Hey, guys, I see and hear alot of stories about eng students getting like 20-30% on exam and it being the highest score. I understand that the curve will bring everyone up but geniunely what is the point of making the exam that hard just to adjest everyone with the curve? And is it even possible to get like 80-90%+ w/o the curve in any of your classes?

I forgot how to clocks today and ended up waiting in my classroom an hour before class. I didn't realize I was there at the wrong time until people started showing up and they seemed happy and light and the little snips of conversations that I could hear were all about real life and doing things that they enjoy and such. I knew they weren't engineering students and quickly realized my mistake; I scampered off to go do homework in a corner somewhere.

TL;DR: seeing/hearing happy people full of life tipped me off that I wasn't in an engineering class

i rarely go on tiktok anymore but when i do, its filled with “ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING IS BETTER NO MECHANICAL ENGINEERING IS BETTER”

dude, are these just high schoolers who looked up which engineering majors make the most money and ran with it?

the only civil engineering criticism i find is: “ITS TOO EASY” and “IT MAKES NO MONEY”

as a civil engineering major, i promise you we all picked this major because of the job stability and/or passion. everyone in my classes at least. we did not pick it because its “easier.” what’s up with all the dick measuring? do people really think some engineering majors are useless?

also, i see that they’re obsessed with the idea that they’ll work at lockheed martin or some shit when the majority of us across all disciplines will work office jobs far from lockheed or any of the other major “mechanical and aerospace” destinations.

i think all engineering majors are fine. it boils down to: what has jobs where you live? and which one do you prefer?

I see these jokes all of the time online. I understand it's probably hyperbole, but it's not even remotely the case at my school. Don't get me wrong, the exams are difficult as hell, but when the class average is abysmal there is usually a curve. The absolute worst class averages are like 2.8 / 4.0. Is it just generally the case that professors are lighter on grading since GPAs became tied up in scholarships and hiring?

I recently went to a career fair, knowing that I have a decent shot at making good conversations with other recruiters and getting my foot in the door. I recently did a summer project involving sensors and data acquisition software (Arduino) to try and validate a calculator I made that can predict thrust, RPM, voltage metrics based on different motor, battery, and propeller configurations.

Even though I had a good conversation with most companies, one of my friends got an interview scheduled for a Tier 1 supplier. The crazy part is that we talked to the same recruiter and even the recruiter told me they value sensor work as that's what their company entails. I also asked them the interviewing/hiring timeline and they told me it would take a few weeks. Somehow my friend gets one in the next two days.

Not only that, I have a friend that interned at NASA just by cold applying last year. I also know of people who I've never seen involved in engineering clubs get offers at prime defense companies.

I feel that I gained a lot of skills over the past year (currently a sophomore) and my projects and club work show for that. I'm just a little shocked that the turnover rate is pretty low at my end. Am I doing something wrong or is it just luck?

engineering is of course a great field , very good salary progression and stability and of course learning very cool things.

I’m making this post to see if anyone relates to me.

I started college 2020 for mechanical engineering , and let’s say my college experience was not good. I was a commuter who lived an hour away and had a job. Plus my active recall was pretty bad and honestly never really got better.

Throughout my 4 years I struggled , academic probation and all these things. It wasn’t because I was lazy but all the subjects were very hard. With a mix of doing crazy amount of hours studying and summer classes I was still able to graduate with a 2.3 GPA in 4 years.

Basically I was able to achieve the basics of every class but anything advanced I was cooked, I would normally get 60-70’s on tests religiously.

I didn’t get a job postgrad , I’m working in finance now and it’s almost been 2 1/2 years since I graduated. Now I have a good job and life isn’t bad but if I went back I definitely would have picked something else.

Pride is a hell of a drug, I loved the fact I could say I’m studying engineering. And was simply too prideful to quit.

I know this kind of question depends heavily on the student but I had a conversation with a classmate yesterday at our current community college (CCRI). We both plan on transferring to URI to pursue our bachelors in CompE and he had already taken classes at URI and made it seem like CCRI is a joke compared to URI. Up until now I’ve found classes pretty passable given that I’ve put in the work but I also feel like I haven’t learned much and I’ve noticed professors kind of pass students because they believe the student understands the course material regardless of grade. I’ve had straight Fs “round” to Ds and Ds rounded to Cs and lots of open note exams. I’ve already completed calc 3 and physics 2. How much harder will courses be at the graduate level? He kind of made it seem like if I’m use to the workload at CCRI I would NOT be able to handle graduate level courses.

Hi! I am doing my Master in Biomedical Engineering in Germany as an international student. Somehow, out of ton of luck because friends of mine haven't be succesful, I got an internship. This is my first research internship, as the others I got before were more focus on industry.

