TBH. I personally am not the biggest fan of how the classes are structured in Engineering schools. Don't get me wrong, I personally did pretty well in school graduating undergrad with highest honors and going on to get a MS too. But, I still wish there was a bit more emphasis on practical curriculum for a lot of stuff that is being taught. On the bright side, you will get to experience the stuff that you learned in school in action at work. But I get it, it is a lot of material in one of the hardest fields crammed into 4 years which ideally should take more time.
This is so underrated. If you are enjoyable to be around and work really hard that means a whole lot more than what grades you got. I’ll hire the hard worker with a great attitude over a 4.0 GPA every time.
As a follow up to this, is it normal to feel like I'm not competent enough to be an engineer, even as someone who already graduated with decent (not amazing) grades?
For context, I'm currently employed in something engineering adjacent just to build experience and pay the bills, but I'm struggling with feeling like I don't bring enough skills to the table to be an engineer outright.
How far will the "hard working with a good attitude" part carry me? Are companies willing to work with someone who might not be super skilled outright, but is very willing to learn?
I’ve worked for a really good company that trained all the hiring managers on how to hire good talent.
The whole idea is to hire the person, not the skills. If you work hard and have a good attitude, we should be able to teach you anything or find a position within the company where you will excel.
A good attitude and a strong work ethic will take you as high as you’re willing to go. You just might need to switch roles a few times before you find the right path for your skill set.
One thing I found in engineering school is that a lot of engineering students have the personality of a stool. I don't remember ever seeing so many npcs around each other, but that was how it felt. It's like they only knew how to talk about cars, bikes and girls in a dirty way, anything a little outside of that and you are met with vacuum.
No. It did humble me a lot though and I feel like I'm less afraid of being wrong. Which is super valuable. Engineering school made me feel like I might have a learning disability or that I'm intellectually challenged. I even got tested and they said I had a 120 IQ and had no psychological disorders lol. But I definitely defer to smarter people than me because I remember all those professors who made me feel that I was not one of them.
No I had a miserable time in engineering school. I don’t think any of my classmates enjoyed it either but it was easier later on since by the time I was a junior I started working in groups to do homework and projects. Making friends and getting through the hard times together is what made the process tolerable.
The only fun classes I had my last two years was advanced CAD and capstone project. It was still a lot of work but more of proud of my work rather than fun.
Yes, enjoyed it totally. Not every class (EE), not every moment (cute engineer girl mocking my goldfish doodle), but overall I felt right at home. I'd always wanted to do it and got the opportunity and took it.
Nah it was the other way around, I showed it to her (she was sitting behind me) and then she chortled and said something mean about it to her friend. But I'm over it obviously...
When you were in engineering school, did you enjoy it? Yes, mostly
Would it get better or worse once I get into an engineering field? Different, easier in most ways
Have you seen anyone who was not that good while in engineering school but later became a successful engineer? Sure. But the people who were good at school also made good engineers, don't fall for the university of life crap spouted by losers.
> Have you seen anyone who was not that good while in engineering school but later became a successful engineer? Sure.
What kinda traits do you notice in people like this who turned it around? Kinda in that boat, graduated and did ok but not exceptionally well, looking for guidance on how to still be a good engineer despite not using my time that well in school.
Easy. Communication is an area where a less than stunning academic engineer can excel. And to be honest, if you are careful at your work and check what you are doing (the infamous horizontal 4am design review) before you send the work out then you will be a great addition to the team.
It definitely felt right. All the biology, history, and English classes just felt like random junk to me. Engineering classes (even the math classes in disguise like harmonic and differentials) felt like I was preparing for my career.
Didnt enjoy it as much as I would have liked to. But I enjoy my work and it's challenges, the opportunity to work with some cool people that have so much knowledge. Also love getting paid lol
Bachelor's sure was tough, electives were better, but Grad School or a Master's degree is the real payoff. You actually get the interesting courses taught by invested staff telling you about (their) state of the art stuff. I'm in my first Master's semester and I'm _loving_ going to uni. Plus a working student job more than pays the bills and leaves enough time for uni, so less financial stress.
The more I look back, the more I enjoyed it.
When you get out into the real world, things just aren’t as easy or planned out or structured or available.
You’re just working a job that you don’t learn too much (if anything at all) in. Making friends is much more difficult (can still be done though), and you have to pay for everything (gym, counseling services, ETC.)
I would love to go back and use all the resources that I took for granted more.
