<p>I love the outdoors and am strong in science. However, my downfall is in math, but i want to major in a field that pays decent and combines my love of the outdoors with my strength in science. My parents are worried about the math that is involved with it. However, I feel that if I buckled down on my math, I feel that I can do it. Would being an Environmental Engineer be good with my passion of the outdoors and my interest in helping the environmnet in more than one way?</p>
<p>What areas of math have been a problem for you in the past?</p>
<p>Its not as much as a certain topic, its that I make simple errors, noimagination. I get calculus, its just that with my common errors, my parents are worried about this field.</p>
<p>It’s great to hear you want to help the environment. Environmental E’s I’ve met deal with waste-water treatment and too much paper work. It doesn’t necessarily entail what the name might lead you to think. But find out more…I’m not an expert on Env. Eng. </p>
<p>Energy is a big thing right now though…ME’s EE’s are working on a lot of the alternative energy technologies. Engineer’s are all about energy efficiency now…such as in buildings and industrial processes… and these are great fields to get into too if you want to help the environment. </p>
<p>About the math, you can totally do it…just go to your professors office hours and the help room and/or SI sessions. Get familiar with your TI-89, be clean with your work…Your not suppose to be ‘perfect’ at all coming into undergrad u know.</p>
<p>My opinion is that if you are genuinely interested in engineering and you understand the basic concepts in math then you should be able to overcome your problem through practice. More problems you solve the easier it gets. Good luck.</p>
<p>In some states (like Iowa) there’s a government intern program for engineering students called Pollution Prevention Intern or P2. The interns focus on energy efficiency/conservation, GHG emissions , costs , etc…etc…Thought you might find it interesting, I know mn has one too :)</p>
<p>[Iowa</a> DNR: Pollution Prevention Intern Program](<a href=“http://www.iowadnr.gov/waste/p2/intern.html]Iowa”>http://www.iowadnr.gov/waste/p2/intern.html)</p>
<p>Is it me or is the eternal lament of teens today that math is their downfall? You’re actually ahead because you’re taking Calculus as a high school student. I’d rather be forgetting to carry a 1 when multiplying than screwing up the quotient rule or MVT. Definitely go for engineering because whether it turns out to be your calling, it’s easier to transfer out than in.</p>
<p>At one time I made common error with Math. But I overcame it by working out tons of problems.</p>
<p>@bandgeek05- Your right a lot of kids these days can not do basic math.</p>
<p>Practice does incredible things for accuracy. Don’t worry about it; eventually you’ll develop an eye for what’s “right” and what’s “wrong” as you become more fluent in math. I didn’t really get a handle on accuracy until I started tutoring in college and got all preachy with my students about the use of calculators, and I didn’t TRULY become arithmetically unstoppable until I did calculations for about a year solid for a building I designed. By that point, I could do calculations without really thinking about it, and when I typed something into my calculator wrong and would get back an answer that didn’t quite make sense, my mind would zone back in and be like, “That number looks wrong.” It’s pretty cool what our brains can do when we demand more of them.</p>
<p>If you’re just worried about accuracy of calculations, I’d say you’re fine for engineering. Computers and calculators are going to be doing all your hard calculations anyway. You just need to do back-of-the-envelope order-of-magnitude stuff anyway. Forget about it.</p>
<p>More troubling would be trouble understanding, say, how to solve systems of equations.</p>