/sci/ - Science & Math

>>7015604
The engineers spend too much time sucking dicks and not studying or going to classes

>>7015604
school isn't all there is to life. In addition to struggling with courses, people have jobs, kids, whatever. If you seclude yourself from everything you can do any BS in a few semesters, but is it worth sacrificing your mental health?

>>7015604
Because being poor and living in a remote location and not liking your subject and peers leads to depression and avoidance?
Totally not what happened to me btw.

> come from a poor family living in a 3rd world country
> love math and physics
> love finding out about how the universe works
> want to dedicate my life to something like astrophysics
> don't want to struggle with money ever
> do a high paying finance program instead
> one day /sci/, one day

>>7015636
People with jobs and children manage to complete in 4 years.
I'm assuming that most people are either lazy or struggling with the course work.
Its amazing how low the 4 year graduation is at my school

My school offers many 5 year degree programs that give business backgrounds to engineers or give an extra year for courses on biology for people in biomedical/electrical eng and biochemical engineering.

Then even if you don't take these programs most people do a 1 year internship.

So most people spend 5 or 6 years graduating from undergrad even if they don't fail anything to gain work experience and extra knowledge.

At my school, Engineering programs are about 30-40% more credit-hours than other majors

>>7015604
I'm doing aerospace engineering in Barcelona and people take an average of 7 years to finish the studies when it's supposed to take 4.

>>7015636
>engineers have jobs, kids, relationships, lives, etc.

The toppest of keks.

>>7015604

It's not normal at all, it's a symptom of fucking idiots going to university. (unless your course has a year in industry or you take time off etc.)

All this "Engineering is harder work bro!" stuff is bullshit. UTTER BULLSHIT. It's probably because engineering is the STEM field that attracts fucking idiots who think it will make them rich.

This is all conjecture because I do engineering in the UK, not the USA, so I don't see tards who pretend that engineering is anything special.

>>7015604
Not everyone is smart and motivated enough. It's very easy to start lagging behind because of the fast teaching speed. If one also has to work then it's very hard to manage to get the degree in required time.

physics & engineering here. I was blown the fuck out the first year, but recovered and once 2nd year started it went smooth

>>7015604
I think it takes so long because people have to catch up in subjects.

I will be taking 4 1/2 or 5 years to graduate. Maybe longer if I can't get into classes. I only take 4 classes a semester though. It would be quicker but I started at a community college

>Compute Science and Mathematics

>>7016305
lol

Two very common reasons come to mind.

1) There's more of a link between courses than in other programs. If you're doing a chem degree and you fuck up first year calculus, you can still get into all your second year chem courses. You're only behind in that one course, and you can do it pretty much any time during your degree. But engineering programs are generally built with a very specific course flow in mind, and this inflexibility means that doing poorly in a single course can throw you back an entire year.

2) Licensure. In Canada, we have what's called an engineer in training programs. To get a P.Eng. designation, you need to be an EIT for 4 years after graduating. It's like an apprenticeship or internship for aspiring engineers. Most places have some sort of equivalent... I think it's 4 years in most states south of the border as well.

But... you don't have to spend an entire 4 years after your degree doing that training. In some places, you can do it in 2 years, as long as you did 2 years of equivalent training while you were in school (sometimes your degree requirements must have been met already). So you put off accepting your parchment, it takes you 6 years to get your degree, and then 2 more to get your professional license. It's 8 years either way, but in the second scenario you can put off paying back your student loans, and maybe take some electives or business administration courses in the meantime.

>>7016305
engineering is a legally defined profession in the US. That rubber stamp is a big deal.

I've been applying to graduate programs recently and basically all of them assume 5 years, and fund accordingly.

>>7015604
That's not common but also not unheard of in my university for either science or engineering. I know a guy repeating 1st year medicine a 2nd time. However, most complete degrees on time. But then, the engineering department I study in is best in the UK and top 10 in the world.

Most people at my university seem to complete on time.

Clap-merica too.

>>7015604
Because the parasitism of western government makes them pay for the entire party. Your credits don't count, here, unless you carry the weight of the parasitism of state on your shoulders. Next question.

