<p>How long should I typically spend on engineering problems? I typically get around six problems per engineering class per week and I spend 2-3 hours on each one of them and I'm starting to feel like I'm getting behind on everything due to it. Someone here told me that I should seek to ask someone for help if I'm spending that much time on each problem, but then I would have to ask for help for every single problem in my homework, which is impossible time-wise. So far, I've tried to do them myself by reading the book 3-4 times, going over my notes a couple hundred times, and throwing stuff against the wall out of frustration. How else should I get better at this? I already have a grad student as a tutor but I want to be able to rely on myself to be able to get on top of things.</p>
<p>That depends a lot on the topic and your own aptitudes as a student and the types of problems your professor assigns. I’ve had classes where I spend several hours on a problem and I’ve had classes where problems take 15 or 20 minutes. There is no hard and fast rule.</p>
<p>How do you distinguish between knowing that you need to get help in a particular problem because you can’t solve it and spending a couple more hours to figure out the problem yourself? I keep getting to the point where I would spend hours on a problem and get nowhere and then realize that I should’ve asked for help. Likewise, I spend hours on some problems and do manage to get the solution myself.</p>
<p>Do you have a group of friends you regularly work with on these problems? Sometimes working in a group with your peers can really help. There is also always office hours.</p>
<p>You should at least spend some time on the problem first before asking for help. Also read the problems ahead and let your brain work, thinking about it. Don’t wait until the last minute to do homework. My daughter decided not to be a procrastinator anymore.</p>
<p>I do have friends I can work with on these problems. I am utterly confused by the advice of my last professor though: he said that working in teams should only be a last resort because if I frequently work in teams, I’ll rely on them too much to get the right answer and so I’ll be screwed when exams come. This kind of does make sense though because many times one of my peers would just shout out the right method after a long time of working on the same problem and then I would get worried about how this would negatively affect me in the future.</p>
<p>I also am kind of worried that I’ve been asking for too much help from my professor/his T.A.s though. In my last class, I went to around 90% of the office hours held to ask questions about lecture and homework, and come exam time, I did poorly.</p>
<p>Working in a team is only a handicap if you use it as a crutch and start letting others do the work for you. If you use it as an opportunity for you and your peers to help each other through difficult parts of the problems with each other and to increase mutual understanding of the problem, then it is beneficial.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about asking professors and TAs too many questions. You are paying for an education (or your parents are), so it is your responsibility to make sure you aren’t wasting that money. If that means asking lots of questions to get a better understanding, then ask away. Do your best not to be obnoxious about it, but keep asking. Most professors and TAs aren’t going to mind answering questions as long as it is clear you are genuinely trying to learn the material and not just wring the answers out of them. Of course some professors and TAs are going to be a little grumpy, but you are paying for an education and ultimately you have to make sure you get one.</p>
<p>OP - This is a tangent from your original question, but it may help others. </p>
<p>I had a helpful informal study group for Strength of Materials class. Most of us had an hour free between Materials Science and Strengths… so we met to crosscheck homework. The rule was that we needed to all diligently TRY each problem. During the free hour, we’d compare answers (for those we completed). We’d help anybody that stopped by the table IF they had tried it. Sometimes a procrastinator would want to sit with us and just copy our answers. but we declined. </p>
<p>This was 30 years ago, before there was as much project work integrated into curriculum. It was a really worthwhile experience for homework (worth 10% of grade), for learning (test prep) and for group interaction. </p>
<p>Funny story - once two of us had the same-ish, but we were off from each other by a factor of 100. Obviously one of us was wrong. Well… we were both wrong…and we laughed over that! One was too high by 10x. One was too low by 10x. Tracking down our errors was good practice for the real world. </p>