Mechanical Engineering at University

Edwards Finance > Mechanical Engineering

Q. In a few weeks I'll be graduating from high school (actually I'm in the middle of exams right now), and next year I'll be studying mechanical engineering at the University of Toronto. And I am really nervous. I keep hearing about how hard it is and how much work there is and that everyone's marks drop like 10-20%. Can anyone tell me about what it's actually like, and how I can prepare, what kinds of work I can expect, etc.

A. -Get the books early, read every word, do all the problems, get Schalms outlines and do their problems, join a study group, stay away from drugs and booze. become friends with teacher aids, study up on math -This isn't intended to answer your question (which I'm sure many others will do a good job of), but rather I wanted to express my pleasant surprise that at least *someone* is being told this in high school. My high school teachers were always telling us how hard college was going to be -- the 15+ page typed papers (this was back when many people going to college didn't type), the endless homework, the beginning calculus class where the teacher assumed you knew everything about trig. and analytic geometry, etc. As a result, I and my high school classmates who went to college (this was back when maybe 20% did; at least, this was about the percentage who did from my small rural high school) found college, for the most part, much easier than we were expecting. However, the impression I get from the students I've taught is that high school teachers aren't doing this anymore. Many students seem shocked at how hard certain classes are, which of course they don't notice until they get a C or D on their first calculus test. I used to be surprised, because the test problems were the same as the homework problems (so they should know how prepared they are by how well they can do the homework problems), but after a while I accepted that, for whatever reason, the students just weren't told to expect a discontinuity between high school level and college level courses, so I began giving stronger "facts of life" talks on the first day of class.

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