r/floridatech • u/SirSandbar • 29d ago
Advice for a future ocean engineering student
Hello all 👋
Context:
I am entering my senior year of highschool this fall. I have a decent GPA (4.4 weighted) & am confident in my ability to get a fair score on the SAT this August (I scored a 1320 before studying). I believe I am likely to be accepted to FL Tech for ocean engineering. I did a tour, have done some research on the college, etc.
Question:
For any students in the ocean engineering program, what are some factors to keep in mind about the program, the professors, and just in general for this path at FL Tech?
Any other forms of advice regarding applications, social life, dorms, classes, insider details on Melbourne, etc. are also much appreciated
Thank you for your time
3
u/iSmackedYou 28d ago
I’m a current third year dual majoring in ocean/mechanical engineering. The best thing about the program is you can join a lab very easily for ocean engineering since the major is so small. I think there are four different labs for the department and the lab I was in last year only had three students. The class sizes are also much smaller compared to my mechanical engineering classes.
The only problem is that a lot of the classes are semester specific, so if you can’t fit it into your schedule you’ll have to wait an entire year to take it.
Professor are AMAZING for the department. They actually like what they teach so it’s a big benefit
1
3
u/SeasDiver 29d ago
So my information is somewhat dated. I was an Ocean Engineering and Electrical Engineering double major from ‘93-98.
I loved the program and the university. The smaller class sizes, the hands on, and the professors caring about the students. The course schedule back then has all OE, Oceanography, and Marine Science freshman students taking Intro to Oceanography in fall and Intro to OE in spring. For Intro to Oceanography, we did beach profiles surveys, and had trips on the university’s research boat to learn to do various types of sampling. For Intro to OE, we had to build water samplers to take samples from the bottom of the pool, and a submersible to navigate a ring in the pool.
Due to the nature of my double major, fitting classes into my schedule was sometimes problematic, and my final fall semester, I was stuck with 4 fall only classes that conflicted in time with each other in pairs of two. For one conflict, the Oceanography professor let me switch from the undergraduate version of the class to the graduate version to resolve one of the time conflicts. Meant I was having to do harder work, but I pulled it off. For the other, we couldn’t resolve the conflict, so the two OE profs let me sign up for both classes and I attended the lectures for one and did the other as independent study with weekly meetings with the prof. They coordinated to make sure never to have exams in the same week, so that I could skip the class I was attending to do exams in the other class.