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On October 21 2009 09:25 akevin wrote:
edit: lol, if your going into an engineering program like the one the previous poster was in, then maybe scrap what I said; however, that being said, I don't believe most engineering programs are like that unless you're at MIT, CIT??/
I'm pretty sure engineering has very high attrition rates at pretty much any school. I would wager that MIT, caltech, etc actually have lower attrition rates than less demanding schools, because they only accept people who have already shown extreme dedication and/or academic apptitude. I go to UCSD and while I don't know the numbers, there are certainly far more people admitted to the engineering programs than graduating.
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On October 21 2009 08:47 Chill wrote:
if you are going into med school, dont be a hero - take something fucking easy that you are good at so you can get a high grade. now is not the time to take the high road and something "challenging that you enjoy".
Yeah, great advice Chill, it would be wonderful for him to enter med school with absolutely no experience in challenging material and no work ethic -_-
There is a reason that people with sociology or philosophy undergrad degrees generally aren't taking very seriously compared to people with engineering or science degrees.
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On October 21 2009 07:23 Plexa wrote:
edited for paragraphing - walls of text are daunting man!
I'm no engineer unfortunately =[ and as a mathematician I look down on you lol
hope someone can be of assistance to you!
Plexa I love you!
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On October 21 2009 10:52 AcrossFiveJulys wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2009 08:47 Chill wrote:
if you are going into med school, dont be a hero - take something fucking easy that you are good at so you can get a high grade. now is not the time to take the high road and something "challenging that you enjoy". Yeah, great advice Chill, it would be wonderful for him to enter med school with absolutely no experience in challenging material and no work ethic -_- There is a reason that people with sociology or philosophy undergrad degrees generally aren't taking very seriously compared to people with engineering or science degrees.
Agreed. Also going to a crappy university (for easy grades) cannot be taken seriously either.
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On October 21 2009 11:06 illu wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2009 10:52 AcrossFiveJulys wrote:On October 21 2009 08:47 Chill wrote:
if you are going into med school, dont be a hero - take something fucking easy that you are good at so you can get a high grade. now is not the time to take the high road and something "challenging that you enjoy". Yeah, great advice Chill, it would be wonderful for him to enter med school with absolutely no experience in challenging material and no work ethic -_- There is a reason that people with sociology or philosophy undergrad degrees generally aren't taking very seriously compared to people with engineering or science degrees. Agreed. Also going to a crappy university (for easy grades) cannot be taken seriously either.
But here's my argument to counter this. All in the end, none of that doesn't matter, how most careers are in modern society, a huge load of jobs are obtained through networking and connections with someone you know or third party, etc. I'm not saying all, and especially med school and being a doctor is a bit different, however, that is how the world works today, and it's even more true here in the United States. That may be the easiest road to finding a job, but at the same time, the hardest if you don't have a source and trying to find one.
I suppose that's where internships and all comes in, and like I said before, that doesn't necessary require all that fancy degree, grades or majors. Do you honestly want to waste that 4 years of undergrad working on your lab reports in lab most of the time?? Or would you rather find time to do some extracurricular activities, relationships, parties, etc with a less pressured workload than engineering? I'm not saying all engineering students are like that, but things do get that tough and you literally won't have much time to do many things you may want to originally do.....
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On October 21 2009 08:47 Chill wrote:
if you are going into med school, dont be a hero - take something fucking easy that you are good at so you can get a high grade. now is not the time to take the high road and something "challenging that you enjoy".
Quoted for truth, take the easy route.
It doesnt matter one bit if you graduate in a social science or whatever that you find easy if you have a good average. There wont be a single engineering or any other career where you will enjoy each and every subject. If you want it not to be too technical, get into a more scientific career, not a technological one such as engineering. You will get bored once you get past the maths, which are rather basic, and you will fail on the rest of the career.
Really, stuff like "i dont go into a social science because its for fags" is the worst mentality you can have. You dont have to prove anything to anybody, especially yourself.
And like another poster said, engineering is no joke. In my school (small private one), for the previous generation, around 100 entered, half of them were gone by the 2nd semester. 8 of them graduated, 2 of them graduated with an average above 9.5
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I went to school for Engineering and actually just getting back into school for a doctorate in engineering. To put it most basic... do you enjoy solving problems? That's what an engineer does... its more of a way of thinking then a profession.
God intro classes are painfully shitty and it only gets worse at first... the classes start ramping up in difficulty and hitting you with heavy theory (the major boring part , typically end of sophomore early junior). But then you actually start seeing how what you are learning is applicable, and most schools have a very relevant senior project to tie it together. Before choosing a particular engineering field, like EE or ME ask yourself if you
1. can you make it through the theory and calculus behind everything
2. is solving and optimizing real life problems what you want to do?
