[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

[KeithO]

Are you sure that your school isn't trying to do some weeding, Bigshoe? My first day of my Freshman year, our Prof said "look to your left, look to you right - those people won't be here by next year - and remember two people looked at you". What we were told was that there was a shortage of Profs and equipment in the later classes in the major. They had to fail out 66% of the freshman class to accommodate the capacity for the major. ...and that is what they did. How? Grad Student "professors" that didn't speak english, asking obscure questions on exams that were never covered in class but in one of the 15 required books for the course... and on and on. They indeed did fail their target out of the program - if you got lower than a "C" you had to re-take the class, if you got lower than a "C" the second time, you could not register for the course again - you were out! IN fact, classes were graded purely on a curve. In one class, there was a mid-term and a final only. The average score on the mid-term was a 39%. Boy do I remember that a$$hole professor.

To be honest, it never got easier until graduation but I got used to the pressure.