Michigan Engineering - Dilemma? Advice needed!

square
Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:01:29 +0000

jellabo,

I’m a 3rd year Mechanical at Michigan. Like you, I had virtually no backgrounds in chemistry and physics. I was very worried when I came here. Physics covers a ton of materials. Till this day, no class has matched physics 140 in terms of breadth (breadth, not depth/difficulty). I knew it was going to be hard, but I didn’t take initiative to do more work than my peers, so I ended up doing just OK (got a B in the class). My study habits changed a lot after freshman year, and now that everyone is on the same page, I’ve been doing very well (3.6 after 8 ME courses during sopho year). Looking back, I could have done much better if I put in more effort. There’s a lot of help and study groups so you’ll be fine.
I’m alright in math, took calc AB and the following self studied BC in 2 months. If you put in the effort, and have somewhat reasonable aptitude, you’ll be fine. Some people are super stars in HS but they don’t do well here because they don’t put in the work most of the time.

You can probably start learning some physics over the summer by watching some MIT lecture vids on youtube, but I find that very difficult to do because you don’t really have homework, and motivation to do that is hard to come by too.

Good luck with your endeavors!