The Engineering Thread

irishguy00 wrote:

Anyone with a few years experience in Engineering, PM me with some tips. Shall be quite helpful as i know no one else doing engineering

You're probably better off - while you will find that while you will have to 'put yourself out' a bit more, it will work out better for you. There are several horror cases of people going into a college with some of their friends that they know, only to realise at the end of 3/4 years that they haven't made any new friends.

There's some random bit of information here about the make up of the course.

Basic tips go to as many tutorials & labs as you can (as well as lectures, but the other two are more important in my opinion). These are the places where you will actually have an opportunity to ask detailed questions, as well as do some problem solving (rather then absorption in lectures). Because you're in a lecture room with 200 other people, there usually isn't time to ask the lecturer a detailed question if you don't understand something.

Maths (1E1, 1E2, 2E1, 2E2, 3E1, 3E2): Usually ok, though it does vary from lecturer to lecturer. 1E2, if it is still Donal O'Donovan is a tough subject, but he's a decent guy so do ask questions. Conor Houghton is a legend. You'll go to lectures just to hear his stories.

Computer Science (1E3, 2E3): Again, go to the tutorials and you should be ok. Has changed since I did it, but apparently it is a lot more interesting in second year.

If you haven't done Applied Mathematics, you will find from talking to others that have done it that some of first year is based around it (I'd guess that more of the new 'Mechanics' course will be anyways!). There are usually plenty of the brown 'Fundamental Applied Mathematics' books in the library, if you need it.

Your first year will be changed considerably from previous years, which may lead to some hiccups in the first few weeks as it will be a new course, but that's just guesswork.

On the social side of things, make sure to go to the class parties (class reps or Engineering Society will be organising something within a week or two). Join societies, come in to Freshers' Week (even if you don't know anyone, go on a tour group with some people and say hi to them, or come to the Beers).

And that's all I can remember for now. You'll pick up most things within the first weeks/months, but do remember that there is a failure rate of around 30% in first year. There are repeats during summer, but it's not the nicest studying in August & September. Remember, tutorials & labs!

Good luck!

(ApeX, Nietzschaen, Crash_000: any chance irishguy00's post could be copied to another thread sometime? Would be helpful for the sake of archiving later, as there isn't a decent thread on Engineering at present.)

Gileadi wrote:

Anybody know if engsoc is gonna be active this year again? Last i heard some guy called Aidan going into SS was gonna run things

No idea. Didn't really see hear too much of Eng Soc last year, bar the Eng Ball (which I couldn't go to, stupid elections.)

For new first years, Physics & Chemistry will be combined into one subject.