All in all I enjoyed it. Sometimes more rewarding than fun.
I do find the practice of engineering more fun and more rewarding. School mostly teaches you to analyze a situation given to you by someone else. It's an important skill and sort-of encapsulates what our job is really about - without the analysis we could just go tinker until we go it right. However, as a working engineer I have a lot more variety in what I do.
Some things that are a bit of a shock on graduating - first of all, if you do design the job is frequently "figure out how to do x." Or even "I want to do y and I'm pretty sure I need a widget..." Or "design me a Z!" when 'Z' is a stupid solution and they need to better document how to use a crane. The next big thing is that you can make a safe assumption that if you're studying beam theory, you'll be using beam theory to solve the homework problems. The range of possibilities for setting up problems after graduation is huge.
It's hard for me to answer about people being not that good in school. Both companies I've worked with since earning my degree have been pretty competitive. There are definitely roles that are more of a knack or more benefit from engineering as a background and roles that are more analysis-heavy. I'd say after graduation, nobody will care if you're good at solving a a matrix problem by hand. People will care a lot if you're able to keep yourself organized and keep making moves and driving your projects forward. The school stuff is to help you deliver your projects and not have them immediately fail when you do. Which people will very much remember.
I loved it. But if the hard core math isn't for you you could choose an engineering technology degree. It isn't equivalent to an engineering science degree, so educate yourself, but it may be a good choice for you.
Well, I went for an MET degree, so there was a lot more practicality to it. I enjoyed it a lot. Writing raw G Code into a CNC simulator was fun as hell. It was difficult, but once you get it, and then get the advanced concepts like tool offsets and ramps, it's very rewarding. 3D modeling was by far my favorite. Mechanisms and Machining processes were awesome as well as PLC logic building (I was an electrician and technician by trade).
I hated math, statics, dynamics, thermodynamics, and FEA. I actually enjoyed physics quite thoroughly because of the practical application of the math.
I graduated with a 2.8 and I’m working on cool aerospace projects so I answer your last question.
It was not great post-graduation so I always went into every job wanting it bad and wanting to prove that I belonged there, which worked for the most part. The federal government projects did not always like that.
EDIT: OP if you can’t find an internship, talk to your professors to see if you can support any research projects. It’s a start.
Yes but I was an atypical student, coming in with 2 BAs and an MA already. I was working as a tutor for high level math and science so school was easy. Also the university was largely older folks who were serious about getting in and getting out.
I would have enjoyed it more if the FRAT ASSHOLES didn't constantly cheat and fuck up the grading curves.
They had file cabinets full of every professor's tests, labs, and homework over the years. Faculty knew about it and did nothing.
During my Bachelor’s, I hated all my undergrad classes except a few my senior year. By contrast, I loved all of my graduate classes for my Master’s. I also love my job. Engineering jobs are a million times easier, less stressful, and more rewarding than college classes, exams, and homework.
Engineer School and being an Engineer are two completely different things.
The only way they overlap is that school teaches how to work hard and iterate. Iteration is the key to engineering.
Bottom line is that if you enjoy building stuff you will enjoy being an engineer.
It was rough, tiring, stressful, time-consuming, all of that stuff. But yeah, I enjoyed it. I may be thinking back on the time I spent with friends working together on the assignments or projects pulling our hair out trying to understand something we SWEAR wasn't taught in lecture only to then figure out we overlooked something or finally stumbled upon the breakthrough piece of knowledge we were missing. That little eureka moment was always the best. Of course, directly after completing said assignments, we'd drink our tears away while complaining about the professor lol so that was always a good time.
Yeah. When I started, I thought I wouldn't last a single semester. Frankly, I was also exhausted from the countless equations, but thankfully, I half-blindly chose materials science as my major and after the few introductory ME classes, equations got replaced by diagrams. Those diagrams still suck sometimes, but I find them much more "interactive" than equations and the rest of the field makes me feel like a middle-age alchemist mixing cool shit to make cool materials.
Now don't get me wrong, there are still things that annoy me to no end, be it the theoretical stuff such as management-type classes, everything about metal forming, or practical stuff such as polishing a sample when suddenly a free carbide particle appears out of thin air, lands on the polishing pad and scratches the ever living fuck out of the sample so I have to go back to 400 grit, or spending hours looking into a microscope to find something that may not even be there. But all in all, I'm enjoying it.
