<p>Any tips from engineering students or engineering graduates on how to maintain a high gpa in engineering. I will most likely attend community college the first two years then tranfer to a UC or CSU. My gpa is very important to me because I'd like to attend medical school afterwards. Please don't tell me not to major in engineering because that is what i'm interested in and that is what my heart is set on doing. Thank you in advance.</p>
<p>If your heart is set on doing engineering why are you planning on going to med school?</p>
<p>My heart is set on majoring in engineering for undergrad.</p>
<p>There is no magic trick. Put school first. Read the books, before the lectures. Start the homework when it is assigned. Do everything with a grade attached to it, including all the extra credit. Make sure you learn the material fully, so that you are not starting from scratch with each new class. Ask questions in class and in labs, and go to office hours to ask more. Finish everything early.</p>
<p>Or to put it more succinctly: work hard, and smart.</p>
<p>thank you!!!</p>
<p>Don’t enroll in more than three engineering courses at a time.</p>
<p>Thank you!!!</p>
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<p>That may be very difficult if graduating in four years is a priority, depending on the field of engineering and curriculum.</p>
<p>In a nutshell, it’s like any major… be diligent. But often the workload is more intense for engineering. Here’s my list, based on my own dated experience and more recent feedback from my own kids. </p>
<ul>
<li>Attend all classes </li>
<li>Do all homework … without procrastination - it piles up </li>
<li>Take advantage of tutoring sessions and/or professor office hours </li>
<li>Seek out study groups</li>
<li>Don’t be afraid to ask for help… I’ve read about profs who say it’s too late to help after Exam #3… they wish the student had asked for help earlier.<br></li>
<li>Keep up with the work. Even if crash-study before a test worked in hs, it won’t work in college. </li>
</ul>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>The mistake most people make is not being prepared for lecture. </p>
<p>In HS, the teacher comes in and teaches and adjusts the pace to the comprehension level of the class. In college, there is a set amount of material. What is covered in lecture is generally the most important stuff, but it can just fly by. What you want to do is preread the lecture in the textbook and try to learn as much as you can on your own. Then when you go to lecture, the more difficult points are made and you retain a lot more. </p>
<p>Also, take lecture notes on a separate sheet of paper and copy them over to your notebook carefully and legibly to make sure you retain it all. Try to come up with questions. </p>
<p>Always go to office hours. </p>
<p>Work in group, but don’t divide the work up. Everybody must have made an honest attempt at all of the problems before meeting in the group. The group time is to go over everyone’s solution and to help each other through the most difficult material. </p>
<p>While the preptime might seem like a waste of time, it is probably among the highest return on investment you can do because you come out of lecture with a solid grasp of the material. </p>
<p>Also, should you get behind, get help immediately. The class will not slow down to wait for you.</p>
<p>@ClassicRockerDad: My D told us just after classes began for this 2nd semester of her freshman year that she was doing just that. Reading the required material before the lecture. I am not sure if she decided this on her own or it was suggested by a friend or mentor. I’ll be curious if she feels more prepared going into tests than she did her first semester. She still did well, however, things are only going to become more challenging as she moves through her coursework. Thanks for the suggestions.</p>
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<p>Don’t take this as a hard and fast rule. You could come up with plenty of schedules in the same school for the same major where 2 engineering classes + 2 non-engineering classes is substantially harder than 4 engineering classes. The workload between classes varies too much to make a rule like this.</p>
<p>Meeting in groups to go over homework and study for exams is extremely helpful in my opinion, but make sure that everyone you’re meeting with can stay focused. Not everybody can, and if they can’t that’s worse than studying alone.</p>
<p>Definitely do all homework. Some classes will allow you to turn in late homework with a penalty, don’t rely on that even if it is an option. Always try to get it in on time.</p>
<p>I don’t think going to all classes always is necessarily useful. Some classes are just really bad. Go to the first 3 lectures of the semester for every class. Classes that are really bad that aren’t helping you at all don’t bother with. It shouldn’t be many classes, but there are bound to be a few throughout undergrad that just aren’t worth the time it takes sitting in class.</p>
<p>Go to office hours if you need help. If you’re done with the homework and you’re confident about it all and they’re talking about the homework, don’t bother. Don’t go to office hours just to go to office hours, go when you have a reason to.</p>
<p>Find out what the professor does with tests. Some professors have some quirks about how they do their tests. One professor I had would always include a question from the previous exam (presumably one that was frequently missed) on subsequent exams. Another would always have one question that was like something from the book but not like the homework or anything in lecture. Some exams are really long and are in large part testing how quickly you can do the problems, with the expectation that you won’t finish it. Knowing what the test will be like can help you figure out what to study.</p>
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<p>Have to agree with this. Prepping really helps solidify understanding of the material… much like the feeling you get when reviewing material from classes you took in the past - that material always seems much easier to understand the second time around.</p>
<p>Definitely do the engineering. I did that before medical school and I know many doctors who were former engineers. There are a lot of great advices here so I don’t want to repeat them. Let me give you different ones. Pick a hobby and keep it. You will rely on it during the toughest days of medical school. Lastly, one of my surgery colleagues complained of reading fatigue when he entered medical school. Engineering doesn’t require too much reading but is heavy on problem solving. He wishes he read more books in college to prepare him for the transition to medical school. Good luck.</p>
<p>I want to add that the transition from CC to a 4-year program can be a bumpy one. A friend worked in the transfer office of my alma mater and his job was to monitor the grades of the CC transfer students. The majority struggled.</p>
<p>The average student at the 4-year will be much smarter and the ones who were partying too much have already switched majors. Avoid a college where you would have been academically in the bottom half of the freshman engineering majors. The workload is already heavy, you will need to be doing extra to catch up, and effort alone may not get you near the top of the class.</p>
<p>The rest of the advice is spot on, especially the bits about early work, though I wouldn’t get into the habit of skipping classes.</p>
<p>Thankyou so much to all who replied. All this wonderful advice is being written down in my notebook and I will begin incorporating this advice in my studying right now. (Before I graduate HS) I really appreciate all of you taking the time out of your busy schedule to reply to my thread. I learned some really great points that I hadn’t really thought of because I’ve never been to college befor. :)</p>
<p>“I will begin incorporating this advice in my studying right now.” - What a great idea! Practicing the study habits before the avalanche of workload will pay off. Best of luck to you.</p>
<p>Just sent the link to this thread to my son who is just starting his 2nd semester of freshman year majoring in ME at UCONN. He got 3.064 1st semester and he worked very hard. Hoping these tips will help him.</p>