I am not doing well in Engineering and I don't know why. Advice please?

My daughter is slow when it comes to studying. She needs lots of time to process each lesson and subject, but she puts in the time. She took Calc 1 for the first time in college when most in her class were repeating Calc from h.s. She had her book, Khan academy on the tablet, went to office hours, went to tutoring. One of the most helpful things she did was take notes for an athlete who missed class about once a week and she ‘taught’ him the lesson. Doing that she could see if she had any holes in her own understanding.

It’s hard. It takes a lot of time. Don’t go on to the next level until you have mastered the basics.

Flash cards WITH YOUR OWN NOTES added about how/why/when to use it, and how it may relate to other concepts can be helpful. Of course the student needs more than just the equations. But it is really hard to go back through problems sets to review for exams – a summary of key learnings as you go along that you can then review us much easier to study from.

I know for my college math tests, about half or a little less was know the formula type questions. But drilling on working those problems very quickly was what gave me the time I neeed to finish the harder problems.

I can’t help it I am really struggling and I think I may just want to have my credits go towards something else. I am struggling so hard right now. I went to the tutor for Calculus and everytime he helps me I find myself messing up on the algebra. I am not that good in algebra. I feel like I hit rock bottom. They say go to college and major in something that is marketable. Well Engineering is marketable but at the same time it is literally killing me. It’s depressing me and I had a happier life at a community college. I never imagined myself quitting Engineering because I want to stay in college but I don’t know where else to go. In my mind I feel as though engineering is the only path I can take in order for me to be successful but it’s killing me.

And just like many others said sometimes we want to go down the path which is made for us but Engineering is killing my happiness inside. Maybe engineering is not right for me? I had a guy say hey to me not too long ago and he was like you sound very tired. I am normally a happy person with so much life! But these classes are depressing me so much. Calculus 3 and Physics and Statics was 3 of my most toughest classes. If these classes are tough and you all say it gets harder as I go along I don’t want it to go any further. I do everything. I go to tutoring every day, my teachers office hours and nothing seems to work. I am not saying I want to drop out of college because I have came wayyyy to far. I am 69 credits into my Bachelors degree. I don’t see myself doing anything else. I am what they call a burned out engineering student. That’s right I admit that I tried so hard to succeed in engineering school but I just can’t master the concepts that come along with being an engineer. Building bridges doesn’t really excite me, calculating how much pressure could go inside the pipe before it breaks doesn’t excite me either. I don’t just want to major in something that I am not passionate about anymore. I majored in engineering for the money. I want to live a happy, financially stable life. But now I just want to complete my Bachelors degree but I’m not sure what to do anymore. If I go further I am afraid I will just keep struggling. If I can’t master the basics what’s the point of going further? Guys I have no passion for anything so that’s why I chose engineering. Maybe science interests me but I have an Associates in science degree already and it gets me no where. So my plan was to major in engineering and look what it has got me. Depression, anxiety and thoughts of quitting school.

Engineering is the only path is a false assumption. There are many many paths for you. It will reveal itself in time.

If you are having trouble with the algebra then I agree your a bit over your head at the moment. Time to regroup and re-access.

Some schools are teaching the required math with the engineering principles and include all the prerequisite skills built into the sequence. There are a lot of students that struggle, some schools have found they are better able to serve a diverse set of students when they provide all the concepts a student needs within the curriculum rather than relying on all of the students to come with math skills they may not have been exposed to or mastered.

“Results of a recent longitudinal study have shown that the introduction of EGR 101 and associated prerequisite changes have substantially mitigated the effect of incoming math preparation on student success in engineering across the entire range of incoming ACT math scores, which has more than doubled the average graduation rate of enrolled students. Moreover, it has done so without watering down the caliber of graduates, who have actually enjoyed a slight (but statistically significant) increase in graduation GPA. Finally, the approach has been shown to have the greatest impact on members of underrepresented groups” - from Wright State’s white paper https://engineering-computer-science.wright.edu/sites/engineering-computer-science.wright.edu/files/page/attachments/WhitePapers_dean_v4.pdf

https://engineering-computer-science.wright.edu/research/engineering-mathematics/the-wright-state-model-for-engineering-mathematics-education

Some one suggested khan academy, that website is really good at helping students identify the holes in their math knowledge and skills. You probably need to master some skills that aren’t being explicitly taught in the class. Your tutor seems like a great resource for you. Often the hardest part is knowing the terminology so you can look up outside resources. https://www.khanacademy.org/

Khan is a great resource

This is your problem in a nutshell. You can either take some time, which may even mean taking a quarter/semester off or scheduling no tech classes, and backfill your fundamentals, or you can change your major. Bulling forward, unhappy, without the foundation will without question, result in failure.

Many of those who struggle in engineering, for the same reasons you have, got into it for the same reason you did. It wasn’t because they were passionate about the math and science, but because someone or something convinced them that engineering was the only worthwhile degree. Studying becomes a checking the box, right of passage to the end type of process. The problem is, in Engineering there is no end per se. The end IS the process.