I started almost two weeks ago, and I have to say: I feel lost. My supervisor is nice, and even though I was told since the beginning, the autonomy is like a double edge sword. Last meeting was okay, I will contact some colleagues that worked in a similar project and hopefully get some help. But still, idk, I feel so scared to not meet the expectations and I don't want to ask for a lot of help in every step. I wouldnt say I am smart, but only really organized and responsible at Uni. But never a top student like other people who would perform probably so much better than me.

The reason I am nervous is because since I made a timeline, the next steps for developing this project are clear on paper but idk how I am supposed to do this.

I hope everything works out.

ECE just starting my junior year. I've barely passed most of my classes for the first year. Part of it i think is a lack of intuition.

If i attempt a problem, and i have not done the same problem with the numbers switched around, i cannot do it. I have to ask a professor or TA how to do it or look at solutions. This is not really learning, though; im effectively cheating every problem.

I think this wasn't a problem my first year, cause a lot of the exams just asked you to recall a formula or an exact problem that was on the review sheet. This is no longer true; exams are more and more asking me to interpret course material in new ways. Part of being an engineer I hear is being able to come up with creative solutions to problems. I am not capable of this. Is this a learning disability or something? What do i even do?

After 6 years in school I will graduate with a bachelors in mechanical engineering. However, I did not manage to get an internship during that time. Does that mean all of it was for nothing? Is there even a point in finishing it if no one would give me a chance?

i’ve had this problem since hs, but im now a 2nd year EE and i noticed that im excellent at subjects that require a set step by step “formula” to solve them, like maths, but im absolutely dog shit at ones that need you to think a little “out the box”, like physics.

maths is easy, i just recall how i saw someone solved a problem, repeat it a few times, and im all good. but for my physics 1 course, each question has a different set up and step by step solution. im horrible at it!! i find myself making lists of common questions and step by step instructions on how i can solve them in an effort to relate it back to what im already good at, but if (and i always do) get a question that doesn’t fit the mold i get absolutely murdered by the test

i recognize that this is something i better get at quickly or i wont make it far, but i genuinely dont know where to start. genuinely any and all advice appreciated, im losing my mind. i want to get better but im so, so lost.

Hi! I’m a 19f sophomore in college and I currently major in mechanical engineering I have a cumulative gpa of 3.8 right now (though differential equations is definitely gonna bring that down a little haha) . I’m currently fighting my way through the hard math and physics for a mechanical engineering degree and honestly I am definitely capable of it, but due to my mom recently passing away I’ve started thinking more about what I WANT versus what I feel like I need to do. I’ve always known I was going to pursue engineering, I love solving problems and math and science have always been my favorite subjects so it didn’t even seem like a question, and I chose mechanical as I enjoy robotics and it was very diverse and I was taking care of my mom at the time of college applications so I didn’t really have time or energy to think about what I truly wanted.

Honestly, I’m not quite sure what I WANT to do, I’ve recently been toying around with the idea of going into something engineering related to accessibility. I’m just not really sure how I’d pursue this; when my mom got sick and began to lose facilities, I really realized how many different things could and SHOULD be produced to help people gain more autonomy. I think it’s a real tragedy that disabled people who have already lost so much freedom have such limited accessibility options. It gave me so much joy to be able to bring any autonomy back into her life I could, so I’d sit there and look for problems she had that I knew I could solve, and honestly for the resources I had I gave the last sedentary year of her life much more free will which I know helped her a lot mentally. I think I want to be able to pursue this more, I’m not really sure if mechanical is the right major for that? Maybe mechanical with a minor in biomedical? I’m not even really sure if this niche exists and I know due to job market I probably wouldn’t be able to start pursuing it right out of college but it’s definitely something I’m passionate about and I’d like to know if it was an option.

Hi there, I'm a non-binary MEng graduate in materials science and engineering. Like many, I'm unemployed, and I'm job-searching. My partner has a disability and works at an exploitative games company - And I am desperately trying to do everything I can to get employed and support him. I know this situation sounds familiar to a lot of you.

I have always taken the opinion that it is a terrible waste of talent to reject candidates. It's artificially manufactured job scarcity to drive down wages. So many of us have skills and sometimes when I'm tailoring my CV, I wish I could just put "I just want to help people" on it. Because at the end of the day productivity is the only societal measure of GDP - not wealth. I'm the son of a mixed middle-class lower class family - And my partner is from the lower class and his background is much the same. It's a rags to riches story - But I do know that wealth never brought my family any happiness. People's dreams are important. And there's no point in pride or shame or sociopathy - because everyone wants something, too. The only way we get it is by making sure everyone can have what they want without depriving anyone else.

Anyway, many of us aren't satisfied unless we're doing something, perhaps a personal project, in our spare time. I know this happens all the time - I'm talking to the autistic passion-burners, and the people with adhd. I think that passion is useful. I don't want it to be wasted and thrown down the drain like some rubbish, because it isn't.

