<p>Anyways Thanks for your replies BONEH3AD…</p>
<p>I wanted to ask one more thing that i am not that good in physics but still can i be a successful mechanical engineer??</p>
<p>Is mechanical engineering all about physics or there is more of maths involved in it as well??</p>
<p>Engineering is basically applied physics which is basically applied math. One reason why some people aren’t very good at physics is that they don’t have that special problem solving ability. If you’re saying you’re not good at physics because you can’t breeze through it like you did sophomore year chemistry, that’s the problem. When I was a junior, I took Physics B (AP class) and that was the first time I actually had to work, something I didn’t realize till the end of the class… now that I’m taking Physics C, I read, study formulas, look at how they’re derived, and try to learn the concepts and how they work. Just takes a bit of work, that’s all.</p>
<p>Physics is important… so I think you should give it another shot before saying you’re not good at it.</p>
<p>I thought physics was pretty difficult last year, but now that I am looking back over it and helping other friends out with homework problems, the concepts are way easier to understand the second time around. Problems I couldn’t do last year are much easier now. I think when you take it the first time around (especially if your first time is AP) the class is somewhat of a shock because the material is much more difficult than say chemistry. However, once you figure out the approach needed for physics problems, they are not that hard.</p>
<p>I agree Aggie. Physics B was really the first class that required me to think hard and ultimately helped me develop certain problem solving abilities that I think are helping me with all of my courses and make them that much easier. It’s a shock because physics is unlike all other classes… you can’t just memorize things and that’s it, you have to memorize and understand AND be able to solve the problem. I think that’s really what makes engineering so attractive to the people in it.</p>
<p>I don’t think the material in physics is inherently more difficult than chemistry. The difference is that in chemistry, most or all of the problems have a very specific method that you can employ to solve the problems (at least when it comes to the chemistry classes you need for most engineering majors). Most of the time, if you have done one problem of a certain kind, you can do all of them roughly the same way. Physics is the first science class that most people take where they actually have to develop problem solving skills. Except in the very basic problems, there is not necessarily a single correct solution method, and learning how to efficiently think through the problem at hand and translate it to paper is probably two thirds of the battle as opposed to actually solving it.</p>
<p>I am good in solving problems but i really suffer in the theoritical part of physics…</p>
<p>Any pointers regarding this??</p>
<p>What theoretical part? Like conservation of energy? That just boils down to a simple equation. I am not really sure what theory you are talking about, as basic mechanics taught in high schools and entry-level university courses is fairly light on theory and is more about the problem solving. Electricity and magnetism is more theory than mechanics, but it is still mostly just an exercise in attaching mathematical relations to real-world phenomena and learning how to solve the associated problems.</p>
<p>Is there any way you could be more specific? What sort of “theory” are you having problems with?</p>
<p>The theories regaring quarks,leptons and gravitational forces…</p>
<p>You won’t need any of that for mechanical engineering. Gravity is one of those things that you need to understand relativity to really understand, which is really only relevant to physicists. Quarks and leptons are things that I barely even learned about beyond just knowing what they are, and I still did fine in mechanical engineering. You don’t need to know that astrophysics stuff unless you are an astrophysicist. Mechanical engineering, in general, is done on a macro scale, not micro scale.</p>
<p>OK so how should i develop the problem solving skills necessary to do well in physcics??</p>
<p>You just said you were good at the problem solving skills, I thought.</p>
<p>Regardless, the only thing that can really help with the problem solving is practice. You have to develop an intuition for how to go about getting solutions. In engineering, you will be developing these skills for 4+ years so you will get it as long as you are willing to work.</p>
<p>Is making the project part difficult in mechanical engineering??</p>
<p>I am not quite sure what you mean by that, unfortunately.</p>
<p>WELL i meant to say that i heard that in the last semester of the mechanical engineering course the project which we have to make is quite difficult and many students fail to do it…</p>
<p>Is that right???</p>
<p>Well, most if not all engineering degrees require a “capstone project”, often called a “senior design project”. You can’t get away from that no matter what engineering discipline you choose.</p>
<p>I know at the school I did my undergraduate work at (UIUC) there wasn’t anyone that I was aware of that failed Senior Design. It is a huge project that requires hundreds of man hours of work to complete, but you have the entire semester (sometimes two semesters in some programs) to do it. The thing is, it tests your ability to take a lot of what you have learned thus far and translate it into a real world solution to a real world problem. It was actually probably the most fun I had in a college class. No one should honestly get less than a B in a capstone class if they are even remotely competent at their major, especially since you have several other people to work on it with.</p>
<p>My group did ours with Argonne National Laboratory. We designed a novel cooling system for a new supercomputer they are building that used a water-side economizer to reduce the energy consumption compared to a typical cooling system by something like 95%. It was a very cool project and ANL actually decided to use it since it would save them something like $30M over the life of the computer on electricity alone.</p>
<p>^ that is cool</p>
<p>I think I’ve decided to be a mechanical engineering. I’m very excited, I love math and physics and building things.</p>
<p>Sorry don’t have anything to contribute to this tread I just want to say that’s an amazing story boneh3ad.</p>
<p>The chemical engineers I know are rich, while those mechanical engineers aren’t that rich (but still rich). But I’ve heard Mechanical Engineers have more job prospects.</p>
<p>That was an amazing project boneh3ad!!!</p>
<p>Last thing i wanted to ask is that do you know about any link from where i can get the whole machanical engineering course??</p>