How should I spend this upcoming summer? (Junior)

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Sun, 07 Oct 2007 22:55:53 +0000

Hi, I’m assuming you want to major in engineering of some sort.

Taking precalc will only help you with the first 2 chapters of Calculus I (at the college level). I would jump right to AP Calc if you can, since you can take the test and jump straight into Calculus II in college.

As far as the program, I do have some doubts. While I find the idea of the program to be great, I think the time period is what is going to limit you and your learning.

For example:

“Week 2: Advanced programming”

What is advanced? What if someone in your position DID NOT have any programming experience, with C or C++ for example? You cannot learn programming language constructs in a week, then expect to program something ‘advanced’. This is the first thing that jumped out to me.

“Field trips, engineering lab tours and faculty presentation may be included.”

If you wait until college, you can get this ALL FOR FREE through the student engineering organizations (ASME, IEEE, SWE, EWB, ACM, etc - google these acronyms for the full names). Let me repeat, this will be available to you as a freshman at ANY school for free. You might even get a free dinner out of it (pizza + soda is customary in college club meetings). I don’t think this is worth your money, unless you have money to throw away.

“Students will explore a dynamic range of engineering skills, including:”

The skills listed after this sentence cannot be learned in three weeks. You’re better off going to a library, preferably a college one, and picking up a book on whatever topic of robotics you’re interested in. It will go far more in dept and will cover a lot more. Most likely, in this course, they will go over what a specific component DOES, not how to engineer it, what modifications you need to make to have it do ___, etc.

Again, I hope you don’t find me stopping you from your passions. I’m simply looking at this from an overall view, as an engineering student. Think of me as you in a few years. Is it worth the $3,000? No, and I’m sure others would agree as well.

The only benefit I see from doing this is that you get to build something quick and have it do what you want (within limits). It seems as if you’ve already played with these toys on your own, so why pay $3000 to do it at UCSD?

And as far as networking with admissions goes, it might help, but really… what it will come down to is your SAT, HS grades, leadership/club involvement. In a sense, after reconsidering, I guess I could see where this might give you a SLIGHT edge over other engineering applicants, but your core credentials is what is going to matter.