For what its worth, Materials Engineers are the most PAID atm, even higher than Aerospace which is the field I am in.
Pretty generic advice good luck though.
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On October 21 2009 10:52 AcrossFiveJulys wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2009 08:47 Chill wrote:
if you are going into med school, dont be a hero - take something fucking easy that you are good at so you can get a high grade. now is not the time to take the high road and something "challenging that you enjoy". Yeah, great advice Chill, it would be wonderful for him to enter med school with absolutely no experience in challenging material and no work ethic -_- There is a reason that people with sociology or philosophy undergrad degrees generally aren't taking very seriously compared to people with engineering or science degrees.
There is more to University than grades, there is more to it than having fun, and there is more to it than just studying hard. You need to learn how to be independent, and you need to learn other life skills. University is a trial by fire - it's tougher for some than others, but it's not easy. There's a reason why those people in "sociology" or "philosophy" didn't apply to Engineering, remember :p
In all seriousness - whichever path you choose, make sure you find time to do things you love. I tried out for the school's football team (even though they didn't scout me, other teams did), and, even though I'm not on the team, it was an excellent experience.
I have new found contacts all over the place because of it. In fact, a lot of the bars near the University hire the football players to be bouncers - and anyone they know can get in free (and sometimes a free drink or two as well). I spent the summer coaching a local team, which was helped by some of the contacts in the coaching staff for the University team. There is a lot of cool stuff you can end up doing if you just go out and do something. Networking ftw.
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On October 21 2009 10:52 AcrossFiveJulys wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2009 08:47 Chill wrote:
if you are going into med school, dont be a hero - take something fucking easy that you are good at so you can get a high grade. now is not the time to take the high road and something "challenging that you enjoy". Yeah, great advice Chill, it would be wonderful for him to enter med school with absolutely no experience in challenging material and no work ethic -_- There is a reason that people with sociology or philosophy undergrad degrees generally aren't taking very seriously compared to people with engineering or science degrees.
Hmm I'm thinking along these lines...I feel like I would be better prepared to deal with med school if I did something along the same line of study. Though mech e is a bit less related I guess...
Also, at the school I go to (Princeton) the engineering classes are really small, like 30-40 people, and the dropout rate is real low. Regarding gpa, princeton is also pretty inflated (though not so much as harvard or yale)...I feel like going social sciences to boost my gpa is a bad call bc im much more a math/science person than a social sciences person...I'd probably do pretty shitty and not enjoy it, whereas its not really that impossible to come off chem e with a reasonable gpa.
A less reasonable part of me also wants to fucking ee han timing med school with my l33t 2 groups of mutalisk micro preparation from chem e...I know that's kinda retarded but I do feel like I would be better prepared than going straight in off the orgo I took freshman year of undergrad. The other thing is I'm not really sure 100% if I want to do med school...It's something that seems cool but I could just as well just do a PhD.
Re: social life, I don't think its that big a deal...We alternate 4- and 5- class semesters for engineering here and I'm doing a 5 right now and it is only really painfully work heavy in midterms week (now X.X). Ofc, I am just a freshman...
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what about molecular bio and biochem?
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Electrical engineering is absolutely a viable path. You mentioned neuron stuff, but, at least at my school, nano-technology has fallen squarely into the EE department.
There is potential overlap, even in the theory. Self assembly, networking/systems, computer modeling techniques [matlab], sensors, haptics, robotics, and DSP.
For example, an EE (MEMS specialization) may design a system on a chip, which can sort cells depending on their type. Or one may design an ultrasound head (sensors specialization) or perhaps the hardware and signal processing that constructs the 3D images from that sensor head (DSP specialization).
Of course it really depends on what your goal is. If you want to just become a normal doctor, those things may not apply to you. However, they will give you a broad technical view on life, as I would call it, which can be valuable.
Just remember, some day computers and humans are going to merge, and EE will be in the middle of it when it does.
If you just want to become a doctor, Chem E might work too.
I would recommend that you have some interest in the subject if you choose to pursue it though.
