/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.3853508]

Hypothetical scenario for engineers:

You can go back to whatever time it was before uni and really take your time learning X, Y, Z and so forth. What is X Y and Z?
I'm applying for next fall (not underage, just late to the party) and want to go in as prepared as possible. What's really, really necessary on the maths side of things?

[TN5 !/sci/TN5.. No.3853513]

Really depends on what you're gonna do. My lacks in maths for what I'm doing now are mostly on transforms (fourier etc), and in analysis in general, as well as ergodic theory. But in many engineering domains, you'll never need anything of ergodic theory.

So, what kind of engineer?

[Anonymous No.3853517]

>>3853513
Computer Science, looking at the various programmes it seems everyone does just about the same thing the first 2 years (calculus and linear algebra mostly from what I can tell). They presume you have zero programming experience at the start so I'm not really worried about that, I keep hearing that the maths is the toughest part in anything engineering though.

[Anonymous No.3853523]

>>3853517
the math is the hardest subject, but its still not very hard. the thing that makes engineering hard and different from other is that you need to get used to seeing the big picture, and thinking in systems, not just the individual components.

[Anonymous No.3853531]

>>3853523
I see, guess I might be overestimating it but not like it'll hurt me if I'm more prepared than I 'have' to be.

[Anonymous No.3853534]

Well, I would do a lot more stuff in matlab now. Every course I am taking involves matlab.

Biomedical engineering Graduate course? matlab. Research proposal? matlab. matlab course? very much matlab.

Not functional stuff either. More like "how to quickly and easily make your graphs look pretty" stuff.

Everything else probably varies a lot, but Matlab is something that you will probably take a course on in first year and you probably want to put a lot of effort into that course because it will be easy and then everything you do for the next 4 years will require it.

[Anonymous No.3853541]

learn how to memorize large ammounts of information, how to study effectively
getting ahead on math or any other subject will probably only help you on the first year at most.

try this guide for starters:
http://www.valuemd.com/medical-university-americas-mua-nevis/40793-study-tips.html

[Anonymous No.3853546]

>>3853534
Didn't even know what it was, googled. Will look up if that is included here, if so I'll take a look at it ta.
>>3853541
Checking it out, ta. Might even help me now if it's good.

[Anonymous No.3853579]

>>3853541
>learn how to memorize large ammounts of information
for engineering? most of the time you get the formulas or you can take your textbook with you in exams.

[TN5 !/sci/TN5.. No.3853595]

I'm a CS major and I haven't done much matlab tbh. I've used it in only 1 short course (on cryptography). It's a good tool for what it's designed to do, though, so time invested in understanding matlab will not be wasted even if you don't use it much in your studies.

You will not use most of basic analysis in computer science, because the basics are usually on continuous objects and most fields of CS are about discrete systems. However, I don't know if there are courses that tell you about discrete analysis without continuous analysis first... But if you notice that a course seems to have its focus on discrete systems, go for it rather than for a course on continuous things.

You'll also notice that at first, people who talk about computational complexity either try to make it understandable by using shortcuts, or just don't really understand it. Oh, knowing that an algorithm is linear in time isn't hard and everybody understands that, but classes of complexity, and a precise grasp on the "P=NP?" question, well... I knew what P and NP roughly meant for a long time, but I only really understood it close to the end of my MS, I think, reading papadimitriou's bible. It's a shame, because it's both important and cool.

Having a good background in proba / stats is nice too. A random keyword for each: Markov chains, chi squared test.

[Anonymous No.3853614]

>>3853579
>you get the formulas or you can take your textbook with you in exams.

didn't happen where I went to school, memorization took up most of my time, not problem solving. Maybe it's different elsewhere, or it just felt like that because for me personally problem solving was easier.
The point is work on your weaknesses.

[TN5 !/sci/TN5.. No.3853638]

>>3853614
My weakness is also memorization and not problem solving, but as the other poster said, I've been allowed most of the time to use books / notes during the exams, and I don't memorize the exact information but I usually know what I'm looking for (which is, I think, better than knowing each and every formula but being unable to guess which one will help in solving a particular problem).

And I can only agree with the fact that it's important that one understands his or her weaknesses and tries to compensate them.