[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

[pknowles]

I can echo a lot of what Sean siad, getting ANY technical degree is hard work. I can also say cooping was one of the best things I ever did. Most people (me included) didn't have to really study in High School because it was spoon fed to you so much. Well in College you have to really figure it out and that's the biggest difference; you can't just go to class an expect to get it, you have to work at it to really understand the concept. Take encouragement from this, my first semister I got a 2.4 GPA in Mechanical engineering and ended my undergrad with a 3.5 GPA overall, so it's not over from a bad semester. Now I'm 2 years away from my PHD in Mechanical Engineering. Work on understanding the concepts behind the class and that will take you a lot father then just memorizing. Remember, you can train a monkey to memorize eqations, but you can't train a monkey to understand the concepts. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)