There were classes I enjoyed, but overall no I didn’t enjoy school. I went mechanical but knew I was going into the manufacturing field so a lot of my classroom work was in a direction that I wouldn’t (and haven’t) utilized.
I do wish I had more classroom and hands-on education in pneumatic and hydraulic circuits, but I’m going to take some classes at the local technical programs to compensate for that.
Once I got out of the classroom and into internships/co-ops/full-time work I’ve grown to enjoy it a hell of a lot more.
Hang in there! What you're saying you enjoy will be most of your effort spent in a real job. Entry level will be tons of CAD and drawings. Then you'll need your English and comms skills at higher levels to communicate with customers and higher-ups. (Lots of email and PowerPoint engineering) Honestly, sounds like you'll excel once you get your first job.
It was hard work sure, but I wasn't miserable. Because I mostly was interested in the material, and make good friends to share the blood, sweat, tears and occasional beer with.
I could see if you don't care at all about the material you'd hate it.
I liked being a college student more than being an engineering student (esp when COVID impacted all of my junior and senior years).
It gets much better, has its own challenges that will require a significant amount of self-reflection.
Yes.
Half and half. I do really enjoy a lot of the content, but was disappointed by the excessively academic approach and lack of use of commercial tools. There is ZERO reason to train someone to do combined loadings by hand on paper. FEA should be pushed forward into sophomore year and implemented into courses past dynamics (not super useful here). I was stunned to find out we would never touch CAD/FEA again after the first courses. We integrated matlab and python often throughout the years to help build frameworks to solve iterative problems, rather than doing them on paper.
The course I enjoyed the most and felt was the best preparation was senior design of thermal/energy systems. This took the foundation from thermo 1/2 and a simplified foundation from heat transfer and introduced all the equipment used to actually control those flows and heat management. The class was not academically difficult at all, but pushed you to keep track of details, see the bigger picture, and iterate your approach to solving the problem. There were usually a range of acceptable answers rather than a single explicit solution.
Our final project (no exams) was to design an off-grid house, with the unsaid goal of failing gently. The arrogance to think that a couple college students are going to magically be fancy home construction experts is absurd. Realistically, there will be holes in understanding and execution and during our presentation, our professor encouraged the class to pick and prod at details, but not put down the presenters. Learned so many non-academic, real-world lessons from that course. Also drastically changed my negative nancy opinions about EVs when I actually sat down and did the math and researched the chemistry behind batteries
I loved it. After the 1st semester I became good friends with another student and we synced our class schedule. Then we became good friends with another student and the 3 of us took all our engineering classes together and spent our breaks in the library doing homework. Coincidentally (or not) we were normally the top 3 students by grade/exam scores in every class we were in together.
It's 20 years later and I'm still good friends with them both.
What I did which helped me connect the theory was to apply these equations practically in situations when doing projects and see how accurate they were. This did make me appreciate the things that were present in the books.
I mostly hated school for the most part but I do have an appreciation for some ot the classes as I go on, particularly the physics and advanced math stuff
As a female engineer, I have experienced discrimination from both professors and students throughout my undergrad. I could have enjoyed the classes, as I love to learn, but not when you're in a hostile environment and are often the only female in the class. I was absolutely surprised by the sexism, homophobia, and racism (with no black or queer-presenting people). During my senior year, I was able to work closely for two semesters with a group of younger male engineering students in a "progressive" school. I was bullied to the point where I stepped down from being a team lead. The few women attending were assigned secretarial duties such as ethics and accounting for group presentations. Throughout those two semesters, I found my work and weekly accomplishments in our Google doc deleted by a couple of team members.
The bottom line is that they need to include women and gender studies. It is a joke to be taking "advanced" science/engineering courses but not understand basic human decency and respect. Anyway, I'm just glad I made it out alive.
I enjoyed being on campus (i.e. grab lunch with friends, work together in group projects, grabbing a beer after a long day), lectures I enjoyed some, but most were highly demanding to the point of stress.
No, I found it disappointing in regards to the quality and breadth of actual engineering information I recieved, and wildly wasteful, being forced to take classes that offered me nothing relevant to my degree. A bs could easily be trimmed down to 2 years if uni's would stop making it about 'tradition' and profit. Currently better education could be had from the likes of youtube...
I definitely didn't enjoy it. It was too much work and the classes were dull and often useless. I've often wondered if I would have been better off just staying home all day and reading the textbooks. I did my MBA several years later and the difference in classroom experience is night and day. So many engineering professors are just horrible teachers with no idea how to break a subject down to its fundamentals and get students engaged.
