<p>Here are some great threads to read through: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/virginia-tech/373603-quick-questions-thread.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/virginia-tech/373603-quick-questions-thread.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/virginia-tech/762449-hows-life-blacksburg.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/virginia-tech/762449-hows-life-blacksburg.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/virginia-tech/629399-if-you-have-question-me.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/virginia-tech/629399-if-you-have-question-me.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/virginia-tech/1092677-helpful-info-thread-new-hokies.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/virginia-tech/1092677-helpful-info-thread-new-hokies.html</a></p>
<p>As far as general information about my experience in engineering, I could write a book but here are the major things. Bear in mind while reading this that overall I loved Virginia Tech and, if I had it to do over 100 times and knowing everything I know now, I would have gone to Virginia Tech 100 times.</p>
<p>Classes freshman year are kind of a drag with a couple exceptions. The intro to engineering class is very tedious (although not hard.) Classes are also generally pretty big freshman year. Math classes are usually reasonably sized and there is a pretty ok workshop that goes along with the intro to engineering class where you’ll actually learn a bit about engineering. Second semester is kind of more of the same. This is the year where it really helps to set up strong study habits, even if that means you overstudy a little bit sometimes. There still is time for social stuff (I partied… often) and intramural sports and all that; it all comes down to time management. I strongly, strongly suggest joining the engineering mentoring group. You’ll get assigned a mentor along with five or six other freshman engineers and you’ll meet up a couple times a month for free dinner and have someone to get advice from. If nothing else it is free dinner for no work and you get to make a couple connections with people which is nice.</p>
<p>Sophomore year is harder. Not everyone agrees with me on this one, but I considered the difference in difficulty between freshman and sophomore year to be considerably bigger than the jump from highschool to freshman year. You’ll be taking several classes where you get into the core concepts of engineering at the same time, and it is challenging. The time commitment is larger also. Most of the time I still had time to go out (and I never missed a football game) but there were a couple weeks where I more or less lived in class/the lab/a study hall. (Fun Fact: My RA once called the police to file a missing person report on me when I didn’t come home a couple nights because I ended up sleeping in a student study lounge. He was always a little… jumpy though. And yes I did come back and shower.)</p>
<p>Sophomore year it is really important to find friends in your classes that you can do homework and study for tests with. The good news is that, in that respect, VT is exceptionally non-competitive and very collaborative. The idea that someone would refuse to help someone else because it would ‘hurt the curb’ or something is ridiculous to me and it is something I never saw. So basically as long as you talk to a few people in your classes (they’re going through the same thing too!) it is easy to get into a study group. You just have to do it.</p>
<p>Junior year is going to vary based on a lot of things, like what classes you’ve already taken, what major you are in, and how good you’ve gotten at managing your time. It is considerably easier than sophomore year for a few reasons though. First of all most of the professors have grown tired of beating you. Second, you’re going to be taking mostly classes within your major. In a lot of majors this means much smaller classes, and ones that are taught by people who are actively engaged in the subject. Also they really don’t want any professors that fail everybody since that would clog up the pipeline, so… yeah. And since you’re in the same classes with the same people quite a bit it gets easier to do study groups. Basically junior year is where you’ve proven you belong, and it’s time to become an engineer. I had a lot of fun junior year.</p>
<p>Senior year can be anything from retaking classes you’ve failed (something I luckily avoided) to taking the minimum number of credits to remain a full time student because you took most of your required classes in previous years (do this!) Since I was only taking 12 credits and most of them were project/lab based I had a lot of time to do some research on the side and work that year. I also did some job hunting but I had a job tied up by December so my last semester was pretty low pressure. The classes this year are almost all specific to your degree which is really nice since they are very small and detailed.</p>
<p>So, I don’t know if that answered what you wanted to know or not. The classes are really hard sometimes but like I said, a lot of people made it through before you and a lot will make it through afterward. Later on the classes are really fun though. Anything else feel free to ask!</p>