Is engineering really that hard?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>I check back in the Engineering Majors forum daily and occasionally I see threads about how hard and time-consuming is. I heard that engineering takes up nearly all of your time and if you do decide to choose an engineering major, you will have close to no social life. </p>

<p>But I want to clarify on these issues. Are they really true? Do engineering majors really have no social life (or little social life) and spend most of their time studying or doing their problem sets? And is engineering really that hard as they say it is?</p>

2

<p>Try doing a quick search of this forum. This same question has been discussed ad nauseum in numerous threads.</p>

<p>The short answer is: if you manage your time well and have at least somewhat of a natural inclination toward your subject, you can certainly have a vivid social life, but if you procrastinate or get behind, you will have a hard time doing anything but work sometimes.</p>

3

<p>I think it’s more the amount of work than the difficulty</p>

4

<p>It’s a workload of 30-40 hours study time and class time of around 15 hours. Add in an extra 5 hours for a nice cushion of travel time to and from classes/library and that only adds up to 50-60 hours of academic commitment a week. That’s about half your waking hours. </p>

<p>The lack of social life people have is more a product of personal choice or lousy time management than the workload.</p>

5

<p>Is the material harder than most? Yes.</p>

<p>Will you have a lot more work and labs than most? Yes.</p>

<p>Will you at times curse your existence and problem sets? Yes.</p>

<p>As the others have said, it really comes down to time management. There are plenty of engineers who have a great social life on the weekends but when it comes down to work during the week, they know how to study.</p>

6

<p>“Is the material harder than most? Yes.”</p>

<p>As has been discussed frequently in the past, it depends on your talent. Many people find math - science - engineering to be “easier” than the humanities.</p>

7

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<p>Don’t start that discussion again, please.</p>

8

<p>nah, engineering students are just whiny babies</p>

9

<p>"It’s a workload of 30-40 hours study time and class time of around 15 hours. Add in an extra 5 hours for a nice cushion of travel time to and from classes/library and that only adds up to 50-60 hours of academic commitment a week. That’s about half your waking hours.</p>

<p>The lack of social life people have is more a product of personal choice or lousy time management than the workload."</p>

<p>-Well done sir</p>

10

<p>Short answer, no, people like to whine more than they like to say how easy what they do for a living is…</p>

11

<p>if you learn to be efficient with your time, it should not be a problem</p>