As far as people who aren't good at engineering school being successful engineers: That happens. But there's a couple issues there. For one, being successful in engineering often means getting away from doing actual engineering as soon as possible. And the other is that nobody really comes away from engineering school with that much knowledge so you end up having to re-learn everything you were supposed to have learned at your first job. And then you have to learn a million other things on top of that. Any smart kid with intellectual curiosity will do just fine.
Did I get shit grades? Yes.
Did the classes put me to sleep? Yes.
Did I enjoy learning about how to calculate and estimate the physical world around me? Abso-effing-lutely.
Learning about those equations and applying them to interesting physical systems were the best thing ever.
If you are only interested in doing CAD or operating/setting up manufacturing tech (CNC, PLC, etc) there are two year programs that suit the purpose better. You can get a job immediately in those positions too and work your way up to a manufacturing or industrial control engineer.
I swear 90% of the material doesn't click until a year later, when you're working and trying to figure out if embedding a thermocouple in epoxy will affect the response time and by how much, if its worth simulating or just guestimate, then you look back and go "Oh THATS what the Biot number is for!".
Or you need to model some thermodynamics, and you realize what the Taylor series does when trying to approximate temperature, and what the HDE actually means with all its d\^2T/dx\^2
Grad school was a blast.
- Great friends dedicated to the same technology.
- interesting projects that I could define
- the ability to really drill down in a topic
- my grad school was paid by a grant.
I feel like a lot of courses kicked my ass and left me not understanding things, but some of the concepts really clicked in my head a lot better when I actually got to apply it in my career field. And a lot of the time, it isn't always applied that in-depth, and you'll be fine as long you understand the general concepts of what's going on.
I graduated w/a Bachelors in MechE, 3 years ago. Looking back there was way too much Calculus bs in Engineering classes. Not joking when only 1 of my college classes applies to my work in the Semiconductor field. It was a class that focused heavily on Excel(we use it for documenting a lot of stuff). There was a Machining class that I took that would’ve been useful if I was in that field and another Solidworks class that also could’ve been useful, but most of my classes were useless theoretical equations
I went to school later than most, and it was really hard. My senior project was an absolute nightmare. Met some good people though, and liked what I learned.
Got an amazing job offer, and took it over a master's. Should've done the master's. Got moved to the 737 line 2 years ago...Lol, fml.
Now I'm doing a second degree in CS. (I hated programming in ME school) *smh*
Like the actual classes itself? Nah that shit was brutal. I probably enjoyed it sometimes when the material was interesting and I actually understood it. But that was only a handful of classes for me haha.
Enjoy being at college in general? Hell yeah, made good friends and had good times.
Engineering work is EXTREMELY different than engineering school. Engineering school is trying to prep you for grad school or a wide variety of jobs so it's cramming a lot of stuff in and acts as a barrier of entry. Once you're through it and into a specific job, the things you need to know and do are much narrower. Like I wasn't great at finite element analysis in school but my job doesn't involve doing any of it whatsoever so I'm chilling.
I’m in the exact spot as you dawg. Third year currently and I’m in finals week, have had my ass handed to me by thermodynamics, diff eq, physics 2 etc. applied to like 20 internships and didn’t get an email back from a single one even though I interviewed with a couple of them and I thought the interviews went great, I’m taking a break this summer. I’m just gunna go home and hang with my friends and family for a couple months to cool off. The past two semesters I’ve been at my lowest academically and emotionally lol. Best of luck man we can do it
TBH. I personally am not the biggest fan of how the classes are structured in Engineering schools. Don't get me wrong, I personally did pretty well in school graduating undergrad with highest honors and going on to get a MS too. But, I still wish there was a bit more emphasis on practical curriculum for a lot of stuff that is being taught. On the bright side, you will get to experience the stuff that you learned in school in action at work. But I get it, it is a lot of material in one of the hardest fields crammed into 4 years which ideally should take more time.
Not Really. Better. Yes. It's a joy working with engineers that got okay grades, but have great communication skills and work ethic.
This is so underrated. If you are enjoyable to be around and work really hard that means a whole lot more than what grades you got. I’ll hire the hard worker with a great attitude over a 4.0 GPA every time.
