Is it true that if you can pass calculus you can be an engineer?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>I've had several engineers tell me that if you can pass all of calculus that you will be able to complete an engineering degree. One guy even said that if you can pass calculus 2 then you can be an engineer.
Do you think this is true?</p>

2

<p>No</p>

3

<p>Aerospace engineers use lots of physics, chemical engineers use lots of chemistry, etc. There’s a lot more to an engineering degree than just calculus, depending on the type of engineering. However, excelling at and enjoying high level calculus (not just squeaking by) is a good indication that you could do well in engineering because much of it is quantitative in some way or another.</p>

4

<p>Not necessarily… but if you can’t pass calculus, you can NOT be an engineer. </p>

<p>Note that there are students who fail the first attempt (especially it seems for calc2) but repeat it and do ok after that. </p>

5

<p>No. I aced calculus with an A after hardly having to study. I did not survive as an Electrical and Computer Engineering major. The fall semester of my Freshman year I took a calculus course, intro to electrical engineering, intro to computer engineering, and two other courses relevant to this post. I had to drop the computer engineering course after getting a 20 on my first exam after two weeks of intense study prior to taking it. I stayed in and finished off the electrical engineering course but got a C-. The calculus was an effortless A for me despite the fact many didn’t get A’s. I switched to mathematics as my major and it’s been very easy for me since. You can be great at math and still struggle in your engineering discipline.</p>

6

<p>Passing calculus is a necessary but not sufficient condition to completing engineering school. </p>

7

<p>One of my high school teacher’s sons was a math genius and tried engineering at Harvey Mudd. She told my class that the next year he switched to some humanities major. Even though calculus is a foundation for engineering courses, the use of physics, chemistry and critical thinking play crucial roles in having students grasping the important concepts to translate over to higher level courses.</p>