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On October 21 2009 12:20 duckett wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2009 10:52 AcrossFiveJulys wrote:On October 21 2009 08:47 Chill wrote:
if you are going into med school, dont be a hero - take something fucking easy that you are good at so you can get a high grade. now is not the time to take the high road and something "challenging that you enjoy". Yeah, great advice Chill, it would be wonderful for him to enter med school with absolutely no experience in challenging material and no work ethic -_- There is a reason that people with sociology or philosophy undergrad degrees generally aren't taking very seriously compared to people with engineering or science degrees. Hmm I'm thinking along these lines...I feel like I would be better prepared to deal with med school if I did something along the same line of study. Though mech e is a bit less related I guess... Also, at the school I go to (Princeton) the engineering classes are really small, like 30-40 people, and the dropout rate is real low. Regarding gpa, princeton is also pretty inflated (though not so much as harvard or yale)...I feel like going social sciences to boost my gpa is a bad call bc im much more a math/science person than a social sciences person...I'd probably do pretty shitty and not enjoy it, whereas its not really that impossible to come off chem e with a reasonable gpa. A less reasonable part of me also wants to fucking ee han timing med school with my l33t 2 groups of mutalisk micro preparation from chem e...I know that's kinda retarded but I do feel like I would be better prepared than going straight in off the orgo I took freshman year of undergrad. The other thing is I'm not really sure 100% if I want to do med school...It's something that seems cool but I could just as well just do a PhD. Re: social life, I don't think its that big a deal...We alternate 4- and 5- class semesters for engineering here and I'm doing a 5 right now and it is only really painfully work heavy in midterms week (now X.X). Ofc, I am just a freshman...
I'll tell you right now. Of all the things in all your classes in college, you will probably use about 1% of it. All the biology/engineering you learn will probably get you into 1 week of your first semester at medical school. If you go into graduate school for bio/chem/physics, your college material might take you 2 semesters in. Despite this, I think most graduate schools still require you to take the intro courses, so you really end up having no advantage. If you go into private industry, you'll probably even end up using less than 1% of what you learn. So take Chill's advice.
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On October 21 2009 13:04 gchan wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2009 12:20 duckett wrote:On October 21 2009 10:52 AcrossFiveJulys wrote:On October 21 2009 08:47 Chill wrote:
if you are going into med school, dont be a hero - take something fucking easy that you are good at so you can get a high grade. now is not the time to take the high road and something "challenging that you enjoy". Yeah, great advice Chill, it would be wonderful for him to enter med school with absolutely no experience in challenging material and no work ethic -_- There is a reason that people with sociology or philosophy undergrad degrees generally aren't taking very seriously compared to people with engineering or science degrees. Hmm I'm thinking along these lines...I feel like I would be better prepared to deal with med school if I did something along the same line of study. Though mech e is a bit less related I guess... Also, at the school I go to (Princeton) the engineering classes are really small, like 30-40 people, and the dropout rate is real low. Regarding gpa, princeton is also pretty inflated (though not so much as harvard or yale)...I feel like going social sciences to boost my gpa is a bad call bc im much more a math/science person than a social sciences person...I'd probably do pretty shitty and not enjoy it, whereas its not really that impossible to come off chem e with a reasonable gpa. A less reasonable part of me also wants to fucking ee han timing med school with my l33t 2 groups of mutalisk micro preparation from chem e...I know that's kinda retarded but I do feel like I would be better prepared than going straight in off the orgo I took freshman year of undergrad. The other thing is I'm not really sure 100% if I want to do med school...It's something that seems cool but I could just as well just do a PhD. Re: social life, I don't think its that big a deal...We alternate 4- and 5- class semesters for engineering here and I'm doing a 5 right now and it is only really painfully work heavy in midterms week (now X.X). Ofc, I am just a freshman... I'll tell you right now. Of all the things in all your classes in college, you will probably use about 1% of it. All the biology/engineering you learn will probably get you into 1 week of your first semester at medical school. If you go into graduate school for bio/chem/physics, your college material might take you 2 semesters in. Despite this, I think most graduate schools still require you to take the intro courses, so you really end up having no advantage. If you go into private industry, you'll probably even end up using less than 1% of what you learn. So take Chill's advice.
The whole point of college is to expand your mind and improve your learning capability. The actual material you learn is just a side affect. If you choose an easy major, the material you learn will probably be useless AND your thinking and problem solving skills will hardly be improved. Then, when you get to med school, you'll be surrounded by a bunch of people who worked their asses off in their undergrad and won't be able to keep up with how quick they pick up things and the way they study.
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I'm a CS major and I'm extremely interested in getting a Math major too! I just love science and all that shit (never been good at humanities, art, etc.)
btw
+ Show Spoiler +
^^
edit: broken spoiler
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(Rather than make my own blog I'll try posting here first, hijack?)