I remember taking a tour of Cal Poly San Louis Obispo, one of the top engineering schools in my state. Some parents were asking about course load, smaller siblings running around, all that typical shit. We even had a fat neckbeard asking obscure scientific questions. Its never complete without the neckbeards, god bless them. Our tour guids were two tall and skinny engineers, they looked to be in their senior year.

But the thing that stuck out for me was a question that one parent asked, something about the average time of graduation. The tour guides looked at each other. "While its technically possible to graduate in four years, most people take five." "Unless they're a big stud like you." "Oh stop." And I shit you not, the tour guides giggled, grabbed hands and actually rubbed noses.

That was the moment I switched to physics.

I switched from physics to engineering. I'll probably do 6-7 years for my bachelor + master degree. Normally you do it in 5 here. The reason I switched is because I'm fucking lazy when it comes to studying, and engineering is pretty easy...
I waste to much time partying and taking drugs.
In my second year now, hardest shit I see now is vector analysis/quatum mechanics/special relativity. I have exams atm, I'll probably pass 3 out of 5.

>>7016591
>and engineering is pretty easy...

lol

>>7016547
Cal Tech, Stanford, Berkeley and UCLA. These are the only worthwhile schools in your shitty state. Everything else is background noise.

>>7016342
Are you literally me? Or just pretending to be?

>>7016591
>engineering is pretty easy
>I'll probably pass 3 out of 5

>>7016626
Claremont nigga

>>7016305
> Erryone is stoopid!! 'specially Muhrrica!!

Get over the clichées.

I'm not American btw, Swedish engineering physics student.

>>7016637
Background noise.

>>7015604

Doing chemical engineering at major Canadian university,

originally it's 4 years, but you definitely need to do all your gen ed classes during spring/summer because 6-7 courses a semester is too much. People also take 1 year off to do internships or co ops. Also failing any classes that are pre-reqs is extremely bad because you might be delayed by up to a year just for a single class. People also do minors too.

me for instance, when I graduated using 5 years will have
bachelors in chemical engineering, minor in applied math and a 1 year internship without failing any classes and spending spring/summer doing general eds. Physics and math majors are destined for grad school, or teaching high school so getting experience isn't really a big deal.

>mfw this is the plan of study they give you if you want to finish in 4 years.

>>7016648
if you do 6 creds over the summer its not bad at all.

>>7016654
yeah, I did some gen eds over a few summers, but the school doesn't accept any nucl courses from other schools for transfer and the workload of labs (15-30 page lab every week) on top of regular course load gets grueling after a while (there are 4 nucl labs, not counting the phys, chem, and cs labs)

How is it possible to take more than 4 years? I was enrolled on a four year course, that was it. No extensions, no resits after second year. Failed an exam? Sucks for you. Had a friend sleep in for her exam in her third year, she got promptly kicked out.

because life is not black & white. It is all gray. For me, I was undecided and I took the wrong classes that were specific for my degree. Also I struggled with depression, bipolar disorder, and one of my parents became ill.

Grades are fucking hard. Its easy to get a 3.5 when your hardest class is "american lit II" as a social work major.

but, then again, this is my passion. I love it.

>>7016648
That doesn't look that bad to me. What is supposed to make this unreasonable?

(I taught PHYS 172 one term. Grading the hand written portions of the exams is hilarious, provided you didn't start with the idea that the students were intelligent.)

>>7016728
most engr programs here are like 120 credits i think, nuke is a 131 credit program. also 7 courses in a semester is pretty intense, especially when one of them is a lab and the other is senior design

>>7015604
>Why can't these people complete in 4 years like they are supposed to?

Co-ops, triple majors, schedule conflicts, study aboard, part time and work, etc

>>7016547
>Our tour guids were two tall and skinny engineers, they looked to be in their senior year.
Ok
>"Unless they're a big stud like you." "Oh stop." And I shit you not, the tour guides giggled, grabbed hands and actually rubbed noses.
Now, I'm skeptical

>>7016641
U just mad jelly mirin Mudd

>>7015604
few things
First is life, i.e. jobs, kids, lack of money, internships, study abroad ...

Second is courses are not like they use to be. I have old textbooks and new ones for the same courses. The old ones are harder while only covering about half as much material, but they give a much deeper understanding. While new textbooks for the same course skim over a huge amount of content as they try to cram all the new discovers in that happened in the few decades between the versions I have. I got to say I learned better from the old books, but they didn't cover newer topics which some consider mandatory now.

