<p>my experience...
go to a programming class thinking, "cool, i'm going to learn about what's going on inside of a computer."
end of semester:
"screw programming, the teacher sucked, more than half the class failed, and I didn't learn anything useful or cool. But at least my other classes will be better. Science is awesome!!!"</p>
<p>every semester I have some soul crushing class in which the teachers doesn't give a crap, half the students fail, I think I'm not going to pass, and then I end up getting a B... and every time i keep thinking, "well, at least that's over and your other classes will be better."</p>
<p>fast forward two years: "Physics, hell yeah!!! I'm going to learn about the world all around me." ... turns out I might not make it through General Physics I...... the point being that, as always, a bad teacher, an unreasonable learning curve, and me having to panic study to make up for these things, are making me hate yet another thing that I thought I would love to learn about... </p>
<p>I wish I never would have gone into electrical engineering, and this inescapable pattern of bad classes is making me miserable... I wanted to do something in green technology, but if i don't get the electrical engineering degree, i'll pretty much have to go for an associates degree... that being because all the green tech degrees are lower level degrees at this point... my only problem with this is that people say an associated degree is about as good as a high school diploma... and also i'd like to not wonder for the rest of my life whether or not i could have made it through engineering school... </p>
<p>so the big decision is... continue with the electrical engineering BS and be miserable for the next few years while I slowly start to hate science, but end up with a degree that will land me in high social regard and get me a high paying job...
OR
Get my associates in some enviro tech subject that will be easy enough to make the bad teachers not matter, and move on with my life, but end up in a lower level of the same branch of work that i would want to go into even if i had gotten my BS...</p>
<p>Welcome to engineering school. I think what you experience is pretty much what most engineering students experience. The stress of failing tests and a near impossible work load are pretty much the norms. Stick with it dude.</p>
<p>If you are getting Bs in most of your classes, that is okay. You will be well positioned to get a job if that is what you want at the end of this. Here are a few thoughts:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Is there some kind of engineering that might interest you more than electrical, and also can be applied to the green energy field? Or even some other major (eg, environmental science) that you should consider switching to?</p></li>
<li><p>Can you start now to apply for internships for next summer in the type of green energy company you want to work for? Getting a little bit of work or co-op experience might help you decide if it is worth grinding through the major if you are really going to like the actual work of getting the degree.</p></li>
<li><p>Sometimes the entry level/general classes are the worst. They are really large, don’t have the best professors or TAs, etc. It might get better as you move futher along. Also, possibly changing your mindset from “I am going to learn something cool and this is going to be fun” to “gotta grind this out so I can get through the other side to the more interesting parts of this career” could actually help. I have a niece who is studying maritime engineering, and believe me… the first two years of her five year program were brutal, and often seemed irrelevant to her long term goals. But now that she is into upper level classes, has gotten to choose her area of focus, and is doing her co-op assignments, it is better…</p></li>
<li><p>I’m just gonna say, although there are exceptions, engineering profs are not always the best. Lots of them with awful communication skills and no sympathy for the suffering of their students. I do think some schools may be a bit better at this than others, but it is probably a pretty common problem. Again, you need to decide if the workload is worth it for the reward. There is a reason engineering is considered such a hard major. And why they actually pay you for your services once you have suffered through completing your degree. :)</p></li>
</ul>
<p>You’ve probably learned more than you think. It’s painful, no doubt. What your missing is the experience that shows you that the pain is worth it. Get involved with research at your school and find something cool to work on that uses what you learned, or should have learned. When you actually need it for something, you are motivated like never before to really learn it depth. Stick with it.</p>
<p>This line right here makes me think this is a problem with you, not engineering. Engineering is hard, and yes, in a field that is filled with professors whose first love is research, there are some bad teachers. However, only once have I ever had a teacher that was so bad that it honestly prevented me from learning the material. Every other time, no matter how I wanted to spin it, it all came down to me and my own poor study habits or time management.</p>