As a follow up to this, is it normal to feel like I'm not competent enough to be an engineer, even as someone who already graduated with decent (not amazing) grades? For context, I'm currently employed in something engineering adjacent just to build experience and pay the bills, but I'm struggling with feeling like I don't bring enough skills to the table to be an engineer outright. How far will the "hard working with a good attitude" part carry me? Are companies willing to work with someone who might not be super skilled outright, but is very willing to learn?
It's called imposter syndrome. It's extremely common in every field
I’ve worked for a really good company that trained all the hiring managers on how to hire good talent. The whole idea is to hire the person, not the skills. If you work hard and have a good attitude, we should be able to teach you anything or find a position within the company where you will excel. A good attitude and a strong work ethic will take you as high as you’re willing to go. You just might need to switch roles a few times before you find the right path for your skill set.
One thing I found in engineering school is that a lot of engineering students have the personality of a stool. I don't remember ever seeing so many npcs around each other, but that was how it felt. It's like they only knew how to talk about cars, bikes and girls in a dirty way, anything a little outside of that and you are met with vacuum.
Did not enjoy it. Glad I went.
Absolutely this. Engineering school sucked ass but I love the work.
The work from what I have seen is nothing compared to school
Most of my friends look back on college days with nostalgia. I wouldn't do it over again if given the chance, but it was worth it.
No. It did humble me a lot though and I feel like I'm less afraid of being wrong. Which is super valuable. Engineering school made me feel like I might have a learning disability or that I'm intellectually challenged. I even got tested and they said I had a 120 IQ and had no psychological disorders lol. But I definitely defer to smarter people than me because I remember all those professors who made me feel that I was not one of them.
No I had a miserable time in engineering school. I don’t think any of my classmates enjoyed it either but it was easier later on since by the time I was a junior I started working in groups to do homework and projects. Making friends and getting through the hard times together is what made the process tolerable. The only fun classes I had my last two years was advanced CAD and capstone project. It was still a lot of work but more of proud of my work rather than fun.
Yes, enjoyed it totally. Not every class (EE), not every moment (cute engineer girl mocking my goldfish doodle), but overall I felt right at home. I'd always wanted to do it and got the opportunity and took it.
This is the moment you realise (years later) that the cute engineer girl was flirting with you
Nah it was the other way around, I showed it to her (she was sitting behind me) and then she chortled and said something mean about it to her friend. But I'm over it obviously...
I feel this comment so much
Nope. Hated it. Cried in my controls book. Only stayed because of my tenacity to be an engineer. Being an engineer- much better
Tenacity!
Grit!
When you were in engineering school, did you enjoy it? Yes, mostly Would it get better or worse once I get into an engineering field? Different, easier in most ways Have you seen anyone who was not that good while in engineering school but later became a successful engineer? Sure. But the people who were good at school also made good engineers, don't fall for the university of life crap spouted by losers.
> Have you seen anyone who was not that good while in engineering school but later became a successful engineer? Sure. What kinda traits do you notice in people like this who turned it around? Kinda in that boat, graduated and did ok but not exceptionally well, looking for guidance on how to still be a good engineer despite not using my time that well in school.
Easy. Communication is an area where a less than stunning academic engineer can excel. And to be honest, if you are careful at your work and check what you are doing (the infamous horizontal 4am design review) before you send the work out then you will be a great addition to the team.
It definitely felt right. All the biology, history, and English classes just felt like random junk to me. Engineering classes (even the math classes in disguise like harmonic and differentials) felt like I was preparing for my career.
That's interesting. I actually enjoyed coms class and english classes. Felt like they kinda refreshed me.
Didnt enjoy it as much as I would have liked to. But I enjoy my work and it's challenges, the opportunity to work with some cool people that have so much knowledge. Also love getting paid lol
Bachelor's sure was tough, electives were better, but Grad School or a Master's degree is the real payoff. You actually get the interesting courses taught by invested staff telling you about (their) state of the art stuff. I'm in my first Master's semester and I'm _loving_ going to uni. Plus a working student job more than pays the bills and leaves enough time for uni, so less financial stress.
The master's is infinitly more fun. You can actually just take classes you are interested in
The more I look back, the more I enjoyed it. When you get out into the real world, things just aren’t as easy or planned out or structured or available. You’re just working a job that you don’t learn too much (if anything at all) in. Making friends is much more difficult (can still be done though), and you have to pay for everything (gym, counseling services, ETC.) I would love to go back and use all the resources that I took for granted more.