Third high schools don't cover as much so it adds time to catch up in subjects they should have been taught but weren't.

For 80 years my school major was defined as a 4 year program. However they recently changed it to 4.5 years given the increase in material needed to be covered. The petition that got them to change a 80 year old policy was for it to be 6 years. Off the record they admitted it was at least 5 years of hard work. One interesting thing is that if you follow the original course layout with class and expected homework allotments you get 26 hours of class and study time each day which is kind of impossible. The new program cut it back to 23 hours a day.

E-exam babby?

>>7016744
>study aboard
Idk why but this typo is hilarious to me. How the fuck do I study aboard?! I want to!

>>7016929
>How the fuck do I study aboard?! I want to!

ROTC

>>7016929
>study a board
Attend lectures and don't study at home.
That's how dad did it.
That's how America did it.
And its worked out so far

Did you mean?
>study a broad
acquire gf

Because they intentionally make engineering harder
>be A student for every math/sci class
>English classes have bullshit like talk about your favorite memory for 4 pages, or a "ritual" you engage in
>have to take a speech course
>literally 3/4 the other majors or more don't have to do any "human" course, but no, engineers do
>once again not graded on creativity or usefulness, but on word count
I managed to get "compensated" into Interpersonal Relations, instead of literally Public Speaking, Drama, or role-playing. Those are the "human" classes they want the damn engineers to take.

At the uni I transferred to, from CC, my AS covers two "social science" classes. Literally I would have had to take a gender study or psychology course if I had gone to my current Uni.

Meanwhile I know two Bachelor's of math that didn't take statistics, and a Liberal Arts with chemistry major that didn't have to do any speech course.

Colleges know Engineering is actually a degree that can get you a non-slave job, so they gimp it as much as possible.

>literally on the phone with an advisor
>she asks what I think EE and MEs do
>I say what I've seen the jobs described as
>she says that's so wrong, I should really think about just not going to uni and get a job "for a while"

>>7016951
you go to one shit ass school

>>7016951
> I should really think about just not going to uni and get a job "for a while"
A college advisor told you this?
What the fuck kind of shithole...
>I say what I've seen the jobs described as
So she implied they just did spreadsheets all day or what?

Well, in my case, it was a combination of three factors.
1. Despite knowing what I wanted to major in already, I attended community college at first and then transferred. Certain required freshman-level major-specific courses were not available at CC, so I had to take them after transferring.
2. Unavailability of classes. After transferring, these very same freshman and sophomore level classes were also often the classes in highest demand. Transfer students weren't given very high priority with regard to registration, so these classes were often full by the time I had a chance to sign up. To complicate things even more, certain classes were only offered fall-only or spring-only.
3. Prerequisites. My university's M.E. department had a very orderly 4-year curriculum laid out, with long chains of prerequisite courses - 3, 4, even 5 semesters long, sometimes. These mandatory prerequisites do seem logical enough at first, but ultimately they didn't actually help that much (I did manage to slip through the cracks and take one class without the necessary prerequisite - still got an A) and only really served to righteously fuck over any student who for whatever reason was not perfectly in-line with the curriculum (transfer students, part-time students, students needing to re-take a course or simply students who weren't able to get the courses they needed).

>>7016284
wtf, it is almost Bachelor + Matser + PhD (8-9 years here)

In Europe, yes, because education is free and welfare monies keep rolling. You can live like a NEET but without actually being one, and without the constant shame when someone asks what you do. You can just say that you study [something], and no further questions asked.

>>7015604
>these people
no U people

>>7016918
What branch of engineering are you studying? Because I can't think of any recent scientific breakthroughs in solid or fluid mechanics, thermodynamics and pretty much everything that covers engineering.

>>7017217
It is mostly solid state mechanics, but includes all of the above. Advancement in our understanding in nano powders takes up a lot. But coursework covers everything much harder here, even a required course on nuclear physics for our electrical engineering majors, because apparently a better understanding on subatomic particles is needed to make a circuit. Which it actually does matter when making a 5 atom thick circuit, one of the senior projects I have seen.

