Math? What do you think engineering is??? An ever lovin shitload of math, applied to the real world. Actually, in my program, and I would imagine most others, we only need one more 400 level math class and we have a math minor.
Prof- That some funny shit!
I know that at my school, the engineers only have to take fake math courses, just calculus, matrix theory & other silly rote memory stuff. Engineering students would piss thamselves if they saw what real math was.
Try going from stupid shit that has so much structure like differential equations & that you don’t even have to understand, to stuff like abstract algebra which has so little structure you can’t even know what to do. That’s what math is about & that’s why
Just to add a slightly different perspective on this:
First, what Older Lifter said is spot on. Four years in high school shows an employer that you are minimally dependable. Four years in college shows that you’re the-next-rung-up dependable. Word up.
Okay, that wasn’t the different part. The different part is: if you’re really having that much of a problem coping with the course load, you might want to take a couple of years off and work instead. After you’ve gotten a little older and had some job experience under your belt, if you go back to college you’ll find it a lot easier.
Just a thought.
I was valedictorian at a private high school and the first year of college kicked my ass. There is one thing I would do differently in college if I did it over. I would take advantage of every single night time study group, special session, workshop, tutoring session, and whatever resources they provide in addition to the basic lectures. We didn’t have those in HS, so I didn’t know how to use them. Those sessions aren’t for losers, they are for the people who want to excel; I didn’t understand that. Go to them. Here’s another trick I learned in grad school: many times the professors copy problems from other books in the library. Check out the sample problems from other books. Look at alternate texts in the library to get other viewpoints of the subject. Sometimes the chosen textbook might not be the best one FOR YOU. Use all the resources available to you.
I had a good professor once who said he would answer any question before or after class. Well, one day a student found a sample circuit he couldn’t analyze and asked the professor how to analyze it. The prof explained fully before class started despite the fact that the prof had selected that very problem for a quiz that day. The prof was good to his word.
Man, I can SOOOO relate to this. I graduated salutatorian in my HS, with a 3.98/4.00 average, and was not challenged AT ALL in the classroom. What did this do to me? I basically never learned how to study. Bad situation to be in. But persistence pays off. Keep at it. The first two years IS a weeding out process. In my case, I started out with a 2.5 GPA after my first quarter, and had to work to bring it up from there (finishing at 3.6/4.0 with a BSME). Don’t ignore your distribution requirements (those niggling courses like literature and such). I took some easy and interesting ones there, and that helped the GPA, as well as spreading out the science classes. Good luck. And it will get better.
I agree with Char. I was one of those ‘smart-so-don’t- have-to-study’ high-school students and University CREAMED me. I got kicked out (low grades) after two years and worked full-time for two years (I had a part-time IT job at a brokerage firm that I turned into a full-time stock analysis job). After working 7:30 to 4:30 every day, all day (and getting used to it), I found university much easier. Just go into it with a 9-5 attitude, and you only occassionaly have to use the weekend for studying.
Hey, I just saw that you were struggling with C++. My advice is to pick up the book “Teach yourself C++” (and not the 21-day one!). It’s a short book, it’ll run you through all the stuff you’re likely to cover in your course, and it’s much better than the Deitel and Deitel that most campuses are pushing these days.
Hey dude I am in the same boat you are. I graduated high school with a high 80’s average and now that I’m in university my marks have dropped a good 15-20%. I am in computer science so I have to take all the same maths as the engineers and it’s hard stuff to grasp. If it makes you feel any better, I thought I was the only one too but I’ve talked to friends that are in all kinds of programs in different universities from arts to bio-medical sciences and they all say the same thing.
Hang in there man
Peace
Don’t sweat it, University IS hard. You just haven’t figured out how to study yet. Soon you’ll figure out what is important to each professor and then that’s what you focus on. All the rest is just BULL. Besides, it’s a well known fact that most engineering programs are designed to weed people out in the first two years. Some advice would be to interview professionals in the field that you are training in and see if you really want to do what they do for a living. If not, then you’ll need to re-evaluate your program, just like any other kind of training, you need to be sure that the training will meet your goals, otherwise all that effort is wasted.
A little joke that we engineers thought was funny by the time we were Seniors…
(If anybody remembers Calculus)
Limit (Engineer) = Business Major
GPA → 0
The limit of an engineering student as their GPA approaches 0 equals a busineess major.
Everybody knows that engineers aren’t really funny, but sometimes we like to think that we are.
I think the reason that university is so hard is that the American educational system does such a poor job of preparing students. Basic university courses aren’t going to “dumb down” the material for you, you have to step up to that level. Over the years, the basic educational level of the high school students has decreased, while the subjects have remained at the same level at university. That’s why it seems so hard.
I am in 3rd year comp sci and it just came to me. Eureka! I f**king hate computers! But I will probably get a job doing C++ programming purely because they pay is good. At least until I have enough capital to do something worthwhile or interesting with my life.