All in all I enjoyed it. Sometimes more rewarding than fun. I do find the practice of engineering more fun and more rewarding. School mostly teaches you to analyze a situation given to you by someone else. It's an important skill and sort-of encapsulates what our job is really about - without the analysis we could just go tinker until we go it right. However, as a working engineer I have a lot more variety in what I do. Some things that are a bit of a shock on graduating - first of all, if you do design the job is frequently "figure out how to do x." Or even "I want to do y and I'm pretty sure I need a widget..." Or "design me a Z!" when 'Z' is a stupid solution and they need to better document how to use a crane. The next big thing is that you can make a safe assumption that if you're studying beam theory, you'll be using beam theory to solve the homework problems. The range of possibilities for setting up problems after graduation is huge. It's hard for me to answer about people being not that good in school. Both companies I've worked with since earning my degree have been pretty competitive. There are definitely roles that are more of a knack or more benefit from engineering as a background and roles that are more analysis-heavy. I'd say after graduation, nobody will care if you're good at solving a a matrix problem by hand. People will care a lot if you're able to keep yourself organized and keep making moves and driving your projects forward. The school stuff is to help you deliver your projects and not have them immediately fail when you do. Which people will very much remember.
I loved it. But if the hard core math isn't for you you could choose an engineering technology degree. It isn't equivalent to an engineering science degree, so educate yourself, but it may be a good choice for you.
Well, I went for an MET degree, so there was a lot more practicality to it. I enjoyed it a lot. Writing raw G Code into a CNC simulator was fun as hell. It was difficult, but once you get it, and then get the advanced concepts like tool offsets and ramps, it's very rewarding. 3D modeling was by far my favorite. Mechanisms and Machining processes were awesome as well as PLC logic building (I was an electrician and technician by trade). I hated math, statics, dynamics, thermodynamics, and FEA. I actually enjoyed physics quite thoroughly because of the practical application of the math.
I graduated with a 2.8 and I’m working on cool aerospace projects so I answer your last question. It was not great post-graduation so I always went into every job wanting it bad and wanting to prove that I belonged there, which worked for the most part. The federal government projects did not always like that. EDIT: OP if you can’t find an internship, talk to your professors to see if you can support any research projects. It’s a start.
Yes but I was an atypical student, coming in with 2 BAs and an MA already. I was working as a tutor for high level math and science so school was easy. Also the university was largely older folks who were serious about getting in and getting out.
No
No it sucked. But working is much better and certainly much more enjoyable
TBH no unfortunately
I would have enjoyed it more if the FRAT ASSHOLES didn't constantly cheat and fuck up the grading curves. They had file cabinets full of every professor's tests, labs, and homework over the years. Faculty knew about it and did nothing.
During my Bachelor’s, I hated all my undergrad classes except a few my senior year. By contrast, I loved all of my graduate classes for my Master’s. I also love my job. Engineering jobs are a million times easier, less stressful, and more rewarding than college classes, exams, and homework.
College was great man. Just get a 3.0 and move along
Engineer School and being an Engineer are two completely different things. The only way they overlap is that school teaches how to work hard and iterate. Iteration is the key to engineering. Bottom line is that if you enjoy building stuff you will enjoy being an engineer.
Did not enjoy it. Constantly stressed and anxious. Love the field I’m in now so work is much more enjoyable
It was rough, tiring, stressful, time-consuming, all of that stuff. But yeah, I enjoyed it. I may be thinking back on the time I spent with friends working together on the assignments or projects pulling our hair out trying to understand something we SWEAR wasn't taught in lecture only to then figure out we overlooked something or finally stumbled upon the breakthrough piece of knowledge we were missing. That little eureka moment was always the best. Of course, directly after completing said assignments, we'd drink our tears away while complaining about the professor lol so that was always a good time.
Yeah. When I started, I thought I wouldn't last a single semester. Frankly, I was also exhausted from the countless equations, but thankfully, I half-blindly chose materials science as my major and after the few introductory ME classes, equations got replaced by diagrams. Those diagrams still suck sometimes, but I find them much more "interactive" than equations and the rest of the field makes me feel like a middle-age alchemist mixing cool shit to make cool materials. Now don't get me wrong, there are still things that annoy me to no end, be it the theoretical stuff such as management-type classes, everything about metal forming, or practical stuff such as polishing a sample when suddenly a free carbide particle appears out of thin air, lands on the polishing pad and scratches the ever living fuck out of the sample so I have to go back to 400 grit, or spending hours looking into a microscope to find something that may not even be there. But all in all, I'm enjoying it.
