Does it hurt to not take physics and apply for engineering?

IlliniJBravoEcho
Thu, 10 Nov 2005 19:08:55 +0000

Believe me if you are going to a university that is good in engineering and you haven’t gotten a good physics background you will feel behind even if you get everything right away (which chances are good you won’t) because so many others have already understood it and been understanding it for a long time. At U of I every engineer (except CS) takes the same physics sequence. Mech & Civil will have TAM (mechanics), ECE will have extra ECE courses (Electricity and magnetism). But to say that those others don’t really need physics?? Not true at all. I know several people who had to drop out of chemE because they failed physics. They are smart people and did well in physics in high school too. It’s often hard and since so many get it, the insanely high curves of engineering & chem courses aren’t there to back you up. Physics is the least curved class I’ve seen. So do what you get to get a background in physics before you go. I can’t stress this enough. It will really really help. I know because I did just that. But being a chemE wingardium, I can’t believe you would say that because it definitely is important to get through and you will often need the ideas later for math and engineering courses.