<p>I transferred from a community college to an accredited 4 year university for EE. I am feeling so overwhelmed. I'm only taking 4 classes and lab. My adviser told me this was a light schedule, but this is almost too much to take for me. When the teacher asks a question, other students know the answer and I'm sitting there like huh? I had a 3.7 gpa in CC; I feel like I will fail out now. I am putting in the effort. I study constantly. I thinking I'm just not smart enough for EE. My class schedule is:
Differential Equations
Linear Algebra
Discrete Mathematics
Circuit Analysis/Circuit Analysis Lab</p>
<p>Any words of encouragement or opinions would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>I sounds to me like you need to go to your student resource center, or whatever your university calls it’s academic help center. Do not delay! My brother (years ago) transferred to a more advanced program than he had been used to, and nearly flunked out. He discovered that he did need some tutoring but that mainly he had psyched himself out. You may well need some initial academic help, but the feeling of failing can make your brain seize up. Go ask for help and the best of luck to you!</p>
<p>I tried that. My school offers no tutoring for the upper level math classes. They only do for calc 1 and 2. I’ve been trying to look at youtube videos for help. I just feel like there isn’t enough hours in the day to cover all the material I need to cover.</p>
<p>@norris I usually just study one subject until I finish that section. Then I look at the clock and 3 hours have gone by. I realize I might be spending too much on one subject. I usually get one subject then fall behind in the others. How do you guys divide studying time?</p>
<p>It usually depends. If I’m way behind in a class, I might spend a whole day catching up. I just try to not get behind and then study a bunch before midterms and finals. But I meant HOW do you study… Like reading, book problems, looking at notes?</p>
<p>First of all, are you sure that you’re doing as badly as you think? I was also a transfer student, and Linear Algebra and Discrete Math were two of the classes I took in my first quarter. I honestly had no idea how I was doing compared to the other students and I was worried I might be falling behind. It wasn’t until after we took our first midterms and received our scores that I was able to relax.</p>
<p>One of the things that helped me, particularly in tough classes, was studying in groups. I used to reserve study rooms in one of the libraries and we would go over problems together on the white board. Later, I got a big white board of my own, and to this day, I study mostly on white board, even when I’m alone. Going over problems with your friends on a white board is beneficial for everyone – not just the guys who are struggling, but also for guys who think they know the material well. Plus, I think it’s more fun than studying alone at your desk.</p>
<p>I usually study by reading, then doing the assigned problems over and over again</p>
<p>@ monoko</p>
<p>It’s hard for me to do that because I suffer from social anxiety. Also, it seems everyone knows everyone in my classes. I’m sort of a loner at this point</p>
<p>^^Seriously this is the worst possible mindset to have. It’s college, this isn’t the time to let yourself fail because you don’t want to be outgoing. Go up to the more vocal kids in your class and introduce yourself. See if they have study groups going. The worth thing they can say is no.</p>
<p>That is a lot easier said than done. Even on medication. I don’t just have a case of shyness. I get panic attacks around groups of people. I’m seriously trying to fix this, but in the mean time I have to deal with it.</p>
<p>I would focus on working out more problems and less on reading. Also, pick out additional problems to work out that are different to the ones assigned. Don’t just keep working out the same problems.</p>
<p>Depending on each of your professors’ teaching styles, you might wanna study differently. For example, last quarter I took a heat transfer course where the professor was really in to deriving equations, while the book only focused on using them. So for that class I didn’t do any book problems and only studied my in class notes.</p>
<p>2) If you had Calculus II and Calculus III, you SHOULD have had a brief intro into Diff Eq towards the last week or two.</p>
<p>3) Probaby should have taken Diff Eq during the summer as while Circuits I does not assume Diff Eq knowledge, it is great if you already know it so that you won’t have an EE prof trying to give you a Diff Eq intro.</p>
<p>Now what I stated was more “rant” and does not address the “now”. I would advise the following.</p>
<p>a) You need to read ahead on Diff Eq until you get to the part of the book that covers electric circuits.
b) Re-cover the circuits topics you have studied so far.
c) Try to arrange for office hours. It is better to go into a prof’s office hours PREPARED in the case of the circuits course because it IS a weed out course.</p>
<p>The good news is, go talk to a doctor (MD) and a psychologist and you can beat most anxiety disorders. Trust me, it helps to talk to both, not just one. You really need to address this problem first because in industry, engineering is done in teams and you will need to be able to interact in groups when you graduate anyway.</p>
<p>As for studying, don’t just do the same problems over and over again, do a variety of problems so you mix it around a little bit if you can. Co back and look at the canonical problems a little bit later when studying for the exams themselves.</p>
<p>As for reading, it just depends on your learning style. Most lectures don’t have the same depth that the book has, but they are much more accessible. During undergrad, I rarely read the book and I did just fine, though I regret it now in grad school where greater depth would have saved me some time initially. Now I have been known to read books cover-to-cover while studying.</p>
<p>Still, the most important thing is to understand the basics. Make sure you understand the basic concepts in a given subject or you have no hope of grasping the higher-level topics that are built on those fundamentals.</p>
<p>dude, you sound just like me! transfer student here from a cc, with social anxiety or maybe just shyness.</p>
<p>I was feeling overwhelmed too in the first week or 2, but I just relaxed and started reading over the material more carefully, and taking notes as I read it as well. Also, go see your prof. during office hours, this helped me a ton when I was stuck on a hw problem. Since youre still in the lower level div math classes, khanacademy.com should help. As for the social anxiety, Im still trying to figure that out as well :(</p>
<p>Linear can be really rough if it’s intense in the theory crap. It was one of the classes I really struggled in and I had my worst quarter when I took it. I would hate for that to be my first class out of a CC. Diff Eq wasn’t bad for me but it’s a lot of stuff to remember and Circuits should go along with it soon like others have said. </p>
<p>I don’t know how many times I wanted to quit because I didn’t think I was smart enough, yet I was one of the top students in my classes. A lot of engineering students feel this way but don’t really talk about it. It’s because our classes are hard, competitive, and a ton of work and if your an anxious person… that’s just worse. Stick to it if it’s what you want to do. </p>
<p>khanacademy and MIT’s opencourse stuff is where I look when I need a little extra. Is there a tutor/study center where they do the Calc 1/Calc 2 stuff? People from your class might approach you and make it easier on you. Good luck!</p>
<p>I am interested in hearing your follow-up, hopefully later in the semester. I am transferring from a community college to a top engineering school and am definitely a little nervous about it.</p>
<p>I got my first dif eq quiz back. I got a 15/20. Which isn’t so bad. It just seems the work load is starting to crank up to high now. Lab reports are taking me hours and weekly homework and quizzes in discrete math are getting longer and harder as well. I wish I could see how everyone else in my classes are coping with this.</p>
<p>@ kamelakbar</p>
<p>I couldn’t really say if the workload is a lot more than community college. I mostly took gen ed courses at community college. I took a few math and physics courses as well. The biggest shock was walking into a lecture hall for the first time. I have never been in a class with more than 20 kids in my whole life. In my diff eq class there are 150. Good thing the engineering department at my school is very small. My engineering courses only have about 15-20 kids in them, which is good for me because of my social anxiety. I’m not in a top engineering program ( or top 100 for that matter), so it might of been different if I chose to attend drexel instead of temple.</p>