<p>Stop making excuses and either suck it up, clean up your study habits and finish the degree, or else just keep blaming the professors and the material and quit. It makes no difference in the end to the rest of us. There are literally hundreds of ways to get into “green” technologies, not just through electrical engineering, so I am sure you can find your way in from a number of different directions.</p>
<p>The phrase “inescapable pattern” makes me think that the one unchanging factor here - your learning habits - is contributing to the problem. “Panic study” is not a good way to approach conceptually challenging classes with a lot of material - it can get you the grade, but the consequences for your quality of life are not good.</p>
<p>Formal education is not always fun. If you are getting B’s, you are doing well. I’d say stick it out. Good luck, whatever you decide.</p>
<p>(Just curious…what classes have you taken? I know you said you are doing Physics I now.)</p>
<p>I’ve looked into good study habits… and I am doing everything right in that department according to pretty much everything I’ve ever read on the subject… so the only problem with me is that I might be too stupid to be able to get through an engineering degree with any kind of ease… and panic study is just some flavor text… </p>
<p>I know that school isn’t suppose to be a bowl of cherries. I’ve been through the typical classes that most students will go through; economics, history, college english, math up the wazoo… these courses were not bad, even with poor teachers… but when you reach a certain level of difficulty, say in almost any engineering course, a bad teacher can turn an already hard class into a soul crushing experience… and bad teachers are peppered in throughout every school, mine included, making them unavoidable… I’ve had one every semester…</p>
<p>and yes I could get into the green tech scene right now, with no degree, or an associates degree, but going into it with an electrical engineering degree puts me ahead of the pack right off the bat… which is the point… </p>
<p>struggle through the degree, and risk reaching a level of difficulty that I’m too stupid to get past, and maybe get some serious fruits for my labor… OR… just start in at the mail room of the green tech scene, and avoid years of misery by admitting defeat and sacrificing a chunk of my pride…</p>
<p>I could not possibly convey the idea of the difficulties of going to school for engineering to anyone who hasn’t gone for something similar… so family, and friends have been less than a useful source for advice… that’s why I came here… I’m not looking for the negative, “stop complaining,” type of comments…</p>
<p>I’ve taken, dc and ac circuits, machine structure and programming, C programming, micro lab, up through calc II, history of technology, fundamentals of electricity, chemistry for engineers, techinical communications… gen eds and some others I can’t remember off the top of my head… and without studying pretty much all the time, I would not be able to get through these courses… yes my quality of life suffers, but it would be far worse to not pass… I suppose this is actually a large part of my problem… I have to study like a mad man to succeed, but studying like a mad man is making me miserable… so quit and be happy, or keep going like i am now… there is no in between really</p>
<p>Have you tried doing any internships, shadowing or other steps to see if EE is what you really WANT to do at the end of your degree? Some folks find out it’s not the “fit” they hoped and decide after their degree to go into something else.</p>
<p>Have you spoken with the engineering counselors about your options at this point? Are the courses you found difficult the “weeding courses,” where it is normal for much of the class to do poorly? Have office hours been any help?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I’m afraid there may be good and bad teachers in many fields, including EE. Not everyone allows a poor teacher to cause the class to be “soul crushing,” even if they make tough material that much more difficult.</p>
<p>My S is an EE & he & his classmates studied A LOT more than many of the other students on their campus. He just accepted that was how things worked with that major–he did NOT find most of the coursework unbearable and did manage to have some balance in his life, then and now.</p>
No one, regardless of how smart they are, will be able to get through an engineering degree with ease. There is no technical class you won’t have to study for, unless you’re taking it a second time. I say this from experience, not speculation.
Granted, the better you are at the fundamentals, the faster you will be able to actually learn the materials. I can do in 2 hours what takes most people 6-10 hours because I understand the material much more quickly. That actually has very little to do with intelligence and everything to do with the fundamentals.</p>
<p>These are pretty intuitive, but there are essentially two “secrets” that you have to understand to succeed.
Fundamentals are everything
Don’t really understand calculus? Good luck with physics. Don’t really understand physics? Good luck with ANY type of engineering. Same goes for chemistry for ChemE, or programming (usually C++) for EEs. You need to know these subjects VERY well, and if you do, everything else comes relatively easily. If you don’t, you will feel the pain for years.
