<p>M E 345 Instrumentation, Measurements, and Statistics (4) Fundamentals of statistics, sensors, instrumentation, and measurement of mechanical phenomena such as temperature, flow, pressure, force, stress, displacement, and acceleration.</p>
<p>MATSE 259 Properties and Processing of Engineering Materials (3) Relationship of structure and processing variables to the properties and service behavior of metals, polymers, and ceramics.</p>
<p>E MCH 315 Mechanical Response of Engineering Materials (2) Mechanical response measures and design theories for engineering materials; elastic and plastic response as affected by stress, strain, time, temperature.</p>
<p>E MCH 316 Experimental Determination of Mechanical Response of Materials (1) Experimental techniques for mechanical property measurement and structural testing.</p>
<p>M E 320 Fluid FLow (3) Thermodynamic and dynamic principles applied to fluid behavior; ideal, viscous, and compressible fluids under internal and external flow conditions.</p>
<p>I'm taking all of these next fall including english and a 3 credit gen ed course. I just want to know which of these engineering courses will be the most difficult so I can start looking at them this summer.</p>
<p>I don’t think its possible to rank them without having previously attended each of those courses at your university, and beyond that, the difficulty of a class varies from person to person. For example, I could go to that fluids class and probably ace it without trying. Then I would go to the MATSE class and have to really try to get a good grade, because I just bored with that topic. On the other hand, a person more interested in MatSE might give you the opposite opinion. Try asking around your school.</p>
<p>I really don’t know what I’m getting myself into. If I don’t take these next fall (5th semester) I will be behind, because my 6th semester will be a repeat with even more advanced courses.</p>
<p>Penn state huh? Many of mechanical engineering friends have similar schedules. I am in aerospace and mine is pretty tough too that’s why i’m only taking 15 creds.</p>
<p>I have to take E mech 315 and 316 too but they are not C-required for me. I imagine the toughest one out of those would be M E 320 since I don’t hear good things about fluid flow.</p>
<p>Again, it all comes down to preference. If it is anything like here at UIUC, they will require somewhat less work than statics or dynamics, but the concepts are a bit more difficult. Statics/Dynamics were like the weed out classes for the ME department here, and as such, we had huge homeworks due 2 to 3 times per week, while the classes that correspond to the ones you listed had homework once a week each. Overall, I enjoyed statics/dynamics less. The subject matter is probably a little easier in those classes, but generally I think they aren’t quite as hard on you in those higher classes as far as work load goes, assuming you understand the material. Of course if you have a hard time understanding, you will have a hell of a time.</p>
<p>My guess is that the fluids course is going to be nonlinear-based, which means compressible fluids, and that’s going to make your head explode a little more. I liked fluids, but it wasn’t easy. Materials could be cool, and it’s going to parallel somewhat with your Mechanics of Materials class. I’d opt for taking fluids or the instrumentation course during the summer, because since materials and mechanics will parallel so much, the concepts will go together a little better… easier to learn than taking two entirely disparate, difficult courses.</p>
<p>On the contrary, aibarr, based on the fact that it is a 300-level ME class, I would guess it is probably mostly incompressible, and it says compressible there because it touches briefly on compressible flow. There aren’t many ME departments that offer compressible flow classes as a 300-level class. Most save that for 400-level or the AE department.</p>
<p>I looked at the course syllabus and it says it does cover compressible fluids. There is an entire chapter in the textbook devoted to that topic and we spend about a week on it.</p>
<p>My statics, dynamics, and strength classes were all easy for me. So I don’t know how these engineering courses for next semester will be like.</p>
<p>Exactly, so it is an entry-level fluids course that shouldn’t be all that difficult to be honest. Of course, it all depends on your interest. I say this because I am a thermal fluid sciences researcher in grad school (or will be this fall), because that branch of engineering is just kind of my thing.</p>
<p>S will also be taking ME 320 and ME 345 in the fall. Supposedly both courses assign a lot of homework which is very time consuming. S has already taken MATSE 259, E MCH 315 and E MCH 316. MATSE 259 seemed to be alot of pure memorization. E MCH 315 was pretty much a continuation of, I believe, E MCH 213.</p>
<p>If you are taking all of these courses plus English (I am assuming ENG 202C) and a 3 credit gen ed, that will give you 19 credits. Since both E MCH 316 and ME 345 have a three hour lab, you will be in class 23 hours per week (unless your gen ed is a web course). Add to that all the homework time. Also, what is the gen ed? I know there are some some that are not very time consuming while others do require significant time.</p>
<p>^That was a very helpful post. I’m actually taking ENGL 015, because I have tried to shy away from writing as much as possible (I will be a Junior next year). Also, the gen ed I will be taking is EGEE 120:</p>
<p>EGEE 120 (GS;US;IL) Oil: International Evolution (3) Survey of the commercial development of the world petroleum industry from various international, historical, business, and cultural perspectives.</p>
<p>lil_killer129: To be completely honest with you, taking 19 credits your first semester of junior year may not be a good idea especially when it includes 2 long labs and multiple C-required courses. You might wanna think about saving one of the technical courses for later on.</p>
<p>Depending on your writing abilities, ENGL 15 can also be quite time consuming. I don’t know anything specific about EGEE 120, but the fact that there are still about a third of the seats open for the class has me thinking that it may not be one of the ‘lesser work’ gen eds. I would definitely ask around. Also, have you spoken to your advisor regarding this schedule? I think he/she might be able to offer some insight.</p>
<p>BTW, have you taken EE 212…what did you think?</p>
<p>Yeah, if there’s only a week on compressible fluids then it shouldn’t be too bad of a course. I just figured civs usually did Newtonian fluids and mechs did compressible fluids… Guess I was wrong!</p>
I’m taking E E 212 right now. It’s fairly easy, you just have to do all the practice problems available on Angel and understand them. Exams will be similar. Right now I have a 98% in that class.</p>
<p>aibarr, mechs do the same as civs do, except with different applications that it is applied to. ME’s generally have their compressible flow as part of their electives so that they don’t have to take it if they don’t plan to focus anywhere near that area of the field.</p>