We were chatting with DS, who just finished his sophomore year in engineering, about how things have been going and if there are things he would go back and do differently if he could. Thought it might be helpful to post, for those considering engineering and for those who are getting ready to go off to orientation and register for the fall. Full disclosure: DS is a smart kid, but he's had a bumpy road. Horrible first semester. Steady improvement the next 2 semesters. Last semester he failed a class and is retaking it over the summer. It's not for lack of ability or interest -- he did well in a rigorous AP course load in HS, had high SATs, and seems truly interested in what he is studying. For him, as you'll see below, the time management aspect has been the hardest thing for him to deal with, and he hasn't made enough changes to that to compensate for classes getting harder. He's in a make it or break it situation now, and he knows it. Much of what is below is not rocket science and falls in the category of, "we told him so." But he didn't listen or take it fully to heart when we said it; now, 2 years in, and much bruised by the process, he's saying it. So hopefully some of it will be useful, if nothing else as fodder for conversations.
1) Take AP chem and do well on the AP test so you can avoid first year chemistry. It was by far his worst/hardest class his first semester. And hard because tests would end up focusing on the most off-the-wall, side-content. This is not just his opinion. Our neighbor down the street was a freshman at the same school this year and confirms his assessment of the course; having been warned by my son about the class, he worked his butt off and studied more for chemistry than for any other class, and eeked out a C.
2) If you have taken AP calc and scored a 4 or above on the test(s), go on and take the credit and get ahead on the math sequence. Or, at least ask serious questions about how the first year calc classes are run/assessed before you decide to "retake" it, thinking it will be an easy A. Consider the difficulty in "going back" to the early calc material (e.g., epsilon-delta derivations, determining if a limit exists or not, etc.) after you already know how to do derivatives, L'hopital's rule, etc., and being tested on subtle details about that material. The higher level math classes are often "easier" than the first year calc classes because they are smaller and they are not 100% assessed via multiple choice tests. At DS's school, the first year calc classes have all common MC tests with questions drawn from different instructors; starting in the 2nd year sequence, the tests have 2 parts -- a free response portion developed by your own instructor, and a common MC part. So, no chance for partial credit in your first year; some opportunity for partial credit in your 2nd year and beyond. DS could have placed out of the entire first year sequence, but chose to only place out of the first one. He wishes he'd placed out of both instead. Our neighbor who was a freshman this year who took the full first year calc sequence reported issues with tests being focused on material that his instructor had barely touched on ... to the point that the instructor even indicated surprise at the test content on more than one occasion.
3) If you have taken AP English and get credit for it, take it. But DO NOT use the space that leaves in your schedule to "get ahead" on technical classes. This is what DS did, and it was a horrible decision. Either don't fill the space up at all and give yourself an easier semester, or take a non-technical class that you're just interested in. Over 4 years, the engineering curriculum gives you precious little opportunity to explore other interests. The sequence at DS's school allows only 5 non-engineering electives over 4 years. Give your brain a break from the technical work, and give yourself a GPA boost.
4) Don't study in your dorm room. Go to the library. Turn your phone off. Don't go back to the dorm between classes. Go to the library. Turn your phone off.
5) Limit the # of EC groups you get involved in ... and yes, consider church-related activities an EC. This is the one that has taken him the longest to acknowledge. He said the other night that he's going to drop one of the ECs he's been involved with for the last year because it just takes too much time. As much as he thinks he should be able to juggle it all, everything takes him longer than he thinks it will (not because it's taking him longer than average, but because he woefully underestimates how long things take or how much time gets lost in transition), and he ends up with not enough time. Do not compare your ECs with those of others and think, "they can do it, I should be able to also." This has been the hardest pill for DS to swallow. Some people juggle apparently effortlessly; some people do not. DS does not. Know yourself and what you need to do to do well academically, and then DO THAT.
6) Time management may be the biggest hurdle you face, not the academics per se. Learning to juggle absolutely everything about life on his own was his biggest adjustment, even though he'd been heavily involved in extra curricular activities and doing his own laundry and his own room upkeep for over a year before he left home. Learning to impose structure on himself, vs. having the implicit structure of family life around him (e.g., normal meal times, people getting up early to go to work/school, people going to bed at a decent hour) was the hardest part, he says ... and not doing it well made the academics harder.
7) Educate yourself about the academic drop, withdrawl, and class retake policies (e.g., does your school do grade replacement if you retake a class or just averaging?) and timelines of your school. Use them wisely to protect your GPA. DS was very naive about these things and soldiered on his first semester, when perhaps dropping one of his classes would have been a better move. *TALK TO PEOPLE* about the issues you're having, and listen to what they have to say about what they would do ... and those "people" should include your parents.
8) Don't "ease into" the semester. Hit the ground running and over-prepare for your first tests. Then, depending on how you did, adjust and maybe ease back a little. You likely only have 2-3 tests during the semester, so recovering from a bad one is incredibly difficult. If you didn't do well, do not wait to start going to office hours and/or get tutoring. Don't just resolve to, "just do better" ... be proactive and do something concrete to make that happen.
9) Study groups are great, but don't just study in study groups -- they lead to a falsely high impression of your individual level of mastery. And be brutally honest with yourself ... "just" making arithmetic errors on homeworks or when prepping for a test is the kiss of death for subjects that are assessed via MC tests.
10) Don't be satisfied with beating the average on tests, especially for classes that are curved at the end of the course. The people who drop the class will be the ones at the bottom of the distribution, which means that if you're at/just above the average, when that happens, you'll be toward the bottom of the class.
11) Don't give up when you fail a test or get a bad grade in a class. Assess what went wrong, talk to people about your situation, and come up with Plan B.
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