>>7017158
>wtf, it is almost Bachelor + Matser + PhD (8-9 years here)

8 years is like the minimum time for PhD in germany (3yrs Bachelor, 2 yrs Master, and most programms for PhD are 3 yrs but it tends to take much more time than that)

>>7017339
I have heard Germanic tradition states "One must study for 10 years to call oneself a master of their craft". It actually makes a lot of sense because 10 years is long enough to root out the wannabes.

>>7017217
>Because I can't think of any recent scientific breakthroughs in solid or fluid mechanics, thermodynamics and pretty much everything that covers engineering.
Well, do you read journals in these areas or just rely on /sci/, popsci and the shit your retarded friends post on facebook?

>>7015681
But even undergrad Physics pays orders more than finance...

>>7017485
I'm a physics grad student and have literally no idea what to do with it. I'm only doing it because of personal interest and I feel pretty bad about it.

>>7017485
Topkek

Finance is insane when you get into trading or investment banking. It's also worthy to note that while finance salaries are average or lower than average, the bonuses can be up to three times the base salary. This is intentional and most people don't realize how big finance bonuses are. In a good firm, you can make way more in finance than in any engineering field.

>>7016284
True. Engineering in Spain is made for you to fail. My friends back in Spain (I'm in UK) that do engineering learn about 3 times as much material as I do, and they do real analysis and algebra in first year which would usually not appear in an entire typical UK engineering course.

However, pass rates in exams are usually under 30%, and they have exams every week, and all but the best students have to attend some other school after uni classes that help them understand the material.

>>7017609
Oh, I forgot to add I do Maths and physics and they do more real analysis than I do

I'm from Brazil. Here you can only get your BSc from Engineering in 5 years or more, but most people take 5.5-7 or drop out, but in pure sciences the minimum time is 4 years. You can't take summer classes, also.

>>7017563
>Finance is insane when you get into trading or investment banking
Right, but quants are hired from top 20 schools mostly, and they're more likely to be Physics graduates or engineers, not finance majors.

>bonuses

Everyone gets those, irrelevant.

>>7017731
Most investment bankers are not quants. No other field consistently gives as large of bonuses as finance does.

>>7015604
Depends on the situation a person is in. I started my first year of college not knowing exactly what i wanted to do, but i was an art major (cause i was a good artist). But nobody would help me pay for college if i was an art major (fucking former stepdad was a huge piece of shit) so i switched to business, but just took gen eds the first year because i honestly didnt want to do business. Then i switched to environmental health halfway through my first year, and then finally figured out that i wanted to do environmental engineering. I also work two jobs because as it turns out nobody was gonna help me pay for college in the first place, so im paying myself. This is stressful, but manageable, im in the middle of my fourth year and only have engineering/chemistry classes left (because i added chem as my minor). So completing this in four years is just not possible for me, especially since im about to end my fourth year. So it really depends on an individuals life situation.

>>7017731
Quants are different from traders or investment bankers. Traders and investment bankers are hired out of undergrad, almost always from top universities, very rarely as physics graduates and almost never as engineers, the trader positions tend to actually require a finance background but IB positions are open to any major as long as you are alpha and they recognize your dad's name.

Quant jobs aren't nearly so selectively hired from top schools, and they are not engineers although some of them have an engineering bachelors, they are math, physics, or CS PhDs.

>Everyone gets those, irrelevant.
It's not irrelevant when some normalfag engineer is getting a 10% bonus for working extra hard and the finance guys are getting a 70% bonus for pretty average performance

>>7017775
>>7017753
No, what I meant is the base salary is the only way to "benchmark" the different majors, because many engineers also start their own company and you can't exactly include the millions some successful start ups earn in personal income in the statistics. And if ALL finance grads consistently got bonuses it would be their base salary, but I'm also assuming most finance graduates aren't working "in good firms".

Don't really know that much about the hiring practices in the US, but I've gotten a few job interviews from local investment banks as a ChemE.

Aeronautical eng. In Madrid (the Superior in UPM ETSIA). 5 years course. 12 years it takes for the typical student to complete. Seriously, it is hard as fuck. Nobody does it in 5 years.

>>7017899
I think Spaniards are just retards to be completely honest.

>>7015604
>tfw no mt09

>>7017906
Yes they are (I'm not Spaniard but studying here), but you know it is fucking hard when one of the only few who have done it in 5 years is the only Spaniard astronaut ever.