<p>I plan to transfer to UT or Georgia Tech after my sophomore year for Civil Engineering. I am trying to take all my foundational classes such as Chem I/II, Physics I/II, Calculus I/II/III, Statics, History I/II, English I/II where I am at before I transfer. I've heard that the weed out classes such as the ones I mentioned above are very difficult in UT, GA Tech, or any university of its ranking in their respective engineering programs. But what about the CE classes that are the main part of the degree plan? I know that they will be exceptionally challenging but I'd want to know a few of you guys' opinion or experience for engineering. How hard will it be for a student who transfers from a community college or less-competitive 4-year university to adjust to the rigor? How hard will it be able to maintain a good GPA since transfer students will have to start with a new GPA? I really want to keep a good GPA to get good internships.</p>
<p>bump!!! i would like to know the answer to this too!</p>
<p>Don’t be overly concerned with how difficult UT or Tech are, as long as your current school does a decent job of preparing you, it will not be an issue. Transfer students do fine.</p>
<p>The challenge (your first semester) will be making friends and forming study groups. Make it a point to join student organizations, like ASCE (or Chi Epsilon, if you qualify). A good solid group of friends will make life easier. :)</p>
<p>[Student</a> Organizations | School of Civil and Environmental Engineering](<a href=“http://www.ce.gatech.edu/academics/student-organizations]Student”>http://www.ce.gatech.edu/academics/student-organizations)</p>
<p>[UT</a> Knoxville | College of Engineering, Students Organizations, Pi Tau Sigma](<a href=“http://www.engr.utk.edu/currentstudents/orgs/pts.html]UT”>http://www.engr.utk.edu/currentstudents/orgs/pts.html)</p>
<p>It’s not the adjust in rigor really. If you develop solid study habits at your cc and really make an effort to learn the material you’ll be just as well prepared academically as a native student (better in some cases). The hardest part about transferring is the alien environment and cultural shock. It takes about a month or two to find your footing ( where are the best places to study, where to eat, where to nap). It is intimidating also because you lose your network of friends/study partners and you’re thrown into a group of people who have been living/working together for two years. These people have survived the weed out process and will be mentally tougher, but that doesn’t make them smarter. Definitely reach out in your in major classes to your same graduating year classmates (i.e. start a course Facebook/G+ group), you’ll now be sharing the same pain for the next couple years.</p>
<p>That’s one aspect of engineering school I enjoyed - other students are helpful and like studying together. In my tough classes, I always made sure to be part of a study group. da6onet is right -it made the pain a little easier to bear! A great way to make friends, too.</p>
<p>Well that’s a relief to know these things. Thanks.</p>
<p>By the way, I meant to say UT (University of Texas at Austin) and not UT as in (University of Tennessee, University of Tampa, etc.) just to avoid confusion.</p>
<p>I am not really sure about my college “decently preparing” me. A little bit about the academics. I feel I have to study a lot but some of the tests (midterms and finals) don’t seem to be as challenging or tricky. A good amount of effort should be taken into consideration into studying these tests but they are really straight-forward and seem to not require long hours of studying for them based on the difficulty. Some of my tests in my Calc. II & III class are graded out of 126 points and getting above an 80 is still an A to that individual professor’s grading scale! </p>
<p>As for the more difficult tests, I feel that there is some large curve or grade inflation being implemented while grading our tests. For example, a final exam for an engineering class I took in my freshman year with a lot of questions I didn’t know ended up giving me an A in the class. I currently had a B in that class and could have sworn I had gotten a C on the exam but somehow I guess grade inflation played a big role.</p>
<p>I am not sure if this is really preparing me or are the higher-ranked universities really like this?</p>
<p>Having been to a couple colleges (one prestigious) I can tell you that your tests are a reflection of how much your teacher cares, and is case by case, not endemic to the school. I’ve had a mechanics of materials prof at a CC whose tests were lightyears away from what we covered, with raw median scores in the 30s. Likewise I had physics prof a my state flagship teaching 500 people and scored out of 100 points on a 125 point test with problems out of the book. As long as you’re making an honest effort to read the text, go to class, do practice/unassigned hard problems occasionally, you’ll be fine. </p>
<p>If you’re in doubt about a class, try finding a course website or old tests from an equivalent course at a name brand school (ideally the one you want to transfer to). If you find you can do it or at least know where to look for the answer, you’re golden. If you can’t answer the questions, fill in the gaps. I actually used Cornell’s calculus for engineers tests to study for my cc calc II final. Turns out my cc covered more material than Cornell did :-)</p>
<p>Edit: also I cross referenced my textbooks to see what other schools were using it. I was surprised to see ga tech, stanford, mit, etc, all using the same textbooks as my cc.</p>
<p>Hmmm. Interesting. You bring up a good point da6onet.</p>
<p>This is coming from a UT engineering grad.
I felt the program at UT was good, but difficult. It also depends on what major within engineering that you choose. I had friends who were in Civil/Mechanical that thought engineering was okay, then I had friends in EE/CHE/BME that thought it was ridiculously hard. It all depends also on the professor that you get. Some professors I had were too harsh, purposely making the class harder than it should be and having the class averages for the tests at a 26/100. Then I had understanding professors who wanted balance in students’ life and made class very doable and made themselves accessible. It is all about how much effort and time you put it to school. You don’t necessarily have to be smart (I graduated with a moderate to high GPA and got a great offer from a Fortune 500 company, but I wasn’t smart at all) to succeed at both schools. It is a coin toss between GA Tech and UT, because both are good programs. I would be biased towards UT though :).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>CCs often have to target course equivalency for several universities (often the several in-state public universities), so they may try to include all of the topics in all of the target universities’ courses.</p>