I am not doing well in Engineering and I don't know why. Advice please?

[boneh3ad]

@tallkekepink95

It’s not because of our genetics, our study habits or our lack of interest in engineering. It’s the fact that the American System has failed us.

Of course that’s the problem. What else could it be? I wonder why it didn’t fail the other 100,000 engineering students who earn their degrees every year.

Sure, the system has flaws, as does any system, but thousands of students every year learn how to work within it to achieve their goals. That’s what you need to do. Take responsibility and learn to navigate the system.

@tallkekepink95

But when I talked about genetics I was referring to the research I have found. I’m not saying it’s true.

Whatever research you are referencing is either out of date or just flat wrong according to modern science. There is no compelling evidence that genetics play a major role in one’s intelligence. It might play a role is setting the initial conditions, but the final level of intelligence is so high that the influence of those initial conditions is quickly erased by environmental factors. For a good (if somewhat dry) read on the cognitive theory behind learning, check out [Make It Stick](https://www.amazon.com/Make-Stick-Science-Successful-Learning/dp/0674729013).

@tallkekepink95

The reasons why there are not many African Americans and Hispanics on the STEM field.

The culprit there is largely socioeconomic in nature, not racial or genetic. It just so happens that those minority groups are over-represented in the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder both in this country and in most places in the world.

@tallkekepink95

Am I not studying the material correctly?

My first inclination is that this is the likely culprit. You have to learn how to study well, not just hard, and generally that means not relying on cramming before an exam. For example:

@tallkekepink95

I am studying Calculus 3 right now and I seem to keep forgetting which rule applies to a certain function when intergrating, taking the derivative. I am going to try flashcards.

@intparent

And while they are old fashioned, flash cards with “bites” of info – concepts, equations, tricky twists you find while doing problem sets – all with your own words/notes, and then memorizing the little buggers cold can really help.

I highly discourage the use of flash cards. I’ll requote @ClassicRockerDad here for emphasis:

@ClassicRockerDad

Don’t try flash cards. Your problem is that you are memorizing rules and not going carefully through the derivations to internalize what’s really going on. This does not build insight. Test questions are hard as they should be. They require insight as they should.

Go through the derivations for each formula. Draw trapezoids under your function and use that to derive the integral formulas so that you understand them. Then you will be in a better position to handle more complicated problems.

Google the area of a trapezoid if you don’t know how to compute it?

I cannot emphasize this enough. Your goal here should not be to simply memorize recipes (or worse, in the case of flash cards, the individual lines that make up the recipe). Your goal is to understand why a recipe works and why it applies to the problems it does. If all you do is memorize the recipes, you won’t be able to apply those concepts to similar but different problems or more complicated problems, which is really going to hurt you on the exams and/or in later classes.

@bodangles

The problem with college classes is that they often move too fast to make this a feasible solution. On a test you just need to know the rule, not spend time deriving it.

That’s how I did it. There is time. If all you do is know the rule, then you end up misapplying it as often as you apply it correctly. Every rule has limitations, and understanding those limitations is how you avoid misuse.