I'm in my first semester at the University of Denver, it's a medium sized private school (about 5000 undergrad) and engineering is one of their smallest programs. They only offer computer science, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering which isn't a big deal to me because I'm thinking ME anyway. Does anyone know how big a deal it is if I'm getting my engineering degree from a school which isn't known for their program? I mean, I assume I am still being taught at an adequate level but I don't have anything to compare it to obviously so I don't really know. Also, the way they do it here we don't decide on our specific field of engineering major until the start of our junior year, that isn't normal is it?
I could have gone to the University of Kansas (KU) which is a big public school with a big, and well ranked engineering program, but that's only 45 minutes from my house and half my high school goes there so I couldn't bring myself to do it.
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On October 21 2009 13:20 AcrossFiveJulys wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2009 13:04 gchan wrote:On October 21 2009 12:20 duckett wrote:On October 21 2009 10:52 AcrossFiveJulys wrote:On October 21 2009 08:47 Chill wrote:
if you are going into med school, dont be a hero - take something fucking easy that you are good at so you can get a high grade. now is not the time to take the high road and something "challenging that you enjoy". Yeah, great advice Chill, it would be wonderful for him to enter med school with absolutely no experience in challenging material and no work ethic -_- There is a reason that people with sociology or philosophy undergrad degrees generally aren't taking very seriously compared to people with engineering or science degrees. Hmm I'm thinking along these lines...I feel like I would be better prepared to deal with med school if I did something along the same line of study. Though mech e is a bit less related I guess... Also, at the school I go to (Princeton) the engineering classes are really small, like 30-40 people, and the dropout rate is real low. Regarding gpa, princeton is also pretty inflated (though not so much as harvard or yale)...I feel like going social sciences to boost my gpa is a bad call bc im much more a math/science person than a social sciences person...I'd probably do pretty shitty and not enjoy it, whereas its not really that impossible to come off chem e with a reasonable gpa. A less reasonable part of me also wants to fucking ee han timing med school with my l33t 2 groups of mutalisk micro preparation from chem e...I know that's kinda retarded but I do feel like I would be better prepared than going straight in off the orgo I took freshman year of undergrad. The other thing is I'm not really sure 100% if I want to do med school...It's something that seems cool but I could just as well just do a PhD. Re: social life, I don't think its that big a deal...We alternate 4- and 5- class semesters for engineering here and I'm doing a 5 right now and it is only really painfully work heavy in midterms week (now X.X). Ofc, I am just a freshman... I'll tell you right now. Of all the things in all your classes in college, you will probably use about 1% of it. All the biology/engineering you learn will probably get you into 1 week of your first semester at medical school. If you go into graduate school for bio/chem/physics, your college material might take you 2 semesters in. Despite this, I think most graduate schools still require you to take the intro courses, so you really end up having no advantage. If you go into private industry, you'll probably even end up using less than 1% of what you learn. So take Chill's advice. The whole point of college is to expand your mind and improve your learning capability. The actual material you learn is just a side affect. If you choose an easy major, the material you learn will probably be useless AND your thinking and problem solving skills will hardly be improved. Then, when you get to med school, you'll be surrounded by a bunch of people who worked their asses off in their undergrad and won't be able to keep up with how quick they pick up things and the way they study.
You don't need a hard major to develop studying and learning skills. I graduated with both a hard science and a social science degree, and honestly, my social science degree challenged my ability to think a lot more than my hard science one. The way a lot of the more challenging science majors are set up now focus a lot more on memorization than on critical thinking skills; this is not entirely the major's fault as difficult majors tend to have a lot more material. And to add on top of that, most engineer/science majors tend to underdevelop communication skills which is vitally important in any career path you take. I'm not saying that there are no benefits to taking a science/engineering major, but I'm just skills/knowledge you develop is not worth it. There are a lot of other things you could be doing with your time in college to hone skills relevant to a PhD path or biomedical path.
Note: I've never done anything engineering, so some of the science stuff I spout might not be fully relevant to engineers.
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+ Show Spoiler +
<3. One of the most important reasons for studying science, be it math, physics, engineering or w/e, is to gain a larger understanding of the genius of xkcd xD.
