How much would you study, what kind of grades would you get, and what were some of the harder classes during freshman/sophomore year? Just curious since it varies for everyone. A lot of people struggle but for others it seems to be a little easier while still having free time.
How much you study, what you find hard, what grades you get do vary widely from person to person so hard to say what you will find hard. What seems to make the difference is how good your study skills are and making sure you learn the principles behind the how you do something so you can apply it to other circumstances.
Freshman year is more of the basics of math and science. Sophomore year is starting to learn the very basic principles of engineering. It will seem somewhat disconnected and therefore confusing at times. Junior year will start to bring the subject into focus and will actually seem easier.
The one thing about engineering is that you will be, on average, studying more than other majors with the exception of the premed majors. You will still have time for fun, you will just have to manage your time. I played varsity sports while taking engineering and pretty much had to plan my week carefully.
It varies from person to person. It also varies somewhat from school to school. I went to a STEM school, and it was nice that my friends had similar workload / test schedules.
Nearly all engineering majors require 3 semesters of Calculus plus Linear Algebra, Differential Equations and Statistics. They usually require 2 semesters of Calculus based Physics and perhaps another science such as Chemistry to be able to continue with the engineering curriculum. It tends to be very sequential so it requires you master the basics to be able to move on to more advanced sciences such as Thermodynamics etc. While most students I have talked to wouldn’t categorize any of the engineering courses as “easy” for some the concepts seem to easier to understand than for others. Good study habits are a must as is the discipline to not get behind. Skipping classes is a sure way to fall behind quickly. If you don’t understand something don’t merely skip it and move on. Get help. You will likely need to understand the concept for a future course.
I have a D who is a Chem E. She is a very conceptual thinker. She has the ability to understand concepts well and apply them to problems. She found her courses challenging but enjoyable. She will be a 2nd semester junior and is doing well in her courses.
I have a younger D who is in her freshman year as an Exercise Physiology/Dance major. She is working to be a Physical Therapist so the pre-reqs are very similar to pre-med. She is very strong at memorizing things. She has always loved biology and anatomy and physiology which require a lot of memorization. She never liked math as much and would work hard to memorize formulas in Calculus. She always found it more difficult to figure out which formulas to apply to specific problems.
Both are smart girls and had similar GPA’s and test scores. I think D2 would have had a much more challenging time as an engineering major and D1 would have found the pre-med to be very tedious. They could each have succeeded in the other’s fields but would have had to have worked harder and been less happy doing it.
In conclusion, it is not really possible to answer the question how hard engineering would be for you. Perhaps you see yourself in the examples I gave you and can use it as a guide. Good luck.
Thanks you guys for your answers. They really helped a lot.
One very unscientific test I have used to see how well someone will do in engineering is this: use Google maps to get directions to somewhere you don’t know how to get to. You will presented with a map and a set of turn by turn directions. If you could only have the map or the step by step, which would you choose?
An engineer will typically take the map. Engineering is very much a visual skill and so would prefer the map.
Like I said, very unscientific and probably wrong some of the time but I have it to be true more often than not.
I have to stay roughly in the top quartile of students in my department to keep scholarships, and I would say I normally put in probably 60 hours a week between classes and homework to stay there. There are several weeks that get a lot longer when exams or projects start piling up. I made it out of my first two years with a 3.8, but it took up pretty much all my time to get there. You could probably get by with about half the work if you just needed Bs, and honestly, I would say that the work and stress of trying to get all As is not worth it.
The worst class in my first two years was probably differential equations. I got by a lot of math classes by just memorizing a cookbook process for doing equations, but my luck ran out in that class and those poor study habits came back to bite me hard. Intro physics E&M was a major pain too. I am not very good at thinking abstractly or non-intuitively, and all the fields and such got pretty challenging.
Other than that, I didn’t think any of the lower-level courses were really that bad. It was mostly just a matter of putting the time in. You know if you are ready for an exam or not - I don’t think I’ve ever got a test score back that’s surprised me - and if not, you usually know what you need to fix to get there. A lot of doing well in engineering is just being willing to follow through on that.
Having been a pre-med (I choose to go to optometry school), I’d push back a bit on @HPuck35’s assertion about pre-meds. Engineering is much more challenging in concept and volume. The thing about pre-med though is that grades are paramount. They’re important in engineering, but there the only thing in pre-med. They are also dissimilar in the fact that you can forget virtually everything you learn in undergrad as a pre-med whereas those concepts are foundational for engineers.
My father has an even better perspective. He has a BS and MS from MIT and after 7 years practicing, gave it up to go to medical school. His point was this…you need to know lots of things for both professions, but engineers need to be able yo synthesize their knowledge. Physicians simply need to recall theirs.
Eyemgh, your comments on the difference between engineers and pre-med students are quite valid. The amount of studying time is similar (IMHO) between engineers and pre-meds as the pressure to get good grades for the pre-med students is so great.
Engineers do like to figure synthesize things and figure things out. It is the nature of the field and the job to which you will be hired to do. An old engineer I met when I was just starting out told me that “with one point you get a line and with two points, you get a curve”. When I questioned him about that, he said that you always had to add your knowledge and judgement to the data you have in front of you and that’s how you get a curve out of two points. I wouldn’t go about doing what he said literally, but the point about the profession was made.
First year EE here. With two engineering classes and one English class I spend between 20-30 hours a week either studying and doing homework. It’s def possible to have a social life though as an engineer just budget your time well. I was able to pledge a social fraternity, join an engineering project, and go out all while doing school work. You’ll be up late but if you are passionate it’s possible.