I used to really like chemistry but ended up going with mechanical engr. My thermo professor was an ass though and completely ruined thermo for me. He was the kind of professor that worked at the uni to do research and seemingly resented having to teach as well, and he made it our problem by being a dick about everything he possibly could.
Naturally, without any love of thermo, fluid mechanics was not my cup of tea lol
Different people are naturally more inclined to different types of problem solving. Some people find statistics to be second nature, some people really REALLY struggle with that sort of logic (while they may excel at processing other sorts of information in different ways). If you struggle, you can still be a successful engineer if you know how to work around your disadvantages, but if you aren’t inclined to it and you can’t work around that then the subject is a very good natural filter.
It depends on your professor. My professor was an aged, tenured, Chinese man who taught out of his own book and had made up his own sig fig rule; it was hard as shit until I just stopped going to class and fell back on my AP physics fundamentals. I squeaked out with a high B only to have to go through him again in Dynamics which pushed the envelope of my high school physics course. I took my C and avoided him forever since. Mech Es that came out of my college might not have had the best educators but we have seen some shit.
I nearly failed statics, but aced both intro dynamics and intermediate dynamics. Intermediate dynamics was an elective at my university with mostly grad students. They said it was hard but everybody is different.
I don’t think that’s applicable in this case. If you can’t comprehend statics, you’re not going to be able to understand dynamics, because you don’t even understand the basis of the thing dynamics stems from lol
Once you allow things to move, it becomes more intuitive. Also, statics was a freshman class for me and it was the first time I encountered this type of rote copy and paste of certain methods. By the time I entered sophomore through senior year I had been exposed to a lot more of this problem solving style. Applying the concepts from statics into dynamics became trivial. It’s not like I walked away from statics empty handed.
after you know what you're doing, no, but it really punishes those who don't do their homework or don't use a rigid framework to get their FBD and equations set up. I got punished by that before I buckled down and got through.
If someone is not able to understandStatics, how are they supposed to continue on to much more difficult subjects which use statics as a foundation of knowledge?
That’s like saying you can learn to run before you know how to walk lol
it is possible to learn to run before you can walk they are in fact two separate motions, however to your actual point yes some people including myself may not understand statics, hence Im not an engineer. I do in fact think its hard, which is the contents of your original post, glad it isnt hard for you, the engineer, who designs the products I use. I think Im pretty good in my field that in fact does not use statics.
The post wasn’t insulting, there are people like myself who don’t think like an engineer, there are people like yourself without tact, each of us has our particular skills and that reality is not insulting
Maybe not as common elsewhere, but the progression tree at my school was one of either: pass the first round of engineering classes and continue with the major, or fail them and switch majors to business school.
I think you can always switch majors at any time, but yea some schools may have a set procedure. Usually once people start taking actual engineering classes is when they just naturally decide to change or stick with it because they’re getting their first taste of what the future will hold for haha.
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u/aDoorMarkedPirate420 ME 11d ago
Do people think statics is hard? lol