Now, that said, there are LOTS of people who aren’t engineers who lead happy, productive lives. Only you can decide whether or not engineering is important enough to you to do that. Baring that work, you will not succeed in engineering.

Of course that’s the problem. What else could it be? I wonder why it didn’t fail the other 100,000 engineering students who earn their degrees every year.

Sure, the system has flaws, as does any system, but thousands of students every year learn how to work within it to achieve their goals. That’s what you need to do. Take responsibility and learn to navigate the system.

Whatever research you are referencing is either out of date or just flat wrong according to modern science. There is no compelling evidence that genetics play a major role in one’s intelligence. It might play a role is setting the initial conditions, but the final level of intelligence is so high that the influence of those initial conditions is quickly erased by environmental factors. For a good (if somewhat dry) read on the cognitive theory behind learning, check out [Make It Stick](https://www.amazon.com/Make-Stick-Science-Successful-Learning/dp/0674729013).

The culprit there is largely socioeconomic in nature, not racial or genetic. It just so happens that those minority groups are over-represented in the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder both in this country and in most places in the world.

My first inclination is that this is the likely culprit. You have to learn how to study well, not just hard, and generally that means not relying on cramming before an exam. For example:

I highly discourage the use of flash cards. I’ll requote @ClassicRockerDad here for emphasis:

I cannot emphasize this enough. Your goal here should not be to simply memorize recipes (or worse, in the case of flash cards, the individual lines that make up the recipe). Your goal is to understand why a recipe works and why it applies to the problems it does. If all you do is memorize the recipes, you won’t be able to apply those concepts to similar but different problems or more complicated problems, which is really going to hurt you on the exams and/or in later classes.

That’s how I did it. There is time. If all you do is know the rule, then you end up misapplying it as often as you apply it correctly. Every rule has limitations, and understanding those limitations is how you avoid misuse.

I rush to complete exams as it is; I can’t imagine taking more time to derive things from scratch instead of just having them memorized.

I think you are misunderstanding. We aren’t advocating sitting down and deriving the things on the fly during exams. We are advocating, essentially, studying that way. As a student, I found that when I really knew a topic, which generally meant knowing where equations came from and when and where they applied, I was one of the first students to finish an exam and I invariably did well. If I didn’t have that level of mastery, I was typically one of the last to finish and the result could go either direction depending on how good my memory was that day.

My daughter uses flashcards. And Khan academy. And office hours. And study groups. Mostly it is hours and hours of studying.

But she likes the math and physics. If she didn’t like it, she’d find another major and another career.

“I am not that good in algebra.”

Algebra is a fundamental building block upon which engineering and math are built. To do well at engineering or math, algebra has to be about as difficult as brushing your teeth – you just do it without thinking.

“Your goal here should not be to simply memorize recipes …”

I agree completely. I can still remember during exams (years ago) forgetting the formulae and having to re-derive them from basic principles in the margins of the exams. Of course I was helped by the fact that a week earlier I had known the formulae. To do well you need to understand the concepts well. Memorizing formulae will not get you very far.

Engineering is no walk in the park for anyone. With a C and two D’s, you are closer to making it than you realize. You just need a little boost to get you over the top. Reach out for some support, and bear down on your classes. Talk to a counselor and the tutoring/academic support office.

Read the chapter before the class and mark it up with highlights and questions. Khan academy can be helpful if you are stuck.

To prepare for exams, be sure to get copies of old exams and practice, practice, practice.

You have to believe you can do it. You can!

OP tbh I don’t think you’re qualified to be an engineer in my humblest opinion. You seem to look for whatever excuse you can find to make up for you doing poorly in your classes. Not everyone can cut it and it’s not for everyone. Engineering is hard but it isn’t insanely hard. From what you posted on here so far I would hate to be partnered with you in a class lab or on a project.

Totally irrelevant I make the best partner ever! My lab partners and I have excelled exceptionally well. Teamwork has nothing to do with my grades. So what are you talking about?

I don’t know you at all, but agree, that comment seemed a little harsh and off topic. Keep in mind, it’s an open internet forum with random posters from who knows where. All sorts of comments can and do pop up. It’s healthy to let the ones like that roll off your shoulders.

Thank you my friend. Again when I made this post I was really upset but I have taken your advice as well as others and I found that I do need to spend more time studying. My Calculus teacher gave everyone a chance to retake the calculus midterm and I did exceptionally well! It turns out I am no longer dooing poorly in my math class. It’s just physics now. I understand I just have to understand the equations and not memorize them. Like now we are working on cylindrical coordinates and it doesn’t seem really difficult because I took my time studying the basics which was triple integrals. I think I now have a deep understanding of it but I do need to practice it more. I have found that I need to sumurse myself in math because I want to become an Engineer. I need to understand the basics of Calculus like what it means and why it’s important to change to polar coordinates sometimes when integrating. I am so happy I made this forum because many people have gave me so much great advice. I know there will be trolls but at the end of the day I am going to do my best.