Accounting Major to Engineering Major

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Hello everyone,</p>

<p>I’m a brand new college student fresh out of high school. I’m attending a Community College studying Accounting, but I’m not interested in it. I’m on the verge of finishing Fall quarter. I’ve looked into systems engineering and I’d like to know what I’m up against. I excelled in chemistry, and physics, and I did good in math and enjoyed it (My compass test allows me into College Trig, supposedly a good score). However, I do good in math due to intense effort, not necessarily a “natural knack.” I ended up with a 3.75 GPA average in high school. Based on these facts, can you tell me:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>If it’s probable I’ll survive Engineering without a pure natural instinctive sense of math (As I said, I’m good, but not incredible) </p></li>
<li><p>What I can expect during my college career, as a whole, if I continue the path of engineering.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>And of course, I’d greatly appreciate any additional advice anyone can offer.</p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

2

<p>I’d imagine very few engineers have a “pure natural instinctive sense of math”. Most just study hard to do well.</p>

3

<p>I had to work hard at math! My son, on the other hand, seems to be more of a natural. He struggled in his programming classes, though, so he is switching his major from biomedical engineering to math, with the goal of becoming an actuary.</p>

4

<p>You are up against mostly calculus math which isn’t bad. If you are talking about industrial and systems engineering, I think you take most math classes like every engineer, then some mechanics, some programming, some economic classes, some programming classes, then your systems classes ( I started out as industrial and switched).You do have to study hard to get good GPA in engineering. I wouldn’t say everyone is great at math, average skills is good enough as long as you work hard.
Seeing you got decent GPA in highschool, you probably not one of those kids that are too lazy to study every day. So give it a shot.</p>

5

<ol>
<li><p>if you work at it you’ll be fine. The math in engineering is meant to be applied you just need to work at it you dont need to be a natural. </p></li>
<li><p>From what ive heard industrial can vary a lot at each university. At my school we take general first year statics, dynamics, linear etc and then go into purely industrial so human factors, deterministic OR and other OR courses as well as quite a few information systems courses. You will use a lot of statistics if you go into an OR specilization.</p></li>
</ol>

6

<p>

[SOA</a> - The Future Actuary Spring 2008](<a href=“http://www.soa.org/library/newsletters/the-future-actuary/2008/spring/fut-2008-spring-slowinski.aspx]SOA”>http://www.soa.org/library/newsletters/the-future-actuary/2008/spring/fut-2008-spring-slowinski.aspx)</p>

7

<p>Thanks for the link, noimagination. Interesting! He did well in C++, at least. The other class was one in EE that was meant for sophomores, but the BME students took it as freshmen and weren’t prepared adequately for it. About 20% of the class dropped out. The BME department is supposedly working on a way to improve the situation.</p>

8

<p>Wow great feedback everyone! Thank you for the great advice!</p>

<p>I simply have one more question : I chose Systems engineering because I was told it was a “jack of all trades” sector of engineering. Is that true? <em>If not</em>, what is an engineering major/job that would allow me to work in several different aspects of engineering (electrical, mechanical, civil etc.)</p>