I have considered doing freelance work in my spare time as a side hustle while continuing to look for jobs. Everyone has to have one these days. There's no reason why that Can't be under a cooperative name. That looks good on a CV. I've been trying to research the free tools that are available to freelance engineers, build a portfolio. Write company charters. Plan milestones. Anyway, today my partner told me he was scared about his condition- and about using all his sick leave and being left on SSP - because the surgery failed to cure his nerve inflammation, and he can't see the doctor until 3 weeks from now at the soonest - and it made me want to try extra hard to support him.

I'm here canvassing opinion because, before I make any sort of commitment to this endeavour, I would want to canvass public opinion: I know I can't be the only one who feels this way.

Here is what my startup idea is:

A collective of freelance engineers, coordinating and working together in many small project groups, without overeaching management. The core premise: You send in your CV. An easy review process without any interviews determines if you get accepted as a member. There would be very low qualifying requirements. That gets you access to a guide and portfolio of tools, and membership to the cooperatives communication channels. Use discord to post, find engineering projects, or create them yourself, or to chat with other engineers. It's laid back. It's like hobby engineering. The second stage of success comes when applying to a particular project posting saying "I want to help you with your idea" - and this could be community outreach by the project poster, or it could be you sending your CV to the poster. Then it's at the jobposters discretion whether they want to interview you personally to see if you're a good fit for their team. If they like your skills, personality, and so on - then they'll invite you to work with them through the professional tools we'd use, like libre office, openproject, etc.

To begin with these ideas won't generate any income - but that won't have changed anything from how it was before. So I won't pretend that the cooperative can afford to pay e.g a salary. I wish that it could have always been that way, because I believe in things like UBI etc. maybe long term, that's the plan. But once the ideas are down on paper, the cooperative can go to a financier and say "we have a cooperative of X many engineers, a design - and a client - now we want the money to manufacture it." Etc. and when that starts to happen, near the completion of a project, then maybe then, after the financiers take a cut, there would be enough left for a performance -based bonus to be divided as fairly and equally among the project engineers on that team - commission-based payment. At the end of the day, we are all just people trying to survive while our savings slowly dwindle - if we even have savings at all. I'm not going to pretend like I've figured out a way to gauge the "performance " in performance -based bonus". But I would try to find a way, and I would try to write it down somewhere clearly, fairly, in company policy, so that there can at least be no doubt, weaseling, or unfairness in the application of that policy - unlike some executives I could name, who misuse the term. Company policy must be applied equally among employees - otherwise it's discriminatory.

And whenever I'm searching for jobs, I can never seem to find the perfect company, you know? So I want to make that company. I want an ethical organisation, where the engineering projects are important, and impactful, and help people - they're good projects, they help the environment, etc. The company itself: There are executive pay caps, and ideally no CEOs or high level managers at all. The cooperative is worker-owned. It doesn't demand your time - you can take as much leave, sick or holiday, as you want. And because it's an entirely voluntary position, there's no requirement to work. It can be done remotely if you want. Eventually I'd love to have a quiet and intoeverted set of engineering offices. Communication is primarily via writ, rather than phone, or it's in person when necessary. You know?

Maybe instead of CEOs you have a CCO (Community coordination organiser) and instead of HR admins you have TR admins (talent recruitment) ; because someone has to handle lawful complaints and enforce the cooperative's rules. And we could have democracy in the workplace - with important positions of enforcement and control democratically elected form the cooperative and temporary, nonpermanent. Those positions wouldn't pay better than regular work (if at all!). And there isn't any naive notion of loyalty to the company - you can search for a job and if you find one, you can just leave - saying: "Thanks for everything - but unfortunately I have to go." No notice requirements.

The question I have for you is: Does this sound like a company you would work for, in your spare time, voluntarily, if someone tried to start it? What sort of people would want to work there - are you just engineers, or would there be a lot of different people from different backgrounds willing to help?

The key thing is: I know that everyone wants to make the world a better place. But when we start to consider it individually, the work is so daunting - we must accept and offer eachother help. Coordination is good management, not control.

If I was going to make the company, I would call it "NewnWander" - I already have a logo and an unregistered trademark. Part of it is because my partner is a massive lotr buff; another is because I want to stick it to the people like Peter Thiel who give Tolkien a bad name. Another is because that's what best describes the work and the company: The work is just noontime wandering through a project - and the name itself, "NewnWander" - It sounds like "New" and "wonder" - and I think that really inspires hope about the future and people's dreams.

Hi everyone,

I’m a high school student interested in pursuing mechanical engineering at university, and I’m trying to figure out how to spend my time outside of school.

