Worried About Work Load and Social Life

Nate09
Fri, 28 Dec 2012 19:25:02 +0000

If establishing new friendships is not the issue and you already have a large network of friends and your isolation is due to other issues, then no academic program should come in the way of that. People that study incessantly in engineering programs have usually put themselves in that situation. Some people are overachievers. Some study very inefficiently and must study more for the same outcome as others. Some have taken on ridiculous course loads, usually these are people that would rather get isolated by school anyways. Just look at your program and see what kind of ratio of pure engineering courses to non-engineering courses you take. Try to balance this around that ratio each semester. Just because there may be a plan showing you what you need to take and when does not mean you have to follow it. If you understand the pre-reqs correctly you can alter this to your needs. I’ve been able to obtain a 50:50 ratio of engineering to non-engineering classes (given my non-engineering classes have mostly consisted of physics, chemistry, and math). And I was able to do that by electing to add an extra semester to my undergraduate career. Depending on the program, you may need to take a higher ratio of engineering courses. You should never come upon a semester where you have to take nothing but engineering classes (I know people that have done this, some had good reasons, many more had no reason at all).

If you’re starting out fresh with a blank slate then I can not stress enough trying to build a solid foundation for at least your first 4 semesters. Courses will only get more difficult. If it’s easy to get an A in a class, don’t take a C out of pure laziness. Because while that’s a luxury other majors may have, its not a luxury engineers have. You will have far too many difficult classes bringing down your GPA. Build a solid foundation in these first 2 years and you will not need to stress out about making Cs and Bs in your junior and senior level courses. Some course will require a small amount of effort to move from a C to a B. The same course may require double the amount of effort to get from a B to an A. If you can afford to do so, don’t kill yourself trying to make that jump, because not every class is like that. If you just go at your own pace there will always be time for a social life, even if it means taking an extra year to graduate.