Quote:
Originally Posted by deltawar567
I want to become a better critical thinker for my team, I want to pursue being a mechanical engineer for a career and I have come up with some good/great ideas but I think I could do better. I think I might just need to refine my math and science skills.
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First - make sure that you are awesome at algebra. If you eliminate algebra as a point of confusion, then you will be able to handle the engineering curriculum a lot better. The hardest part of calculus is the algebra. Also, generally engineers will avoid calculus wherever possible to simplify to algebra - so it helps in industry, too.
Get good at word problems. The way to get good at word problems is to extract the information so that it is no longer a word problem. IMO your ability to do that is a good indicator of critical thinking and basic engineering thinking.
Read a book about creative problem solving. I've read a few and they all have similar lists of things that impede critical thinking and creativity. probably Google searching will get a similar list for free - though a decent book will always be better.
Get hands-on. Maybe in FIRST you get to be hands-on a lot, but be sure to always have a project going on. Having a personal project is best because it is there that you will make the most mistakes and therefore learn the most.