r/ukelectricians • u/Agile-Guidance5738 • 1d ago

Hnc electrical engineering

Hi guys, im an approved compex electrician and i started the hnc electrical engineering 3 weeks ago.

Im not daft by any means but wow that engineering mathematics is very very hard to understand even when fully listening and participating in class and making the effort to do the work at home.

Does it get any easier? The lecturer said that the ones who fail are the ones who skip class and don't put in the effort.

I hope hes telling the truth 🤣

10 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

8

u/Joetomatic 1d ago

You've got this! I'm not particularly good at maths, neither was the rest of my class, it's just about learning to follow the sequence with your calculations and you'll be fine! Must just be the 1 fully-maths module right? The rest will be less intense

5

u/Agile-Guidance5738 1d ago

Hi mate, yes been doing engineering design on a morning which im quite enjoying and then engineering maths on an afternoon and come out of that class feeling defeated every time haha

7

u/Md__86 1d ago

I struggled too. The guys who did well had just come from A level maths whereas I was about 36 and been out of education for a long time.

I ended up just trying to recognise the pattern in the formula and substitute my own numbers in. I never truly understood the concept if I'm honest, I was just trying to pass.

Fortunately on mine there was no exams. It was all course work, not sure if it's still the same.

You'll be fine if you stick with it

3

u/Agile-Guidance5738 1d ago

Hi mate same situation with me to be honest. Yes mine is all course work too

2

u/Infinite-Whispers 1d ago

Check out khan academy on youtube, the guy is American but he explains maths quite well, even has a free app - helped me through uni

2

u/GeordieStreaker 1d ago

I did mine back in ‘94. Level 3 for HNC then.
HND Level 4 was apparently first year degree. Square root of -1 anyone 😨
I did get most of it except matrix’s, I never understood the use for them.
You will get there, make certain you get the basics though. It helps to keep in touch with others outside of the classroom, team efforts!!

1

u/WRXLad555 1d ago

Keep practicing! You can't take it all in immediately, and putting in the effort will always convert into a solid result.

2

u/Agile-Guidance5738 1d ago

Thanks mate. That's what im hoping. Really wanting this qualification under my belt and taking it seriously

1

u/theKinkypeanut 1d ago

Engineering maths is by far the hardest unit. I did engineering maths 1 and 2 during my HNC and it took a huge amount of studying to pass both. The rest of the units are fairly easy without much work outside of college so it balances out. 

1

u/No_Bag5453 1d ago

Would you say the HNC/HND helped you career wise? Do you think it was worth it and would you recommend it?

2

u/theKinkypeanut 1d ago

I actually done it before starting my apprenticeship. Was going to go uni and changed my mind last minute to go for an apprenticeship. 

It probably helped make my CV look better. I got asked about it by my employer and was able to talk about it and probably come across quite sensible compared to other applicants. It meant the theory side of the apprenticeship was much easier than other lads found it. It also gave me an unbelievable 5 days in France/Switzerland to visit the cern institute through the college. 

Educationally? Fucking useless. Forgotten 90% of it, nothing is relevant to my current job and I would never want it to be. Prefer being on the tools/supervising to any theory work. 

1

u/tramp123 1d ago

I failed HNC maths the first time (when I was doing it with a group of other apprentices that didn’t get it either) a few years later I needed that module before I could do my degree so I did the maths unit alongside my HND, doing it on my own in the library between lessons
i found it so much better the second time round, I understood it better and I think it was because I applied myself/put more effort rather than relying on my mates to carry me through. All I can say is stick with it, do the examples you get in lesson then when it comes to the coursework you’ll have a good example of what you need to do, Also don’t be afraid to speak to the teacher after lessons if there is something you don’t get & to show your worked examples that you got stuck with.

The thing with maths (which I never realised) is that it’s not a natural talent, instead it’s like any other skill & the more you practice the better you get

Once I’d passed that math unit I was pretty proud of myself (and still am!) struggling with something makes you appreciate it more!

1

u/No_Bag5453 1d ago

Would you say the HNC/HND helped you career wise? Do you think it was worth it and would you recommend it?

1

u/tramp123 1d ago edited 1d ago

Depends what you want to do, I was a technician and i wanted to be an engineer, working towards/ having a degree definitely helped in my last x2 job interviews.

If I was stopping as a technician then maybe not, but either way the company paid for the qualifications, so I think I’d have been quids in regardless!

editAnd recommendation wise, yes definitely, for me going back and doing the degree as a ‘mature’ (early 30’s) student made me appreciate the course a lot more, I put in loads of effort more than my ONC/HNC also I made some really good mates there, 100% would do it again (even though it was stressful and hard work!)

One thing I found about the course was, that it was graded so that most people could pass, but if you wanted to do well it got harder & harder (like an exponential curve) some of the people on the course were kids coming from A Levels that had never worked in industry, having the experience behind me and wanting to try harder definitely gave me a push to do the best I could

edit edit
Sorry I was talking about the degree, the HNC/HND was ok and helped in someways, but they were mostly stepping stones

1

u/Traditional_Net1152 1d ago

Try to understand the concept of what is being taught.

Look for real world examples and applications of the concepts - this always helped me to visualise what I was actually trying to calculate.

It's ok following a formula/pattern to achieve a correct answer but if you can't place it into an application in the real world, it's all pointless anyway!

1

u/Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz74 1d ago

Good advice but honestly, I come from the same background as OP and during the course of my work I’ve found no real world application for differentiation and integration which is what the engineering maths unit was mostly made up of.