My courses are all over the place considering I'm actually majoring in computer engineering (and psych sort of, but my school doesn't quite let), but it's my (hopefully) final semester, so *shrugs*
I've done the full math/engineering loads before, so I figure I'm allowed a few light semesters.
EE Electromagnetics (hideous professor, but it's my last major course, so I hope I'll survive it)
Epidemiology (psychology grad course)
Applied Statistics
Photography (so excited about it)
World Civ (so painful to take liberal arts courses when you're almost out)
psych honors thesis
And ongoing comp-sci research
Joydivining said:
Does the American system force you guys into a more general education, where you effectively have an additional freshman-level year for the arts and whatnot?
Depends on the school, but basically, our cores can be interspersed through out the degree. At my school, lots of engineers take care of the liberal arts reqs during the summer or use them to avoid semesters of 6 major courses.
Aladdin said:
Can someone please tell me what a mechanical engineering schedual would be ?
Depends on the school and year. Most of them publish this stuff, so just look it up for where you're interested. First semester freshman year is core stuff like calculus, chemistry, English, and maybe intro to engineering.
UserName13 said:
What's considered a really full schedule?
Depends on the person and school. Working full time + 12 credits can kill some people, others do fine. Generally anything over 15 credits is considered a bit much (my school requires special permission to take over 18), and knock off 3 credits for every 10 hours you're working. I've done a 15 credit summer and wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but managed some of my best grades while doing 20 credits + a job. I do research now and it's such a time sink that it plus work mean anything more than 12 credits gets difficult. It's really person specific.
quincy said:
When is a good time to start looking for research opportunities in college?
ASAP, though most professors probably won't take you seriously 'til you've had at least the most basic major courses and preferably a course or two in their specialty. Realistically, about a year or two into your degree is going to be about when you should have decent enough relationships with faculty to really look for some research positions. Just talk to people, 'cause often they know who needs research students for what. I'm always recruiting for my lab. I started in my major lab as a junior, definitely not a problem.