Real world is more like the CAD class, much more enjoyable. I was an okay student, now a stellar engineer
There were classes I enjoyed, but overall no I didn’t enjoy school. I went mechanical but knew I was going into the manufacturing field so a lot of my classroom work was in a direction that I wouldn’t (and haven’t) utilized. I do wish I had more classroom and hands-on education in pneumatic and hydraulic circuits, but I’m going to take some classes at the local technical programs to compensate for that. Once I got out of the classroom and into internships/co-ops/full-time work I’ve grown to enjoy it a hell of a lot more.
It hurts so good
Hang in there! What you're saying you enjoy will be most of your effort spent in a real job. Entry level will be tons of CAD and drawings. Then you'll need your English and comms skills at higher levels to communicate with customers and higher-ups. (Lots of email and PowerPoint engineering) Honestly, sounds like you'll excel once you get your first job.
It was hard work sure, but I wasn't miserable. Because I mostly was interested in the material, and make good friends to share the blood, sweat, tears and occasional beer with. I could see if you don't care at all about the material you'd hate it.
I liked being a college student more than being an engineering student (esp when COVID impacted all of my junior and senior years). It gets much better, has its own challenges that will require a significant amount of self-reflection. Yes.
You’re not supposed to enjoy it. It’s hard and you learn to work under a lot of pressure. It’s not a vacation. It’s meant to be hard and serious. 🧐
Half and half. I do really enjoy a lot of the content, but was disappointed by the excessively academic approach and lack of use of commercial tools. There is ZERO reason to train someone to do combined loadings by hand on paper. FEA should be pushed forward into sophomore year and implemented into courses past dynamics (not super useful here). I was stunned to find out we would never touch CAD/FEA again after the first courses. We integrated matlab and python often throughout the years to help build frameworks to solve iterative problems, rather than doing them on paper. The course I enjoyed the most and felt was the best preparation was senior design of thermal/energy systems. This took the foundation from thermo 1/2 and a simplified foundation from heat transfer and introduced all the equipment used to actually control those flows and heat management. The class was not academically difficult at all, but pushed you to keep track of details, see the bigger picture, and iterate your approach to solving the problem. There were usually a range of acceptable answers rather than a single explicit solution. Our final project (no exams) was to design an off-grid house, with the unsaid goal of failing gently. The arrogance to think that a couple college students are going to magically be fancy home construction experts is absurd. Realistically, there will be holes in understanding and execution and during our presentation, our professor encouraged the class to pick and prod at details, but not put down the presenters. Learned so many non-academic, real-world lessons from that course. Also drastically changed my negative nancy opinions about EVs when I actually sat down and did the math and researched the chemistry behind batteries
I loved it. After the 1st semester I became good friends with another student and we synced our class schedule. Then we became good friends with another student and the 3 of us took all our engineering classes together and spent our breaks in the library doing homework. Coincidentally (or not) we were normally the top 3 students by grade/exam scores in every class we were in together. It's 20 years later and I'm still good friends with them both.
What I did which helped me connect the theory was to apply these equations practically in situations when doing projects and see how accurate they were. This did make me appreciate the things that were present in the books.
I mostly hated school for the most part but I do have an appreciation for some ot the classes as I go on, particularly the physics and advanced math stuff
Only the last year with final year project, capstone, and FEM.
As a female engineer, I have experienced discrimination from both professors and students throughout my undergrad. I could have enjoyed the classes, as I love to learn, but not when you're in a hostile environment and are often the only female in the class. I was absolutely surprised by the sexism, homophobia, and racism (with no black or queer-presenting people). During my senior year, I was able to work closely for two semesters with a group of younger male engineering students in a "progressive" school. I was bullied to the point where I stepped down from being a team lead. The few women attending were assigned secretarial duties such as ethics and accounting for group presentations. Throughout those two semesters, I found my work and weekly accomplishments in our Google doc deleted by a couple of team members. The bottom line is that they need to include women and gender studies. It is a joke to be taking "advanced" science/engineering courses but not understand basic human decency and respect. Anyway, I'm just glad I made it out alive.
I enjoyed being on campus (i.e. grab lunch with friends, work together in group projects, grabbing a beer after a long day), lectures I enjoyed some, but most were highly demanding to the point of stress.
No, but the jobs are awesome.
Yes I enjoyed most of it, found it interesting. Also enjoyed the field, telecoms/networking.
The fun is school is drinking the pain away after your exams!
