<p>I'll be attending Texas A&M for ME next fall and I'm really worried about the difficulty of the course work I'll have.</p>
<p>Let me start off by saying I did not choose engineering for the salary. Yes, it is a plus to have that 65-70k walking out of school, but I have always loved my math/science classes. My dad is an engineer, and I've been extremely interested in it for as long as I can remember. I've planned on majoring in ME for years now.</p>
<p>I scored decently on the SAT (Math:650, CR:650) and ACT (Math:31, Science: 33). GPA:3.7/4</p>
<p>On my "Math Placement Exam" for A&M I only scored a 22/33, which was the minimum score to place into Calc for my first semester. I did get the score I needed, but it worries me that it was so low. </p>
<p>My parents would KILL me if I ended up dropping out of college, that's why I'm so worried about this. I'm really excited about finally being in college, but extremely nervous about the difficulty of my classes. I know I'll be attending all of my classes, and I will plan on studying a lot, but I'm afraid that won't be enough.</p>
<p>You can preview calculus here:
[Free</a> Online Course Materials | Resource Home | MIT OpenCourseWare](<a href=“http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-18-005-highlights-of-calculus-spring-2010/]Free”>Highlights of Calculus | Supplemental Resources | MIT OpenCourseWare)
[Free</a> Online Course Materials | Resource Home | MIT OpenCourseWare](<a href=“http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-18-001-calculus-online-textbook-spring-2005/]Free”>Calculus Online Textbook | Supplemental Resources | MIT OpenCourseWare)</p>
<p>You may also want to try this on-line exam to get an idea of which precalculus concepts you should review over the summer:
[Calculus</a> Placement Exam | Department of Mathematics at University of California Berkeley](<a href=“http://math.berkeley.edu/courses/choosing/placement-exam]Calculus”>http://math.berkeley.edu/courses/choosing/placement-exam)</p>
<p>You’ll probably have some trouble with the math classes, but you’ll manage if you really work hard enough.
Just beware of DiffEq’s. I’m pretty good at math and I still thought that that class got nightmarish at times (2nd order ODE’s bleh). It’s not impossible, but it’s quite annoying (though useful).</p>
<p>Find out what book they will use. Order a copy online, start at the beginning, and go through the book. Make sure that you understand the material and can do it easily and quickly before moving on to the next section. Try to schedule at least an hour each day to work on this over the summer. When you get to college, become friends with the nerdiest kid in your math class and try to work it so you can be study partners. Engineers tend to toil in solitude, but you will find that having a person capable of explaining things clearly will save lots of time and effort.</p>
<p>IMPORTANT: Every single science, math and engineering course you take from now on will require an effortless facility with the concepts and practices of basic calculus. There is no second option for this.</p>