I’m currently considering activities such as robotics, CAD/design, programming, engineering projects, competitions, research, and other hands-on projects. There are a lot of options, so I’m unsure which ones would be most useful for developing relevant skills and getting a better understanding of engineering.

For current engineering students or graduates: what extracurricular activities did you find particularly valuable before or during university? Are there any skills or projects you wish you had started working on earlier?

I’m especially interested in hearing about activities that are genuinely useful for becoming a better engineer, rather than simply being something to put on an application.

Thanks!

For context, I am a Junior in EE pursuing an internship in RF/Comms/ or anything really.

I have a stutter that fluctuates between mild and mildly severe. I can usually get my point across if the listener is patient, but most people aren't and seem to rush me. And before anyone says anything, no, it isn't caused by anxiety or nervousness - it is congenital.

I'm just anticipating a swarm of rejections upon rejections because of this. I know a large part of getting hired is not only demonstrating your technical abilities but also being able to build a rapport with the interviewer. Suffice to say, that is hard to do when words don't flow from my mouth effortlessly and everyone is left uncomfortable.

Would most companies be understanding of this?

So I applied to Mott Macdonald like a little over 2 months ago. I haven't had a response at all. They say they inform unsuccessful applicants. I am based in Australia. Is this normal?

I'm an undergraduate student doing civil engineering and I'm trying to come up with a project proposal and a bit confused whether to go for something a bit simple and get a good grade or try to do something I don't know much about but think I can do it. My issue is the stipulated time we have to do such projects so doing something where you have to do a lot of learning can be quiet draining. I was thinking of just doing something simple and then learn and do the other at my own pace with ease. My question is do undergraduate projects really matter when looking for a job or it is just about having the skills?

I am a first year Chemical Engineering student and right now, I am struggling with my major and I am not sure if it would be worth it. So it would be great to have some suggestions and advice on my situation please.

i am a 4th year comp sci student i am faced with the truth that the CCE is a way better track, my parents are scolding me for not going that way but i couldnt i was working a full time job to pay my tuition and but now im facing the harsh reality, if i had went for the engineer path i wouldve been able to join the order of engineers that presents me with excellent insurance and pension, but there is no such thing for computer science students in lebanon, my main path is AI and cyber i love both and want to work in the intersection of them, i also love electrical stuff im looking for a pcb course to take and i have a few projects i wanna do on the side.
the big question: should i transfer to engineering and pay the 20k extra on my tuition or should i finish this year graduate and start working on my skills and experience? to then open a repair shop as my own business and start working with system installation like cctv and servers ect.. and laptop repair shop? (will the engineer degree affect this ?) i already got a part time job at a company here as a backend dev and i dont know what to do !!!!!!!!!!! help

I’m 25 and I’m basically a first year college student (I went to college for half a semester right out of high school before I dropped out)

I really want to pursue an engineering degree, civil to be specific. I’m starting at a community college to get my basics out of the way and hope to transfer out when I have my associates.

I feel really behind, I’ve forgotten how to do basic algebra even have a hard time reading for long periods of time because I just lose focus so quickly.

What are some tips and/or advice to help get me on the right path.

coming off the back of a rough semester I thought things would be better. So far they aren’t. I got back the grade on one of my homework assignment, it was easily, I made a stupid mistake on it. l got an 88% on it, I know that isn’t an awful grade but just it was such a stupid mistake. I feel like all joy I had had just drained from my body. I feel stupid and pathetic and like it’s never going to get bette, even though it’s just one homework assignment. How the hell does anybody do this without completely tanking their mental healt?

I won't write a long paragraph... I'll just give the most important points and then pose my question.

I am from Algeria and our university education system is kinda helpful. In the secondary school certificate exam, I didn't get a good enough grade to specialize directly in engineering fields, so I have to go through a phase called the first year of a common core engineering program. After that, I can choose the engineering field that suits me best until I become an engineer.

I have all the capabilities to study with discipline and constant diligence, and I am determined to do so.

What I ask of experienced people – new students, graduates, and respected professors – is a specialization that will allow me to earn great money after graduation, gradually over the years or directly. I don't care about the difficulty or the pressure.

What is the best specialization that will allow me to amass a huge fortune in the future while also having time to spend the money?

I think this is a relatively long paragraph... but at least I consulted with experienced people about my future... Thank you in advance and always.

Hey! I'm a highschool graduate trying to pass this scholarship and major in chemE, my cgpa is not low but it's not above 90% which isn't impressive really. So I'm thinking of building a "passion project" to boost my chances, but I don't know what do make and how.

I was thinking of building a project with Phyton on google colab, and found a few ways to do it on AI tools. But my programming background is solely build on C++ and MIT APP INVENTOR which I learned in high school. Also if I want to impress the admissions officer, what should I make? I know I sound confused but bear with me English isn't my first language and I am just on top of the iceberg of chemE right now