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duckett, do you want to research biology, or medicine?? If it's the latter, it doesn't matter much what you study. If you want to seriously contribute to the former, I recommend mol bio or biochem...
or computer science... bioinformatics... or math... systems theory... ;D
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On October 21 2009 15:09 gchan wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2009 13:20 AcrossFiveJulys wrote:On October 21 2009 13:04 gchan wrote:On October 21 2009 12:20 duckett wrote:On October 21 2009 10:52 AcrossFiveJulys wrote:On October 21 2009 08:47 Chill wrote:
if you are going into med school, dont be a hero - take something fucking easy that you are good at so you can get a high grade. now is not the time to take the high road and something "challenging that you enjoy". Yeah, great advice Chill, it would be wonderful for him to enter med school with absolutely no experience in challenging material and no work ethic -_- There is a reason that people with sociology or philosophy undergrad degrees generally aren't taking very seriously compared to people with engineering or science degrees. Hmm I'm thinking along these lines...I feel like I would be better prepared to deal with med school if I did something along the same line of study. Though mech e is a bit less related I guess... Also, at the school I go to (Princeton) the engineering classes are really small, like 30-40 people, and the dropout rate is real low. Regarding gpa, princeton is also pretty inflated (though not so much as harvard or yale)...I feel like going social sciences to boost my gpa is a bad call bc im much more a math/science person than a social sciences person...I'd probably do pretty shitty and not enjoy it, whereas its not really that impossible to come off chem e with a reasonable gpa. A less reasonable part of me also wants to fucking ee han timing med school with my l33t 2 groups of mutalisk micro preparation from chem e...I know that's kinda retarded but I do feel like I would be better prepared than going straight in off the orgo I took freshman year of undergrad. The other thing is I'm not really sure 100% if I want to do med school...It's something that seems cool but I could just as well just do a PhD. Re: social life, I don't think its that big a deal...We alternate 4- and 5- class semesters for engineering here and I'm doing a 5 right now and it is only really painfully work heavy in midterms week (now X.X). Ofc, I am just a freshman... I'll tell you right now. Of all the things in all your classes in college, you will probably use about 1% of it. All the biology/engineering you learn will probably get you into 1 week of your first semester at medical school. If you go into graduate school for bio/chem/physics, your college material might take you 2 semesters in. Despite this, I think most graduate schools still require you to take the intro courses, so you really end up having no advantage. If you go into private industry, you'll probably even end up using less than 1% of what you learn. So take Chill's advice. The whole point of college is to expand your mind and improve your learning capability. The actual material you learn is just a side affect. If you choose an easy major, the material you learn will probably be useless AND your thinking and problem solving skills will hardly be improved. Then, when you get to med school, you'll be surrounded by a bunch of people who worked their asses off in their undergrad and won't be able to keep up with how quick they pick up things and the way they study. You don't need a hard major to develop studying and learning skills. I graduated with both a hard science and a social science degree, and honestly, my social science degree challenged my ability to think a lot more than my hard science one. The way a lot of the more challenging science majors are set up now focus a lot more on memorization than on critical thinking skills; this is not entirely the major's fault as difficult majors tend to have a lot more material. And to add on top of that, most engineer/science majors tend to underdevelop communication skills which is vitally important in any career path you take. I'm not saying that there are no benefits to taking a science/engineering major, but I'm just skills/knowledge you develop is not worth it. There are a lot of other things you could be doing with your time in college to hone skills relevant to a PhD path or biomedical path. Note: I've never done anything engineering, so some of the science stuff I spout might not be fully relevant to engineers.
I'm glad you admit that you have no idea what you're talking about at the end of your post there, because you have no idea what you're talking about. Engineering is not a hard science.
And how much free time you have in engineering is totally up to you. I'm in my last year of engineering and I have 2 days off a week (plus weekend) if I strategically skip certain classes.
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On October 21 2009 14:27 Jonoman92 wrote:
(Rather than make my own blog I'll try posting here first, hijack?)
I'm in my first semester at the University of Denver, it's a medium sized private school (about 5000 undergrad) and engineering is one of their smallest programs. They only offer computer science, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering which isn't a big deal to me because I'm thinking ME anyway. Does anyone know how big a deal it is if I'm getting my engineering degree from a school which isn't known for their program? I mean, I assume I am still being taught at an adequate level but I don't have anything to compare it to obviously so I don't really know. Also, the way they do it here we don't decide on our specific field of engineering major until the start of our junior year, that isn't normal is it?
I could have gone to the University of Kansas (KU) which is a big public school with a big, and well ranked engineering program, but that's only 45 minutes from my house and half my high school goes there so I couldn't bring myself to do it.
I don't think it matters if you get good grades. Then you can continue studying if you wish and get in a better school from grades alone. If you have bad grades however, then i guess it would have been better if you had gone to KU
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EPT![[image loading]](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/nerd_sniping.png)
![[image loading]](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/purity.png)
![[image loading]](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/impostor.png)
![[image loading]](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/a_bunch_of_rocks.png)
