs workload bat is hitting me as hard as it can.</p>
<p>eh i dunno. i had quite abit of free time freshman year. the thing is i didn't go to a some of my classes (chem never went physics, neverw went, diff eq showed up only to turn in hw). the REAL important thing to do is that you study, manage time your well, and when you DO study, dont get distracted and know everything forwards and backwards. you can do this andstilll ahve free time and get good grades.</p>
<p>Northwestern has an innovative "Engineering First" curriculum that exposes freshmen to engineering design. The students are given real engineering jobs for real industry clients. Freshmen year is no longer all about finishing the boring calculus/physics/chemistry sequences there. Feedback from students has been very positive.</p>
<p>Very Hard.</p>
<p>Junior @ Berkeley - CHE.</p>