Still possible to do engineering?

[kr73114]

When I was selecting subjects in year 10 I didn't know what to do and didn't pick physics. But now I want to do engineering but I don't have much physics knowledge. I'm confident I can do well in maths and I'm pretty sure I can get into engineering, but I'm not sure about whether I can handle the physics. Btw, I wanted to do chemical engineering. Also, unis in Australia have bridging courses where you can catch up if you havn't done a particuar subject that you need in uni, but this is very brief and covers just the basics. Without much high school physics, can I still do chemical engineering.

 

[Angry Citizen]

I sure hope so. I didn't take high school physics, and I'm in aerospace engineering.

 

[qspeechc]

Generally, all first year students get put into the same year-long calculus-based physics course, whether or not they have done physics before. There are no prerequisite in terms of physics for that course; it is meant to start from the very beginning and cover the fundamentals. So I don't think there is a problem if you haven't done physics before.

 

[tedbradly]

Your question has already been answered well, but as a side note, if you want to prepare extra, I'd recommend watching Walter Lewis on MIT open courseware during your summer. Though, you may need to self-study calculus to understand some of the material.

 

[kr73114]

I sure hope so. I didn't take high school physics, and I'm in aerospace engineering.

how you finding that?

 

[Angry Citizen]

Not bad. It was rough at first, since I started physics with calc-based physics. I ranked consistently average for most of the two semesters. Then my instructor and I sat down and talked out why I wasn't doing as well as I'd liked, and I ended up kicking major *** on the second semester's final. I could've done much better than I did, and I wound up with solid B's in both courses.

Time will tell if this was pure dumb luck though.