Electronic Engineering requierements?.

[mt1200]

Hi people from Physics forums.

This might be an off topic question but, since there are a lot of engineers and physicists here, i'll ask.

What are the requirements for an electronics or electrical engineering major, can I be an engineer if I always sucked at math at school?.

I've always had this doubt, since I don't know if I have what it takes, but I think I dont, I've seen a lot of engineering dropouts, and they all share one common thing: they sucked at math and physics since high school.

I dropped out of my engineering career some time ago because I had no money and my grades were embarrasing, but now I'm working (and therefore I've saved enough money) and I think I can go back to the university, but after several thoughts I don't think I have what it takes to be an electronic engineer, since I suck at math, and I might end up just wasting money and time in a career that requires much more than my current capabilites.

One of my friends its about to finish his engineering major, he has great grades, and he barely goes to classes, he barely asks questions to the teachers, or writes in his notebook, he says to me that he always deduces or figures out all those formulaes or equations instead of memoryzing them and reads in the books to learn what he don't learn in the classes that he often misses. I don't get how can he deduce a transfer function or complex ODE's or almost every derivative rule, but since can simplify and solve equations almost " naturally", my best guess was: he was born to be an engineer.

I tryed to do the same, and decided to learn ODEs by my own, and I still can't get a thing (from Stewart's book), I get the mechanical process (you derive, you replace in the main function, and check if the solution satisfies it) but I don't get I.E. what is dy/du, I can't deduce the equations or apply logic to solve math problems just like my friend does.

Everybody always say "dont ever give up" or " everybody is different" but what's the point if you just can't understand a simple math problem that other people understood easily?, I think that you need some "math-ready" mind to fully understand the concepts and then become a good engineer, I think you can't be an engineer if you don't have that " math-ready" or "logic-ready" instinct inside your mind, since math and engineering problems are NOT always things that you can do by performing always the same steps, you have to figure some solutions by your own.

So what attitudes or IQ or whatever do you think that the people needs in order to study (and get good grades) engineering?.

 

[KingNothing]

There's no requirement about who you are, just what results you produce. It doesn't matter if you do well in math because of your intelligence or hard work - what matters is that you do well.

You will need to be decent at math. (at least a B in all calc classes at most universities).

The #1 suggestion I can give is to take your math classes (Calc 1, Calc 2, Diff Eq) at a community college for as cheap as possible. That way, if it doesn't work out you won't have piles of debt. This is assuming the credits transfer, which they usually do.