[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Trent B

As a current college Freshman/Sophomore/Junior (came in with a lot of credits) some of this does hold true.

A lot of the general courses that hundreds of students take each semester are just awful. For example I am in statics and I don't blame anyone for dropping that class. Our book explains almost nothing you have to interpret what the equations mean and the professor only teaches to half of the class. I have seen juniors drop the course left and right because they simply can't learn the material. Additionally the course is graded on a 90+ A 80-89 B etc system, which becomes problematic when the average exam grade is 65 for the class. Many students simply won't pass the class, and a lot will be discouraged to try again.

I came in a similar situation to you. Statics is I think the only engineering class I've taken in my college career that was not curved, and RPI is known for not inflating grades. It looks awful for the professor if they fail half a class.

Originally Posted by Trent B

Additionally, the article touched on the application of all this engineering knowledge. ...

There is only so much they can teach you in four years, and engineering requires a lot of theory. The current policy of teaching students a little bit of everything is a good one, I think. When you consider what it takes to apply every class, there simply isn't time. I think hands on application is great, but ultimately it is up to the student to find these opportunities. If you don't do something hands on getting an engineering degree, you're definitely doing it wrong. It puts you head and shoulders above the kids who don't. Real hardware has problems that just don't show up in the math, and often times don't show up in the CAD. Those unforseen problems are often the annoying kind that you have to solve on an engineering team like Formula Hybrid or Design/Build/Fly. You also get a healthy dose of grace under pressure and real teamwork experience. Colleges often like to tout their project based classes, but I found my working relationships during my internship to be much closer to the relationships I have with my friends on intercollegiate design teams than the ones I had in my group projects.

Mentoring is a huge deal in industry, and I think many college students miss out on this. Fraternities and Sororities are pretty good at this, I think there may be some good things to be gleaned from that model. I definitely benefited from having my DBF friends, in terms of schoolwork help and general life advice. That general life advice bit can be really important in college too.

Originally Posted by TrentB

Other majors think we are insane for doing materials engineering with how difficult many of them find the intro to materials engineering for non materials engineers course. One of my friends called me a masochist for going into it, I told him he is correct. I think to follow it through to the end you really have to want the end result and know that you want it.

I don't think engineers are masochists. I don't like it when things hurt, and I love engineering. I think that is part of the 'problem' and I really have no idea what the solution is. A lot of people just really never learned how to work hard, and they aren't willing to work hard. I play hard, but I work even harder. (And if you want to talk about laughing at mistakes, you can watch the wing fall off the r/c airplane I spent waaaaaaayyyyyyy too many hours on for Design/Build/Fly in my signature by clicking on 'whoops')

Originally Posted by ebarker

I'd also suggest that some people consider taking 5 years to get the 4 year degree. Manage how you take courses.

Another thing to consider is co-op. It will take 5 or 6 years but they do better also..... And you will make money and not have as much debt when graduating.

One of the annoying things about taking semester(s) off is that many of your friends will leave, which can be kind of annoying. I think you get just as much benefit out of interning, and that lets you graduate on time.