StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Hello, I'm a freshman in first engineering science at university of toronto and getting my ass kicked here.

Any tips on surviving?

Eat Wongs Brain and thus aquire his knowledge

*Braaaaiiinns

Or just listen what he has to say

Help an idiot out? Sure! Which way did you come in?

SWPIGWANG wrote:Hello, I'm a freshman in first engineering science at university of toronto and getting my ass kicked here.

Any tips on surviving?

Don't be such a pussy. Second year is much harder.

My advice (and keep in mind, whether you like me or not, I've got an iron ring and you don't, so listen up): Suck it up, keep lots of coffee on-hand, and get yourself some good study partners. You'll never make it out alive on your own. Teamwork is the way.

PS. If you don't take good notes, become friends with someone who does.

Sit next to a smart person during the tests.

study with people smarter than you, adn you might learn thier secrets.

If that doesn't work, get the hell out. Always works for me

Mr Bean wrote:Eat Wongs Brain and thus aquire his knowledge

*Braaaaiiinns

Or just listen what he has to say

That's not how it works; you need to absorb his soul while within an enchantment ring with a 1/17th moon shining above. Then you will acquire his strength and knowledge.

Don't you at least get a partial boost from the brains?

Don't worry, First year Eng scared the crap out of me too. Wong is right getting in with a good group of friends is the only way to get through it. Also try and make friends with people the year above you, lecturers are lazy and tend not to change the assignments from year to year so....

Just to tell you something that helped me; try and get a design team going with your friends and enter some comps with them. You end up learning a hell of a lot more that way then going to class!

If he was an indian, he would give Wong a bj to gain his wisdom... I don;t know why I am mentioning this, but it seems appropriate...

Azeron wrote:If he was an indian, he would give Eong a bj to gain his wisdom... I don;t know why I am mentioning this, but it seems appropriate...

o_0

On another note... the boards seem to be making me do that alot today...

WHAT THE FUCK?

If he was an indian, he would give Eong a bj to gain his wisdom... I don;t know why I am mentioning this, but it seems appropriate...

(Moe voice from The Simpsons)

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

SWPIGWANG wrote:Hello, I'm a freshman in first engineering science at university of toronto and getting my ass kicked here.

Any tips on surviving?

Oh waaaah, like Wong says. It gets much harder your second year. Learn to write really fast, and learn how to interpret your writing. It helps to have a system where you can extract useful bits of information and disregard the rest.

Also, you need to network and find good study partners. Or at least, study partners who know how to ask the right questions to the right people.

Talking to your professors helps too. Especially if you're really struggling in a class.

Ohhh, and keep up with the reading.

Being in the same boat, I definitely agree with the teamwork idea.
Unfortunately, a few of my group may be dropping Calc after Tuesday's test.

I didn't do that well myself because of a stupid error: I failed to recognize something as simple as the sum of two cubes in the given function on a question worth 40%. I'll just have to be more thorough in my approach next time.

Anyway, good luck to you.

Azeron wrote: If he was an indian, he would give Wong a bj to gain his wisdom... I don;t know why I am mentioning this, but it seems appropriate...

Methink a certain member of this BBS with an user name beginning with "A", and a two word title beginning with "V" and "i", might have a certain closet oral fixation with phallic objects...

Look, this is not high school anymore. The rithm is different and the evaluation much harder. As Lord Wong said, suck it up. Give priority to the math chairs. Study them, a lot, and really understand the concepts.

Do a Lot of exercises and past exames. Then ask the teachers and the good students for help. If you don't hang around with good students, then that's really a must. One of the errors I made in the first year first semester was hanging around with the "cool guys". Then I had to study really hard alone, and, of course, had to pratically do all the groupworks on my own. Well, having suceeded, in the next semester the situation changed, as those guys were stuck behind and I quickly made friends with more clever people. My grades improved, and I hung around with them until the end of the course.

Don't let yourself down if you start having E's in the first evaluations. That's normal. Just think of what's failing and improve on the situation before it's to late.

And yes, the second year is much harder. But then in the third year you start with real engineering, already possess the essential knowledges and life will keep getting better.

Finally, don't let love matters get involved with the studies. Seriously, I have friends who nearly fucked up their studies on account of this. It's really hard to spend the exams period thinking of how to conquer a girl [personnal experience]. When that time comes, have a stable relationship or none at all.

A fresh mechanical engineer advice

i study architecture so this might not be the same but i found out that going to lectures and listen to some professor babling for 1 1/2 hours is far less effective than attending exercises combined with studying with a team and doing practical exercises ( in my case developing concepts for projects, building models, making floor plans...)

salm wrote:i study architecture so this might not be the same but i found out that going to lectures and listen to some professor babling for 1 1/2 hours is far less effective than attending exercises combined with studying with a team and doing practical exercises ( in my case developing concepts for projects, building models, making floor plans...)

Practice, practice, practice. Stop to give your brain a rest. Practice some more.

The education system is somewhat different over here, but engineering is still engineering. With all of the maths and problem-solving based subjects, there's generally only a limited amount of lecture material regurgitation. You need to be able to solve problems, and you need to be able to do it relatively quickly and confidently.

The only way to achieve that is to actually practice solving problems - for most engineering/maths subjects, an hour or two spent actually solving problems will be far more effective than several hours spent studying a text book or lecture notes.

Work through one or two with a text book or lecture example in front of you, then start trying to do more without referring to the examples. And remember that practice only works if you know what the right answer is meant to be! If you get it wrong, then you can figure out what you messed up.

I'll also back up the thing about finding good people to study with. There are a few parts to it:
1. Different people generally get confused about different things - so with a good group, your collective understanding will be much better than any of you alone. If one of you gets stuck on something, the others should be able to help out.
2. You can't always make it to lectures or tutorials. A good group means it is easy to borrow notes, pick up extra copies of handouts and so forth. Don't be a freeloader through - if people are helping you out, make sure to return the favour!
3. It's much easier to slog through it when you've got friends in there slogging with you

I don't have any advice for ya, kid, but say hi to my uncle Johan for me if you wander round the biology section of St. George campus. Err, Professor Hellebust.

I have another uncle teaching Physics at Guelph, but I doubt that anyone on this board goes there.

I plan to take arts and history courses if I ever get into college.

^^

Cyril wrote:I plan to take arts and history courses if I ever get into college.

^^

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooo

You'll disgrace your life

Always.. choose.. science..

arts can be way cooler than science. it´s just fucking hard to get into an arts accademy, at least here in germany. you need hellisch good portfolios, have to get through several tests and on and on and on.

salm wrote:arts can be way cooler than science. it´s just fucking hard to get into an arts accademy, at least here in germany. you need hellisch good portfolios, have to get through several tests and on and on and on.

O_o

cooler? COOLER? I learnt the physics behind a rocket!! Behind the making of an atomic Bomb!!!

Nothing's cooler than science, you infidel. NOTHING !!!!!

ach... modelling stardestroyers and creating special effects rocks.
hail to 3d programs!