Engineering Department Merit Scholarship

benandjerrys
Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:01:48 +0000

Umm… I don’t think I have any classes not to take. I would suggest taking honors seminars and H-versions, even though as a Gemstone student you don’t have to. Just be careful and read the description for the workload. They are rather hit or miss. Also, I’ve had luck with H-version math courses, but other people have not. It’s either much easier or much harder to get an A depending on the professor.

It’s definitely not easy to get a good grade in the engineering school, but if you put in the time and effort, it shouldn’t be painfully difficult either. It’s not like in high school where if you show up to class and take the tests, you can easily get an A. They’ll give you things that will actually challenge you, but they expect you to work in groups which is also different from high school.

I can’t give you an average percentage of people who get A’s. It depends on the class and the professor. Many classes are curved (up) though. I would check ourumd.com. That gives the grade distribution for most professors that have taught most courses. Since you’re bioe, I would look at courses that begin with ENES, ENME, BIOE and BSCI.

I am out of state, so I don’t take summer courses because it’s much more expensive. I don’t know anything about the freshman summer class thing since I wasn’t in it and I don’t know people who were. Doesn’t mean it’s bad, I just don’t know anything about it. Many people take summer courses to lighten their loads during the regular semester or to fill requirements of many programs so they can fit in more classes. Summer classes are taught with equal difficultly to regular classes, but since you only have one class, it’s much easier to focus on it.

DEFINITELY live in the gemstone dorm. It’s in a very good location (no one wants to walk far to get to the dining hall). The dorm isn’t so bad. It’s not any worse than any of the other freshman dorms you’re likely to get. It’s not worse than denton, the honors dorm. Also, gemstone is a smaller community. Everyone knows everyone else. If you live elsewhere, you might feel a little left out.