[bigshoe]

how much trouble have you had in getting your degree?

I'm starting to have a tough time, but its mostly because I don't have the time to study. currently i'm only in the beginning, general chemistry(with lab) and calculus 1.

my chemistry teacher is hard to follow (foreign), i'm getting a high D
and calculus isnt that bad, I'm getting a low C
chemistry lab is a low A, but that was a pretty simple class.

my problem is i work 40 hrs during the week, and i have alot of travel time also. I have an interest in this stuff (not so much chemistry), but find it very hard to lose sleep to study.

anyways, i was able to move 24 of my work hours to the weekend for next semester, that should help greatly, I'll be taking calc 2, physics 1 (with lab), and c programming.

Ok guys, how bad do i have it???
I know i'm only in the beginnings of engineering here, and i'm not looking good, i really hope that will change next semester since i've made some changes for it.

what did you guys find tough or demanding when it came to engineering classes? I find it takes me absolutely forever to do my homework and focus on it, I blame being out of school for 5 years for that (although i know it could be alot worse).

Did you guys find the later engineering classes to be much more difficult than this earlier stuff?

btw, i'm a Mechanical engineering major, and if it matters, i've completed an associates in EET in 1999 from a tech school

[sgarnett]

For most of my time in college, I worked full (over) time and took a class or two a semester. For the last year, I quit my full time job so I could carry a full course load and took a "part-time" internship that turned out to be about 60 hours/week average and 123 hours in the longest week. Obviously I wasn't sleeping much.

As you get older (and I don't mean much older) it will get harder to go without sleep (and more importantly, longer to recover).

It sounds like you're trying to carry about 12 hours AND work full time AND get plenty of sleep, and only getting C's and D's.

That isn't going to cut it. First of all the grades will make it difficult to find a job later. Second, you will have a tough time in the later technical courses if you don't really learn the early stuff well - especially Calculus.

I'm not trying to discourage you, but something is going to have to give. You are either going to have to cut back on sleep, work hours, social life, or course load, or you're just going to have to buckle down some more.