I will be attending a state university in the fall of this year as a freshman. I will pursue a Bachelor’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering. I am very excited to start college, as I am hopeful that it will present me with an abundance of opportunity to live, learn, and grow academically, personally, and socially. Along with this excitement comes nervousness, though, because, although I am aware that earning a B.S. in Engineering is obviously no easy task, I do not know what else I can do besides taking the right courses and doing research will help me be successful in this major and give me a high chance of gaining acceptance into a good grad school. I am unsure of what principles I should follow to be a success engineering student and what I can do to make the most out of this experience. I have a couple ideas of how I can do this. One of them is to take summer classes each year so that I will be able to graduate in four years rather than five, not that graduating in five years is a bad thing, I just do not want to have to pay for it. Another idea I came up with is to participate in undergraduate research, which I hope will give me an advantage when applying to grad school.
But I am still unsure of what else to do to help me be successful. As I am typing this post and considering other ways in which I can make sure I will be successful, I feel like I am failing to acknowledge an important principle. I was wondering if any of you, either speaking based on what you know or your own experiences, could offer me some advice that helped you be successful in our undergraduate engineering program. Better yet, I would love for you to share what worked for you, as well as what did not work for you. I would love to hear things that you think I should be aware of and should consider or put into practice in order to be successful as an engineering student. Any advice you can provide would be appreciated. Thank you!
Work hard but try not to squirrel yourself away. Don’t isolate yourself. Collaborate with others on problem sets if your school promotes that idea. Don’t freak if you do poorly with grades your first year. Expect it but work hard anyway.
@lostaccount Thank you for your advice! It is very helpful! I forgot to mention this in my post, but how many classes do you recommend that I take per semester?
Your first semester in Engineering, regardless of where you got in, you should take the Engineering first year seminar (it’d have various names depending on schools and is typically 1 credit), Math, Science, English, and depending on credit count, maximum one more - total credits about 13-14.
If that worked for you, increase to 15-16 credits after that.
The BIG piece of advice I’ll give you:
during your first month, your fellow freshmen will be giddy with freedom: no parental supervision = let’s be out until all hours of the night! let’s party on Thursday! and Wednesday! and Tuesday! Let’s just hang out and do nothing!
DO NOT follow suit. These students will realize their mistake when the first test results come back. Many will actually drop out of engineering if they don’t turn it around, and many won’t be able to. Don’t become a casualty. Focus; you’re in college to learn and to succeed. Parties can wait for the weekend.
This is college: it goes MUCH faster than HS. Think of your typical AP class. Think you have 5 period per week, for about 10 months. Now, think that the SAME content (and, often, more in-depth content) will be covered 3 periods per week for 4 months.You’ll need to hit the ground running. That means, first day of class = outline your syllabus, enter all important dates in your planner/calendar. Have the numbers for the math center and the writing center written down, and the hours of operation memorized. Keep in mind that many places have a waiting list: if that’s ow your center works (few are walk-in but most aren’t) “book” a tutor for 2 days before your first big test in every subject. Write that in your calendar. If you don’t need the tutor, you’ll still improve from going over the material with someone experienced. But if you do need one, you don’t want to be one in 100 trying to book the last 2 remaining tutoring slots. Go to office hours right away, make yourself known to the prof/TA. When you go to office hours, bring questions you outlined in the reading or from the lecture or the problem set, either because you want to make sure you understood, or because you thought it was fascinating.
Smaller pieces of advice:
join a living learning community
you don’t become friends with people by throwing up together but by doing something good together - make a positive difference on campus or in your new community
never skip a meal (use the “lunch to go” option if necessary)
make your meals social opportunities, not “phone scrolling” times
go to the career center and their resume workshops during your first semester
This is an important thread and it’s off to a great start. There may be others like it but it’s the first I’ve seen. In my opinion it should be pinned and moved to the Engineering Majors forum.
@MYOS1634 Great post. I would add sit in the front of the class not the back. Get to know your professor and go to office hours. If you don’t understand the material do not wait and hope it will come get help immediately. The freshman year they throw weed out courses at the students to try and see who they can get. As stated above there will be kids who lose focus get behind and have to switch. Try and keep your semester hours under 15 you might have to go an extra semester or do summer school but it is worth it. It took me 4.5 years to get my engineering degree many years ago. You will have good days and bad don’t get discouraged stay focused and work hard.