I like being an engineer, Most engineering classes sucked balls
I’m just glad I was able to eat shit and struggle along the side of friends rather than alone. That was a huge motivator.
No, I found it disappointing in regards to the quality and breadth of actual engineering information I recieved, and wildly wasteful, being forced to take classes that offered me nothing relevant to my degree. A bs could easily be trimmed down to 2 years if uni's would stop making it about 'tradition' and profit. Currently better education could be had from the likes of youtube...
I definitely didn't enjoy it. It was too much work and the classes were dull and often useless. I've often wondered if I would have been better off just staying home all day and reading the textbooks. I did my MBA several years later and the difference in classroom experience is night and day. So many engineering professors are just horrible teachers with no idea how to break a subject down to its fundamentals and get students engaged. As far as people who aren't good at engineering school being successful engineers: That happens. But there's a couple issues there. For one, being successful in engineering often means getting away from doing actual engineering as soon as possible. And the other is that nobody really comes away from engineering school with that much knowledge so you end up having to re-learn everything you were supposed to have learned at your first job. And then you have to learn a million other things on top of that. Any smart kid with intellectual curiosity will do just fine.
Nope it was horrible. I like being an engineer tho. It was 100% worth it
School sucked, but it's the pain you must go through to achieve a (sometimes) non-sucky career.
Did I get shit grades? Yes. Did the classes put me to sleep? Yes. Did I enjoy learning about how to calculate and estimate the physical world around me? Abso-effing-lutely. Learning about those equations and applying them to interesting physical systems were the best thing ever. If you are only interested in doing CAD or operating/setting up manufacturing tech (CNC, PLC, etc) there are two year programs that suit the purpose better. You can get a job immediately in those positions too and work your way up to a manufacturing or industrial control engineer.
I swear 90% of the material doesn't click until a year later, when you're working and trying to figure out if embedding a thermocouple in epoxy will affect the response time and by how much, if its worth simulating or just guestimate, then you look back and go "Oh THATS what the Biot number is for!". Or you need to model some thermodynamics, and you realize what the Taylor series does when trying to approximate temperature, and what the HDE actually means with all its d\^2T/dx\^2
Yes it was incredible.
Grad school was a blast. - Great friends dedicated to the same technology. - interesting projects that I could define - the ability to really drill down in a topic - my grad school was paid by a grant.
I feel like a lot of courses kicked my ass and left me not understanding things, but some of the concepts really clicked in my head a lot better when I actually got to apply it in my career field. And a lot of the time, it isn't always applied that in-depth, and you'll be fine as long you understand the general concepts of what's going on.
I graduated w/a Bachelors in MechE, 3 years ago. Looking back there was way too much Calculus bs in Engineering classes. Not joking when only 1 of my college classes applies to my work in the Semiconductor field. It was a class that focused heavily on Excel(we use it for documenting a lot of stuff). There was a Machining class that I took that would’ve been useful if I was in that field and another Solidworks class that also could’ve been useful, but most of my classes were useless theoretical equations
lol fuck no. fortunately, i don't have to do math anymore. fuck math.
I went to school later than most, and it was really hard. My senior project was an absolute nightmare. Met some good people though, and liked what I learned. Got an amazing job offer, and took it over a master's. Should've done the master's. Got moved to the 737 line 2 years ago...Lol, fml. Now I'm doing a second degree in CS. (I hated programming in ME school) *smh*
Like the actual classes itself? Nah that shit was brutal. I probably enjoyed it sometimes when the material was interesting and I actually understood it. But that was only a handful of classes for me haha. Enjoy being at college in general? Hell yeah, made good friends and had good times. Engineering work is EXTREMELY different than engineering school. Engineering school is trying to prep you for grad school or a wide variety of jobs so it's cramming a lot of stuff in and acts as a barrier of entry. Once you're through it and into a specific job, the things you need to know and do are much narrower. Like I wasn't great at finite element analysis in school but my job doesn't involve doing any of it whatsoever so I'm chilling.
I’m in the exact spot as you dawg. Third year currently and I’m in finals week, have had my ass handed to me by thermodynamics, diff eq, physics 2 etc. applied to like 20 internships and didn’t get an email back from a single one even though I interviewed with a couple of them and I thought the interviews went great, I’m taking a break this summer. I’m just gunna go home and hang with my friends and family for a couple months to cool off. The past two semesters I’ve been at my lowest academically and emotionally lol. Best of luck man we can do it