A Few Words of Advice...
So I received an email from an incoming freshman who had a few questions about engineering. Since I am away from the office and can’t access my work email, I decided to reply to the email via blogging…hope this helps Yves!
To catch the rest of you up with the email, I was asked about how to start up and get on track with mechanical engineering, which classes are good to take, etc. My first word of advise would be to start out right away with your pre-req’s for the major…this includes calc I, II, and III ….physics I and II (with labs)….chemistry I and if you’re a chemical engineer then chemistry II as well….also get the intro engineering courses out of the way such as intro to electrical engineering ( yes mechies need to take this)…intro to engineering…and material science and engineering….ok I think that covers all the intro classes….Now as far as other courses to take throughout your semester since you can’t and shouldn’t take all of these as a full load (meaning spread the pre-req’s out within 3-5 semesters…this includes summers as a semester) here are a few suggestions. Since engineering is not necessarily the best GPA boosting major, take fairly easy classes to cover your liberal arts classes… some that I took include: intro to theatre, enc 1101 (theme of class was popular culture), enc 1145 (theme was poetry…. Yes I wrote poems), modern popular music, Spanish literature in translation (was easy for me since I am bilingual and had read some of the text in an AP Spanish class in high school), social problems, multicultural film ( you watch modern movies and write short essays on them) along with some others. At orientation, your group leader should give you a booklet that has a list of some courses for liberal arts and a mini summary of them…choose some classes that appeal to you and more than likely you’ll enjoy them and they won’t seem difficult. Another good tool is ratemyprofessor.com. This site gives you a good idea of what the teacher is like according to previous students in the class.
As for mechanical engineering courses, you really don’t get such a big choice of classes. The curriculum is pretty set and the only classes you get to choose are your 5th math class (which you select from a list of approx. 6 classes), your senior year technical electives (there are various tracks consisting of 4 classes you would take over that you can choose so that you can graduate with an emphasis ie. dynamic systems, thermal fluids, nanotechnology, material science, etc), and your final choice would be whether you want a minor in physics or not by taking a modern physics course.
I hope this helps jump start your path to engineering! Although I won’t be back in the office till almost the start of fall, feel free to respond back to the blog or write emails. As my final word of advice for getting the most out of your college experience….. GET ADVISED by your pre-engineering advisors and later on your mechanical engineering advisors. It’s the best way to stay on track and make sure you’re ahead of the game!
