<p>so I'm taking summer classes at Tech to get a little ahead as a freshman. My suitemates (who are sophomore engineers) are telling me horror stories about the freshman engineering classes ENGE 1024 and ENGE 1114.</p>
<p>Basically, they've told me people will cry after taking a test in that class...I was like, Holy ****!!!</p>
<p>Are they really that bad?</p>
<p>Also, I've never had a programming class, and they said that it's really difficult to pass if you haven't had programming because they don't teach you anything.</p>
<p>Am I screwed cause I haven't taken a programming class?!?!</p>
<p>Okay. First things first, you don’t need to get so worked up about it. Calm down a little bit. </p>
<p>Now I’m going to explain to you what these courses are like.</p>
<p>I’ll start with ENGE 1024. </p>
<p>I didn’t actually take this course at Virginia Tech. I took it at the local community college with a Virginia Tech professor. He structured the course exactly how it is structured at VT. It was not that bad. I will tell you now that the questions on the tests are super tricky. They do this because they want their engineering students to pay attention to detail. It is a very important quality to have. If they test you using specifically detailed questions, you are more likely to pay closer attention in the future. As for people crying, I have actually heard of that happening, but if you listen closely, the students who are crying after the test didn’t prepare for it. If you study, take notes, and do your best, there is no reason you cannot pass the class with an A or B.</p>
<p>Now for ENGE 1114. This class is a whole different ball game. It is much different than 1024 because you start doing a decent amount of programming. I went into this course with no programming experience. I had never done Java, HTML, XHTML, Basic, C+, or any of that. Your engineering friends are right about the part where they don’t really teach you anything. The teaching assistants post up these videos that are supposed to help, but they really don’t. The first week of class I had 3 MATLAB assignments that were due by the next week. If you have never programmed, I suggest you start very early, as in the day it is assigned. The first 3 assignments took me around 7-8 hours a piece. That is mainly because I did them on my own. I didn’t have any help from other engineering majors. I took on MATLAB by myself. By the time I finished the 3rd assignment I was pretty comfortable with the basics of MATLAB. The next weeks assignments came to me pretty quickly as I knew what I needed to do. It is very easy to pick up after you do a few of the assignments. The test on MATLAB wasn’t that bad. If you watch the videos that the TA’s post, you will do fine. I can’t really explain the next part of the ENGE 1114 course. You pretty much do some designing in Autodesk Inventor.</p>
<p>EngE 1024 doesn’t have any programming but you do learn a little about programming logic (conditionals, loops, etc.) The programming assignments in EngE 1114 tend to be pretty uninteresting.</p>
<p>On the topic of weed-out classes: they’re not designed to be difficult, I think this is a common misconception. None of the freshman engineering classes are difficult. However, they do require a fair share of effort and attention, likely more than many have needed in their high school courses. If you’re completely uninterested in engineering and don’t feel like working you’ll probably end up failing. On the other hand if you do the homework and review the test material you’ll do fine. They’re still not particularly good courses (for a whole variety of reasons), but they’re not difficult either.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info so far. I have a couple of questions.</p>
<p>I went on Kfers to look at a past exam. The math questions are all pre-calculus level for me, but a couple of questions were about what people have said in videos. One in particular was “What two journals did the video cite?” This question seemed like you had to know all the small, irrelevant details just to make sure you don’t miss a question on the test. Would the instructors point out what I would need to know from the videos, or would I have to write a transcript for everything that’s spoken during class to do well?</p>
<p>Also, does anyone know about EngE 1104, Exploration of the Digital Future? Apparently it’s what some majors (like CS) take instead of 1114. Thanks a lot!</p>
<p>definitely agree with dfmlege. I lookedat the past tests of keefers as well and it looks like you just have to take meticulous notes on every single detail they throw at you.</p>
<p>My suitemates are taking 1114 right now, and they say it’s been brutal (but they also play video games all day long…I wonder why it’s so hard for them). Anyways, keefers does show that 1104 has a higher GPA, but my roommates were saying it’s more programming oriented; thus, more programmers take it- which propably explains the higher GPA.</p>
<p>I think it’s a matter of picking your poison at that point.</p>
<p>I’m certainly no expert however, I think it’d be better to have someone else explain it</p>
<p>I took 1104. Instead of doing CAD and diagramming and such, you instead do a lot of very simple programming assignments in a variety of languages. You also do a couple of other activities like simulating electrical blackouts and you do a little more stuff with breadboards. From what I can tell, it’s less work–there’s only one largeish project you have to do–and everything is group work. If you’re not interested in electrical/computer engineering or programming you’re probably not going to enjoy the course very much.</p>
<p>It’s not that bad. Those who fail are just ones never do their work and review for tests the night before.
Just do your homework, read the required reading assignments and you will get easy A.</p>
<p>If you took CS classes you should be good. Either way you will have to take good notes and work hard. I took the easy route and took ENGE 1024 over the summer at a community college and it was an easy A. I don’t know what major you are, but I had to take ENGE 1104 here at tech though I think (whatever CPE/EE and CS majors take instead of 1114) and that was pretty brutal. I had never done any programming in HS let alone even heard of Matlab(which is never used in CS after that course) when they gave us a 10 minute tutorial on it and started throwing group programming projects and assignments every week based on it. Lucky for me, there were 2 guys in my group who knew how to program in it so I wasn’t totally screwed. The exams sucked as a result and I ended up with a C-. I’d say it was one of my harder courses not because I was lazy or slacked or anything, just because they expected me to know a lot of things I and a lot of students didn’t. There was no textbook or anything to study or learn from too. It was basically sink or swim/figure it out and good luck mentality.</p>
<p>So I’m pretty sure 1114 is the same way given the other majors take that instead of 1104 unless things have changed over the years. I believe that’s less programming and more AutoCad stuff from what I remember.</p>
<p>Definitely NOT an easy A. Most kids end up with a B in this class which makes it so frustrating because most kids feel they are doing way beyond enough work for a 2 credit class. You can put in half the amount of effort into a THREE credit class and get an easier A than these stupid EngE classes. That’s why they suck. That’s what makes them “weed-out” classes.</p>
<p>I took it at NVCC which is why it was an easy A. The grade obviously didn’t transfer but the credit did so I didn’t have to take it here. I’m glad I took that route too. Virtually all first year engineering + most 2000/3000 level courses (at least in CS/CPE/EE) are weed outs anyway except in the summers it seems. So that was just one less to worry about.</p>