<p>Why engin. is hard: (I've posted this before, but here it goes again):</p>
<p>*Sheer number of courses. You'll have to take 5 per semester, while LA is usually 4.
*Volume of work. There's more than in LA.
*The dreaded curve. Most lib. arts curve to about a B+ or B (so a 3.0- 3.33), while most engin. curves to a B-/C+ - which is a 2.5. So 1/2 the class does worse than a 2.5. Eek! English - if you do the reading and write a decent paper when required, you're going to get at least a B. Engin - do the work, do the reading, do the problem sets - and you can still get a C or worse. The engineers tend to work very hard and be very talented, so it's smart, hard-working people who are all making up that curve.<br>
*Pre-reqs and amount of stuff you need to know. English: you don't need to know Shakespeare for your Am. lit class. Engin. is VERY cumulative. You need to know tons of math and science and the previous engin. courses to get what you are doing junior year.</p>
<p>You do on avg 7-8 hours of hw every single week, and the cumulative grades for hw is only about 10% !! It's catch 22 though, cuz if you don't do the hw you won't understand the material and it's game over.</p>
<p>Exams constitute about 70-90% of total grade. If you do bad on 1 exam, you can kiss the A or even B good bye. Do bad on 2 exams, prepare to take a W or D/F for the course. It is common to have people study 20-30 hours for an exam and still fail miserably. These are the same people that got 1400-1500 SATs as well as 5s on AP exams.</p>
<p>if class is structured (commonly):
exam1: 25%
exam2: 25%
final: 40%
hw: 10% </p>
<p>if you get a 40 on first exam while class avg is a 75....most of the time you can kiss that A goodbye. You already lost about 13% of total grade, and if avg stays at 75, chances are there wont be much of a curve.</p>
<p>People overhype the difficulty way too much. In your first two years you basically do normal classes that any science major would take. Not easy, but not deadly hard. Then in the final two you take classes that a really specialized science person would take, ie, circuits.</p>
<p>Not necessarily the accelerated chem is pretty much designed for engineers. You are almost required to take it. Specialized chem & biochem are recommended. So not every class is an intro science class. And for ECE they often want you to take harder math courses, like honors math. That is why those two are the hardest, especially at U of I.</p>
<p>This is like many other things in life...some people will be very good at it and others won't. If you really excel in math and enjoy the concepts and problem solving then you probably have a good chance at doing well in engineering. If you really do well and enjoy memorizing lists of terms and reading loads of chapters with the intent of memorizing every detail, then probably engineering is not going to be for you. However, you won't know for certain until you get there.</p>
<p>My engineering experience has been mostly full of problems. Just about every class is about learning how to apply the math and chemistry we've learned to various situations. Like I said, for some the understanding comes easily and takes only a few hours or less. For others it takes hours upon hours of going over the concepts, working the problems, finding another text to read, talking to classmates, searching the internet, working more problems, talking to the prof, talking to the TA, rewriting the class notes, working more problems..you get the idea. Now, even with all that work, some will still perform miserably come test time. There's no way to know what type of person you will be unless you know you won't put forth any effort to learn the material and do the work required.</p>
<p>Even if the concepts come easily to you, there are still group projects and labs that will take forever. There's no getting around it, you will be spending more time on your studies than some of your friends. How MUCH time you'll have to spend no one can tell you.</p>
<p>In undergrad the average engineering GPA is 2.7. I managed to get out with a 3.7 while working 30+ hours/week. It's not impossible, OP.</p>
<p>See, the GPA doesn't really matter if you stay in engineering - everyone knows how dismal the grades are, so no one cares. There is a reason that MIT doesn't give out honours - they believe that their diploma is enough. Almost every engin. school in the country lose people as the years progress. So just getting through it is an accomplishment. OTOH, if you want med school or law school, you're in a rough spot.</p>
<p>Eningeering is hard for UG, but it makes it up for having it easy at the graduate level. A graduate level Engineering program is easier than most other programs. At graduate school Engineer tend to have the fewest classes to take, and their dissertation tends to take the least amount of time.</p>