<p>Hi so y'all think it's possible to graduate in three years as an engineering student, given that I may be awarded one year's worth of credit hours? What degree plan should I take in order to make sure I finish my undergrads after three years' study? </p>
<p>Thanks for your inputs</p>
<p>A large chunk of engineering students take five years to graduate at A&M with a respectable GPA as opposed to the four year norm. In my opinion, three years is pushing it. But if you think you can do it, then by all means.</p>
<p>You would need to use almost all of your AP credits to make it in 3 years. This can be difficult as TAMU advised some Engineering majors not to accept Math and Physics credits. Rather than graduate early, my son is hoping to be accepted into the Fast Track program that allows him to finish his BS and MS in 5 years.</p>
<p>Thanks! But how could one be accepted into the Fast Track Program? When can we start to apply to join?</p>
<p>Go to the COE website, type fast track in the search box and you’ll see all the info you need. Basically, it is decided around junior year who can participate.</p>
<p>My suggestion would be to <strong>call</strong> the enigineering school at A&M and talk through this.</p>
<p>I have no connection to A&M but was an undergrad engineer and it sounds pretty tough to me and would require a lot of flexibility on A&Ms part. Your last 3-4 semesters would likely need to be 5 or 6 engineering courses with no electives to provide some slack … that sounds VERY difficult and I wonder it A&M would allow it. In addition, it is likely this plan has you placing out of a ton of electives … does A&M have a requirement that at least “X” electives are taken at A&M as well as “Y” courses in your major? </p>
<p>In any case folks at A&M will be able to provide better advice than anyone on CC</p>
<p>As the website says, the fasttrack works by substituting in your senior year 600 courses for the 400 level courses you would normally take your senior year. It also allows professors to grant some credits by exam. The requirements differ by department.</p>
<p>I am a 2nd year student in Nuclear Engineering, and can for sure graduate a semester early due to my advancement in high school. I could graduate in 3 years, if the Nuclear Department offered the courses I needed every semester.</p>
<p>That is what most people in most majors will run into, not having a pre-requisite for a certain class Also something to think about, I went into college with 60 AP/Dual credit hours, I only accepted about 35-40 hours of it. Even with that to hypothetically graduate in 3 years I would have to take 17-18 hours a semester to do so. Which is VERY brutal in engineering, I speak from first hand experience (took 17 hours last semester).</p>
<p>I would suggest take it easy, look into a fast track master’s program, double majoring in math (or something your child is interested in), or pick up a minor or two. That is currently what I am debating myself.</p>
<p>Please let me know if you have any more questions, would love to help.</p>
<p>Yeah, Aggiecorps, I agree with RadHealth. I’m not sure if it’s <em>permitted</em> or not, but even if it is permitted, you’re going to run into a few problems trying.</p>
<p>One is that not all courses are offered each semester, as RadHealth pointed out. So, it’s hard to stay on your own, individualized track that doesn’t coordinate with most other students’ tracks.</p>
<p>Also, as someone else said, the university discourages students from accepting all AP credits. There are good reasons for that. You can ask them. Or, if you haven’t attended NSC yet, you’ll probably learn why there.</p>
<p>Another reason that it’d be next to impossible to finish in 3 years is that engineering courses are on sort of a track system. You have to take them in a certain order, so it’s hard to skip ahead. My son initially had plenty of open spaces on his schedule each semester of his freshman and sophomore years because of AP credits. (He did fill those spaces with other stuff, to include some interesting honors courses, some junior-year engineering courses for which he had the prereqs, and some courses that eventually led to a minor in another subject area altogether.) But, you will probably find in your freshman and sophomore years that most of the engineering courses that are slated for your junior and senior years require prerequisites or concurrently-enrolled courses that you won’t yet have completed. So those courses that are normally taken in your 3rd and 4th years will be off the table in your 2nd year, even if you have the space for a few of them on your schedule.</p>
<p>Most of A&M’s engineering programs consist of a Lower Division and an Upper Division. There is a checklist of Lower Division requirements surrounding the Common Body of Knowledge (CBK) that must be met before you are admitted into Upper Division … in all of the engineering departments that I know much about, anyway. If you’re not in the Upper Division (and you won’t be in your freshman year), the majority of engineering courses won’t even be open to you.</p>
<p>The system is sort of designed such that students are first considered for Upper Division engineering just prior to beginning their sophomore year. Some students don’t finish their Lower Division checklist until just prior to the second semester of their sophomore year. And still others may first be considered for Upper Division at the end of their sophomore year. It’s all okay.</p>
<p>But my point is, in your freshman year, you won’t be able to skip ahead with engineering courses because you won’t be in Upper Division yet. And in your sophomore year, you won’t be able to skip ahead too much, even if you are in Upper Division (and you probably will be due to your AP credits), because even though you’ll have open space in your schedule, you won’t have <em>enough</em> open space to take the prerequisite for a particular engineering course AND the course itself. You’ll have just enough space for the prereq alone or a course that doesn’t have any prereqs. That is, as a sophomore, there won’t be room for LOTS of extra courses, just a few … and so, you’ll kind of be held back until your junior year even if you wanted to skip ahead and were otherwise ready.</p>
<p>Another problem is that the engineering tracks are kind of built such that the heaviest course-load year is one’s junior year. Since the junior year is already designed to contain 17-18 credit hours per semester, and since, under the best circumstances, one can only manage to squeeze a handful of those hours into the first two years because of other restrictions, your junior year will, no matter what you do, be a rather full year – most certainly too full to add an entire senior year of courses to the remaining junior year course load!</p>
<p>I hope all this makes sense. It’s rather hard to describe. But, my son, like you, had tons of AP credits, and I don’t think it would have been possible for him to graduate in 3 years. He took a relatively light freshman year (13-14 hours per semester), because the advisors recommended that to all incoming freshmen AND because there was only so much he could take before he moved into Upper Division. But he took very heavy sophomore and junior years (17-19 hours per semester) and still wouldn’t be able to finish his degree in three years, even if he wanted to. (He definitely hasn’t wanted to.)</p>
<p>It’s really not a race. I suggest you take more courses to fill your time and learn all you can about all that you’re interested in while you’re there! The majority of people only get to do undergrad once. Make the most of it! :)</p>