Current Events > Why are engineering students so insistent that engineering is a difficult major?

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I feel like college in general is tough. Most engineering students have only been in that major. Where is their basis of comparison?

I find it kind of cringing when there is no real basis of comparison.

They have to justify the time they wasted.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Not sure I have ever studied in a cafeteria, is this some sort of meme?

For me, it is because I suck at math and plus it is very competitive major and field as well.

I did a dual major in math and business administration

Math I got Cs in and the BUAD took me 1 year to do start to finish, minus one class that needed two prerequisites. I got a 3.4 GPA in that and did about a fifth the effort

SpriteLimit posted...

Where is their basis of comparison?

I can actually speak to this.

I did 1.5yrs of engineering. shoulda finished, mental health and other shit got in the way.

now i'm back doing business school, 3 years done, 1 to go.

Undergrad Engineering stands alone as being the most difficult undergrad. And it is not close, it is not comparable.

As they say, an Engineering 2.8 is a Business 4.0.

EXAMPLE

2nd year engineering problem:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/0/8/AAZUkRAACwZM.jpg

2nd year business problem:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/0/9/AAZUkRAACwZN.png

SpriteLimit posted...

Where is their basis of comparison?

maybe their peers? maybe someone who switched majors and actually has experience doing both?

engineering has a reputation as being a challenging set of majors. they're heavy on math and science, which are difficult for a lot of the population, and the coursework is generally considered rigorous.

this is like asking why medical students insist that their coursework is difficult when they have no basis of comparison. do you 'find that cringing' as well?

Giant_Aspirin posted...

engineering has a reputation as being a challenging set of majors. they're heavy on math and science, which are difficult for a lot of the population, and the coursework is generally considered rigorous.

all true. It isn't even the math that is hard -- with enough studying and repetition on problems, you WILL get the concepts. Maybe application is lacking for some students (i.e. unable to apply basic theory to real-world conditions, which have muddy data rather than neat and tidy data), but basically, once you get it, you get it.

The real toughness with engineering is the courseload. It's easily a 50-hour-per-week commitment, more during exam times. I'm a fulltime business student and i have like 12 hours of class and 5-6 hours of homework a week. It's easy.

They're the STEM version of Business maiors

Naysaspace posted...

I can actually speak to this.

I did 1.5yrs of engineering. shoulda finished, mental health and other shit got in the way.

now i'm back doing business school, 3 years done, 1 to go.

Undergrad Engineering stands alone as being the most difficult undergrad. And it is not close, it is not comparable.

As they say, an Engineering 2.8 is a Business 4.0.

EXAMPLE

2nd year engineering problem:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/0/8/AAZUkRAACwZM.jpg

2nd year business problem:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/0/9/AAZUkRAACwZN.png

Thank you for your perspective, that is interesting. How much do you think your maturing has made business more manageable? I have friends that dropped out and then came back a few years later doing what are considered even more difficult majors and achieved 4.0 GPAs just because they were more mature and/or in a better state of mind.

Either way that's pretty awesome you came back successfully, good luck in your last few semesters.

Naysaspace posted...

all true. It isn't even the math that is hard -- with enough studying and repetition on problems, you WILL get the concepts. Maybe application is lacking for some students (i.e. unable to apply basic theory to real-world conditions, which have muddy data rather than neat and tidy data), but basically, once you get it, you get it.

no, the math Is hard too

It is. non-linear finite element analysis and applied differential geometry are the most fucked up subjects i have encountered, especially in the theoretical proof sections. You cannot code monkey nor memorize your way through; takes a lot of critical thinking.

Comparing the majors I have experience with:

Computer Science was by far the hardest, if we're talking about just completing the major and graduating. There are many reasons why, but the most obvious is that it simply takes way more hours of work to complete a lab than it takes to write a paper. Then again, even the C students had no trouble finding a job related to their field.

Physics classes are a little more siloed. You basically need to collect a minor in Mathematics along the way (even more so than Computer Science), but a bad semester in Thermal Physics isn't going to mess you up in Electrodynamics. However, if you want to go on to do anything in Physics after graduation, you have to be at the very top of your class. This is not the case with careers related to Computer Science or Business.

Business Administration was a highly-impacted major at my school, and the subject material was brain-dead easy. As a result, the grading curve was actually incredibly brutal. I had one lower division weed-out class where missing 3 points total (across the entire semester, with a huge number of multiple choice questions on exams and a few papers) would drop you from an A to a B. But once you got past the lower-division filter, it was smooth sailing.

Engineers tend to overestimate the difficulty compared to other science/math majors. They're just doing the most common STEM degree so they're comparing it to their gen eds in other areas.

They also have to take like 6-7 classes a term I think, and still graduate in 5 years rather than 4 sometimes

SpriteLimit posted...

How much do you think your maturing has made business more manageable

Quite a bit. Helps manage stress, manage schedules and workload, as well as (being in my 30s) the lack of social pressure to go "party" and whatnot.

that said, if i did engineering today, i'd fucking die.

@SpriteLimit

I can attest to the workload being a killer. I took just one intro engineering class as part of my meteorology degree (a requirement that was removed a year after I graduated lol), and that class alone took like 80% of my time that semester. Even my upper-level meteorology classes that included thermodynamics and stuff didn't take me that long to work the problems I had to do.

I can only imagine an engineering student having 3-4 of those types of classes each semester.

Zanzenburger posted...

I can only imagine an engineering student having 3-4 of those types of classes each semester.

try 5-6. Maybe 1 of them is a social science, but sometimes you get stuck with 6 eng courses

No room for failure because if you fail there will be many deaths
math/physics are harder than most other courses (especially anything outside of stem, but even including other things in stem like compsci)

Engineering is not nearly as hard as engineering students would have you believe, mathematical equations are not the sole representative of what makes a major hard. Obviously, a major based entirely around mathematics would have more difficult mathematical problems and thus be more difficult for people who suck at math. But if you are competent in math (let's say you completed through Linear Algebra and understood it), it is not more difficult than many other majors, and there is much less subtlety involved in being successful than some other majors that require more creative ingenuity.

In fact, math classes themselves are more difficult than engineering because application is one of the greatest drivers of the human experience and engineering consists largely of application based principles. The equation shown above for heat conduction is only difficult if you don't know what hyperbolic functions or series are. That is, it looks scarier to those who have not actually taken the math courses necessary to understand them, but is not actually that difficult.

The one thing that does make engineering more difficult than other majors is you are expected to have no problem doing the math you have done in school for years, so it is much more difficult to just come in and blast through it - most need a solid foundation in math in order to thrive.

All in all I consider engineering to be more exhaustive in terms of work load than many other majors, but not necessarily standing out as a more difficult major. The judgement of the difficulty of a major is heavily dependent on the skills that the POV looking at it possesses.

Kloe_Rinz posted... No room for failure because if you fail there will be many deaths

There is also almost always a correct answer to a problem. A luxury that engineering and math students frequently forget.

It is competitive, field is oversaturated, and it is always changing.