<p>My son will be a freshman in Aerospace in the fall. He is very smart (top 10%, 33ACT) and has been able to do well in high school without working extremely hard. He has poor study habits and tends to do blow off until he gets a few bad test grades and gets in trouble, then he kicks it in to bring his grades back up by semester end. What is the best advice you can give him regarding Cockrell and what he needs to do in order to do well there?</p>
<p>Strongly encourage him to join one of the ASE FIGs. If he can’t get in (space is limited), he should register for a general engineering course. It is almost like a study group for credit.</p>
<p>Unless he changes, he’ll get a few bad grades right off the bat, so hopefully he will realize sooner rather than later that he needs to work hard. </p>
<p>I struggled in first semester engineering honors physics (my HS class was horrible), so I found a graduate student to tutor me. It helped that I was accountable to him.</p>
<p>Most of the classes at UT are more difficult than expected, no matter what you’re studying. I took all IB (like AP but a bit more difficult) in High School and though I would be prepared, but even with all that preparation struggled in some classes. </p>
<p>I would recommend for anyone not to push themselves too hard first semester- especially in Aerospace the classes will be difficult, because it really takes some time to get used to what the professors will expect from you and to get use to the new atmosphere where you don’t have someone to tell you to get your work done on time.</p>
<p>I would suggest him to relax a bit first semester- I stressed myself so much and it dropped my GPA down alot. It’s common for Engineers to go from a 3.6 to 3.2 GPA within their first year.</p>
<p>I am like your son too. Maybe using an agenda would help??</p>
<p>An agenda would help! It helped me. </p>
<p>I’m a horrible procrastinator, but writing everything down seems to help me.</p>