I see you mentioned that you had trouble with physics mechanics. You need to work on that. Mechanics is the foundation for E&M, which is a foundation for relativity, and all three are fundamental to understanding everything in electrical engineering (circuits, electromagnetism, signals, and the like). If you don’t understand the calculus, you simply can’t grasp physics conceptually, and therefore you can’t really get anywhere in engineering. If that’s your problem, go back and fill in the gaps in your understanding. Relearn calculus, relearn mechanics, relearn C++, even relearn E&M if you need to. I know you can do it; you would’ve been weeded out with a failing grade in calculus and physics if you weren’t capable of making the cut.</p>
<ol>
<li>Teachers are inherently worthless (and tutors too)
Professors are there to give you assignments/exams and clear up any confusion you have about the material. Contrary to popular belief, they aren’t going to teach you the material. It’s your job to teach yourself. Sure, you might get lucky and learn a thing or two in class, but don’t rely on it.
The problem with allowing someone else to teach you the material is that it’s unreliable. What if you’re gone one day, or the teacher just sucks at teaching a concept (or just sucks in general)? What if you just don’t have the attention span to sit in class for over an hour and pay attention the whole time? I know I’ve only been attentive about 20-40% of the time in any class I’ve been in. If I were to rely on the teacher, my grades would be downright awful.
Teach yourself. Take the book, read it and try to understand the concepts and example problems. If you don’t completely understand, that’s what the professor is there for. But if you just rely on them to teach you, you will certainly be no better than mediocre. Unless a teacher is manipulating grades to make you suffer, it’s your fault if a bad teacher means a bad grade.</li>
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<p>Oh, and as an added note: panic studying is worthless. You may or may not be able to memorize enough of the material to use it on an exam, but you won’t learn anything. This situation is easy to avoid by actually learning the material.</p>
<p>Publications that claim to preach what are and aren’t good study habits are basically selling snake oil. What constitutes good study habits is different for basically every person. Good study habits are those that successfully help a particular individual both learn the material and make the grade.</p>
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<p>So does mechanical engineering and chemical engineering and civil engineering and pretty much every other type of engineering. “Green” technologies can be found in pretty much every industry right now, so you can certainly attack it from more than just the electrical engineering angle.</p>
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<p>Too bad. That is exactly the problem here. At least you don’t have this mindset that everything should be easy and handed to you, but you also need to get out of this mindset that your classes are being torpedoed by your professors poor teaching ability. Ultimately, there are very few professors who can teach so poorly that motivated students can’t succeed. When all else fails, read the textbook. Those books get published for a reason: they are great sources of information on their subject. Go to office hours. Find a study group. Do whatever you can to diversify your source of learning away from solely lecture.</p>
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<p>As an engineer, your job is to look for that in between; that sweet spot. Of course, I mean this as it applies to engineering problems where you need to find something close to the sweet spot of cost versus benefit, but it applies here too. If this is how you have to study, then clearly you aren’t studying right. The bottom line is, if you are repeatedly beating your head against a wall to try and get through that wall, it is probably a good idea to try something different.</p>
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<p>I would echo pretty much everything that has been said here. Fundamentals are everything. That can’t be overstated.</p>
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<p>I partially disagree with this point. True, you shouldn’t go into the course expecting the professor to just teach you the material and be done with it. Ultimately, the onus of learning the material is on the student. A bad teacher leaves it at that, throws a bunch of material on the board and pushes you out the door to teach yourself to swim through it all. I don’t think that is inherent in all teachers though. I have had plenty of good professors as well, and while the responsibility to learn is still placed on the student, a good teacher will be there to act as a guide and a supplement to that. Treat it that way.</p>
<p>This is a subtle difference from the position NeoDymium takes, but I fully believe it. If you don’t go into a subject expecting a professor to be like a high school teacher who holds your hand through the material, instead expecting to learn the material on your own, that is a start. Whether or not you then utilize the professor for what he or she is actually useful for is up to you.</p>
<p>When I teach a course, I have a textbook because ultimately, that textbook has everything (or nearly so) that you need to succeed in the course. The lecture notes I make up are usually designed to give a different perspective on a topic than the one in the book so that people who don’t take to the method in the book as well can have an alternate perspective. Ultimately, though, the students have to take responsibility for their learning, not me. The instructor can lead the horse to water but can’t make them drink.</p>
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<p>My final point here is that I am of the opinion that no one is “too stupid” to pass engineering courses. In my opinion and experience, it comes down to passion for a subject, which affects the motivation to work to learn that subject. If a person isn’t motivated enough to put in the effort it requires for them personally to learn the subject, then they won’t, plain and simple.Some people require much more time and effort to grasp certain concepts, so for some people, the amount of motivation required to overcome that is simply too much.</p>
<p>I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes:</p>