<p>I don't want to be studying 24/7...</p>
<p>also, A's/B's would be decent enough to land a good job after college right?
how hard would that be?</p>
<p>If you love engineering and studying you will have fun.....</p>
<p>Anyways, It IS possible,but you can't party every night like business or history majors.</p>
<p>Pick one: Friday or Saturday night. That will be your designated free day.</p>
<p>Yes of course. I work 20 or more a week and stil party on the weekends. You just have to bunker down, work hard when you need to, schedule time wisely, and you'll be fine.</p>
<p>According to my sister, brother and father all U of M engineering undergrads...the answer is....maybe take one night off....sometimes.....</p>
<p>I suppose one way of answering this is yes, if you think that engineering is fun (regardless, say, of how well you are doing academically).</p>
<p>However, I suspect the question you are really asking is, suppose I like to do some other things besides engineering (such as my extracurriculars), but in order to maintain a certain GPA, etc., I have to sacrifice some time from the other things that I love in order to remain competitive with respect to my engineering peers. That's a tough question. In a way, only you can decide this; what constitutes an acceptable quality of life to you? Are you sure that you would be happiest if you, say, were to sacrifice something you love to do well enough in school to get a prestigious, well-paying engineering job? Could you imagine someday missing something you used to love?</p>
<p>Some people try to combine other things they enjoy with their careers. You have people for example who love music, and work as audio design engineers, electronic music engineers, etc. However, this doesn't always work out - for example, it may not always be possible to find such a job, and for some people, building instruments does not take the place of playing them.</p>
<p>I don't have any easy answers, unfortunately. :( In some ways, I think college applicants are sent mixed messages about being diverse. It's considered more valuable to be a well-rounded individual with a variety of extracurriculars than someone who studies all the time. But then you find people who are rewarded for a laser-like focus on engineering.</p>
<p>Yes, you can have lots of fun. You won't be studying 24/7. You don't need straight As, even though straight A students can still have tons of fun. It depends on who you are, who your professors are, and who your classmates are.</p>
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In some ways, I think college applicants are sent mixed messages about being diverse. It's considered more valuable to be a well-rounded individual with a variety of extracurriculars than someone who studies all the time. But then you find people who are rewarded for a laser-like focus on engineering.
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<p>Another way to look at it is well-rounded individuals tend to have good time management skills. I think that's actually the most important factor for success as an engineering major.</p>
<p>A/Bs are very doable. Just getting all As isn't :(</p>
<p>Sigh. If you manage your time well, you'll be fine!</p>
<p>In high school, I busted my rear. I was overachiever of the year, I was president of every EC, I had perfect grades, blah blah blah. My senior year, I decided I was tired of it, and I applied to one school that was strong academically but wasn't number one, and also had a reputation for being a place where fascinating people who loved life ended up going to college: Rice. It's not MIT, it's not CalTech, it's not Stanford-- it's Rice, and it's what I wanted. I got in, and I decided that I was going to spend those four years LIVING (and getting an engineering degree), in that ranking of importance. Grades be damned. I would rack up only the extracurricular activities that I WANTED to participate in, and I'd take courses within my major AND out of my major. I would take a lot of music, I would make a lot of friends, I would date, I would be in musicals and plays, I would be in the band, I would go to parties, and I would have a LIFE. Because I really didn't have a fun life in high school because I was too worried about getting into college, and it dawned on me that this was really no way to live the only life I had.</p>
<p>So, I did it. I took the courses I wanted to take, I fulfilled my major requirements, I was in the band, I was in musicals, I went to parties, I had a lot of friends and spent a lot of time with them, I tutored people because I enjoyed teaching, I took my civil engineering classes because they were fun to take, I tuned pianos for the music school, I sang in the choir, and I met, dated, and married the love of my life.</p>
<p>Y'know what? I failed miserably and now clean train station toilets for a living.</p>
<p>No, I'm kidding. I got into the top grad school anyhow, much to my surprise. They wanted me because I scored slightly over a 3.5 GPA, my professors loved that I was an interesting, well-rounded person who liked to learn, and I was obviously a person who had good time-management skills and good people skills and really good leadership skills, as evidenced by all that "unimportant" stuff I did along the way. I landed a bunch of amazing jobs after grad school and things worked out okay, despite the fact that I insisted upon this weird notion of actually having a LIFE in college!</p>
<p>Do what you want. You're not going to suddenly become an idiot because you're not putting in six hours of studying every day. You have to put in the work, yes, but we all know what it takes to bring a B up to an A in some of those impossible courses, and I decided that in many cases it wasn't worth the order of magnitude of effort that it would take to achieve that-- and I went out and learned and experienced other things instead.</p>
<p>My goal in college wasn't to be successful, it was to be happy. One thing I didn't count on was that the folks whose opinions matter would count that as being in my favor. I think more people need to know that you can be successful if you do the stuff <em>you</em> want to do, too. College is amazing, and it's the last time in your life you'll have to go out and spend large amounts of time learning about completely random things-- use that to your advantage. Don't buy into the rat race crap. The people who you really want to work for won't hold it against you.</p>
<p>aibarr,</p>
<p>Getting a 3.5 in any engineering program is impressive and all your extra-curriculars helped you get into a good grad school. I think the lesson is you shouldn't spend 6 hours a day studying for an A when you can get an A/B studying 1 hour a day.</p>
<p>I know a guy who has a 4.0, 2 jobs (including TA), and is part of several clubs AND he also parties on weekends. If he can do it, you can too.. potentially! :) (I can't though).</p>
<p>Wow a 4.0 in an engineering program? My school has had under 10 4.0 students in the 110 years the school's been open.</p>
<p>I think the average mechanical engineering major went out a minimum of 3 nights a week at my school. We're obviously cooler than pretty much every other major though. </p>
<p>And if you can manage your time well I don't see why you can't get near a 4.0 and have a lot of fun in college.</p>
<p>if studying and being in the lab are fun to you</p>
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if studying and being in the lab are fun to you
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<p>I really don't get where people obtain this mentality. You might work harder than other majors but you shouldn't be putting in 120 hours a week or anything ridiculous like that. I feel like some people on here make it sound like engineering is so intellectually impossible that it isn't possible to succeed in one of these programs without killing yourself in undergrad, and that couldn't be further from the truth.</p>
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I really don't get where people obtain this mentality. You might work harder than other majors but you shouldn't be putting in 120 hours a week or anything ridiculous like that. I feel like some people on here make it sound like engineering is so intellectually impossible that it isn't possible to succeed in one of these programs without killing yourself in undergrad, and that couldn't be further from the truth.
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<p>Yep I agree, you will work harder than other majors but you aren't going to lose your life. You will go through some tough times and all nighters probably but it's not like you will have no free time at all. And honestly the worst time will probably be your junior year because you will have a lot of required major classes and labs. Freshman year really is no big deal, sophomore slightly harder, junior year is where it gets rough, and senior it settles down again.</p>
<p>It really depends on your major as to when it gets difficult, JoeJoe. The hardest term for me was easily the fall of my sophomore year. Thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, two minis within my major (full semester classes crammed into half a semester), and something like philosophy. Junior year really wasn't that bad since I was taking more electives and had developed a greater interest in the "difficult" classes.</p>
<p>Really? What's your major? All engineers at my school take quantum and thermo their junior year. </p>
<p>Senior year is when we take more electives than required classes. The only real required class senior year is design project.</p>
<p>You guys must be natural geniuses then. Most engineering schools have average GPA's of 2.8, and at my school, a standard deviation of .4</p>