I’ve just taken my first freshman level class at a major university this past semester (I transferred in so I’ve only been in junior and senior level courses). There are certainly weed out courses and the one I took certainly was. But I’m about to graduate here pretty soon, so I’ve been in all class settings and I think the difficulty was pretty fair after living through it all.
So what tips can I give? Actually come to class. If the professor is absolute crap at teaching, still take notes as best as you can.
Something that annoyed me in the freshman class I just took was that several people would play World of Warcraft the entire time and sit in the front row. Please don’t do this. It distracts yourself and others. You might be bored, but you PAY for that class, either directly out of pocket or through scholarships, but you probably should pay attention and come to class if you’re paying lots of money.
MAKE FLASHCARDS TO MEMORIZE STUFF IN THE NOTES. I majored in math. Once upon a time I thought I was above memorization and I let that attitude dominate my life: I refused to take classes where I’d have to memorize things. My learning style back then was brute force: do lots of problems over and over again from the section until you can’t get it wrong. But eventually I hit classes where the problem sets were short yet very hard–you don’t always have time to complete the problem set and still do other problems from the section. That’s when memorizing saved my life. Memorize the definitions, theorems, and even proof outlines and eventually the problem solving techniques become part of your intuition rather than having to work hundreds of problems to gain the same result. The first time I memorized something I was so disappointed in myself but I could see no other way to pass the exam I had coming up. It got me a 110 while no one else made above a 70. It has now become an integral part of my studying methods and I make flashcards for almost all my classes.
Sometimes it’s unavoidable but don’t wait until the last minute to start homework or ask for help.
You’ll get good professors and bad professors. And you’re unfortunately not going to be able to avoid the bad ones all the time. You can complain to the department chair all you want but no one will care if the professor’s making things too hard. Just stick with it and try your absolute hardest. Aim for the moon; even if you miss you’ll still land amongst the stars.
And here’s the most important thing that took me four years to finally realize: do what YOU want to do. Don’t do what you think others will be impressed by or what others expect you to do or what you think others expect you to do. I changed my major probably 20 times freshman and sophomore years simply because I felt obligated to major in something to impress everyone and make my parents proud. I eventually settled into math but I fell into a deep, severe depression that I’d let everyone down. I’ve been brought to the brink of death several times because of this attitude.
But in the end, I’m happy with my choice and I only regret not choosing my major for MYSELF and not for the money, fame, etc. I like the people I work with and I love getting to work with them. So in conclusion, sure you may major in biomedical engineering, but make sure you’re doing it for yourself and you’re not choosing it just because you think it’s the only path to success. You’ll live a much more happier college career when you do it for yourself.
GO TO CLASS, READ THE CHAPTERS, AND DO THE HOMEWORK!
Go to Professor’s office hours and Ask this question: “I know this is a really difficult class-- what are some of the common mistakes students make and how can I avoid them?”
If you have problems with the homework, go to Prof’s office hours. If they have any “help sessions” or “study sessions” or “recitations” or any thing extra, go to them.
Form a study group with other kids in your dorm/class.
Don’t do the minimum…for STEM classes do extra problems. You can buy books that just have problems for calculus or physics or whatever. Watch videos on line about the topic you are studying.
Go to the writing center if you need help with papers/math center for math problems (if they have them)
If things still are not going well, get a tutor.
Read this book: How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less by Cal Newport. It helps you with things like time management and how to figure out what to write about for a paper, etc.
Make sure you are learning for recall, not recognition…can you write down a definition without having to look at notes?
For your tests, evaluate what went wrong if you don’ t like your scores. Did you never read that topic? Did you not do the homework for it? Do you kind of remember it but forgot what to do?
Think about How much time outside of class do you spend studying/doing homework? It is generally expected that for each hour in class, you spend 2-3 outside doing homework. Treat this like a full time job.
Don’t overly focusing on other things rather than school work. (sports, partying, rushing fraternities/sororities, video gaming etc etc)? If you are you been distracted by any issues in dorm life or emotionally or Any medical/mental health issues go to the counseling center ASAP.
Basically keep up, and if your grades are not what you like reach out to the many many support services your college provides.
Thank you so much everyone for all of your amazing and helpful advice! I will reply to each of your comments larer on today! I apologize for not being able to get on here sooner to reply to you all!