This has been stressing me out lately, I thought I wanted to go into mechanical but I realized that I'm horrible at 1C03 and would really prefer to not have to do it. Is there a way to tell which engineering you should go into based on the courses you liked/disliked in first year?

I really like all 3 of the math courses (Math 1Z/B/C3) and I enjoyed physics 1D03 aswell, but I absolutely hate chemistry, materials, physics 1E03 and 1C03. I didn't mind 1D04 (programming) but I'd prefer not to do it. What should I do? I have no idea what stream want to get into, I enjoy math and mechanical physics a lot, but I dislike physics if I can't directly picture the situations in real life (such as when working with circuits etc in physics 1E03)

Can any upper years please provide me with some sort of guidance? Does civil have a lot of 1C03 stuff? If not, I think I'll go with that, but I'm not sure.

Thanks!

I feel my opinion can be slightly biased due to the fact that I was lucky enough to enter my stream directly from 1st year (not at Mac) and only had to make a minor switch (from Comp to Elec) to end up in the stream that is right for me. I cannot envision being in any other discipline of engineering.

From what I have experienced and seen I can tell you that if you are not sure I would advice you to keep your second year selection very broad. So don't go into a very specialized stream. This will allow you to stay in the broad stream for your undergrad and should you decide in your upper years that a specialized stream is for you its easier to make the change.

Alternatively, I suggest picking your top 3 or top 5 choices than researching their degree requirements and making sure you are in the best possible situation come 3rd year if you decide to make a change.

Sorry I cannot be more specific, however, my undergrad engineering degree is not from McMaster so I am not familiar with the streams at our school. Also, do not let your performance in first year courses get you down about potential streams nor don't let it make your decision about where to go (so if you were amazing in an elec course and didn't do so well in a mech course don't assume you should do elec and avoid mech). First year is all about getting your feet wet in the field.

My final comment is that you should assess what your interests are and what field you thought you would head into prior to taking first year courses. Then take consideration of what you have learned this year and if your interests have changed. Did you participate in any engineering related extracurricular activities?

If you would like more information about the field of electrical engineering I can definitely help you out. Let me know! Hope this helps.

Originally Posted by Ahmed.N

This has been stressing me out lately, I thought I wanted to go into mechanical but I realized that I'm horrible at 1C03 and would really prefer to not have to do it. Is there a way to tell which engineering you should go into based on the courses you liked/disliked in first year?

I really like all 3 of the math courses (Math 1Z/B/C3) and I enjoyed physics 1D03 aswell, but I absolutely hate chemistry, materials, physics 1E03 and 1C03. I didn't mind 1D04 (programming) but I'd prefer not to do it. What should I do? I have no idea what stream want to get into, I enjoy math and mechanical physics a lot, but I dislike physics if I can't directly picture the situations in real life (such as when working with circuits etc in physics 1E03)

Can any upper years please provide me with some sort of guidance? Does civil have a lot of 1C03 stuff? If not, I think I'll go with that, but I'm not sure.

Thanks!

http://registrar.mcmaster.ca /CALEN...nt/pg1202.html

Take a look at the kinds of courses that you'd be taking for a given stream. Also, there should be level 2 information sessions happening around this time. You should see signs for them in JHE/ITB/ETB.

I had the exact same problem as you. To me it sounds civil would be best.

Look at some 4th year courses from each sector or potential jobs in the field. Choose what YOU want to aim up to be. But bear in mind the things you may have to go through inbetween. (Example, end game is electrical engineering but not so comfortable with programming, so gota keep that in mind)

I think you don't know what you want. I used to think I didn't like certain things in 1st year, and now I realize I just needed practice... but from what you've said civil seems to align with your interests bests, from what I know about the types of courses.

In electrical you have lots of things you 'cant picture in real life such as circuits in 1e03' and programming.
In biomed you have a fair amount of chemistry (but its minor) and includes electrial, and has programming.
Mechatronics has a fair amount of programming I believe...
Mechanical might be something to consider.
Civil might be up your alley too.
Chemistry/materials is obviously out.
Eng Phys has circuits and 'chemistry'.

I'd say Mech would be a good fit since you like Math and Mechanical Physics. You will have some CAD course for sure in Mech though... So not sure about that.

You can also into Materials and Eng Phys. These are very under rated programs at Mac I feel and have great potential in their respective ways.

In the end, as Kenneth said in the above post, see what you want to be. Look at the career prospects of each individual field and make a decision based on that. On the other hand, career prospects for a Software Engineer are very good. But if you don't like to program, its not recommended that you do that. Definitely DO NOT take electrical since you're already not liking 1E03. Because the courses that you'll see in the ECE, you WILL not like based off of your feedback on 1E03.

EDIT: Don't go for ENG PHYS for sure. I forgot that has loads of circuits too!

I only based part of my decision for what I chose (civil) based on first year classes, but a lot of it is where you see yourself. By the end of 2nd year, your courses will seem more relevant to what your field is and become more interesting. So choose a stream where you can actually picture yourself working in that field. Like for me, I couldn't put up with sitting in front of a computer day after day, so software was knocked off my list, and I liked being able to do site visits so that narrowed it down nicely for me.

Look at some of your interests (whether school related or not) and see if you could see yourself working and designing those things and that may be able to give you a general idea, or at least a direction to start looking

Hey Ahmed, it's a tough choice for many first year engineering students. You should definitely study something that you like!

You suggested civil engineering as an option. From what i read in your post, it seems to me that civil might be the right choice for you! In civil engineering you will deal a lot with mechanics. In fact, mechanics is the basis of civil engineering! You can't design a good structure without a good understanding of how the structure will react to the various loads applied to it (dead loads, live loads, etc.). In second year you learn statics and strength of materials (2p04 &2c04). These 2 courses are very important for you to understand. From there you will combine what you learned in those 2 course in several 3rd/4th year courses like structural analysis, concrete design, etc.

I hope i am not boring you :p I just want you to see how mechanics is very important in civil engineering. I also would like to point out that "strength of materials" is different from the materials course that you learn in first year. I mean we do deal with stress, strain, torsion, and all that, but we study them in a way that they relate to civil engineering. Personally, i didn't like 1m03 in first year, but definitely enjoyed the strength of materials that we learned in civil.

If you have an interest in mechanics, definitely look into civil engineering. About 1c03, i also didn't like that course in first year :p Programs like the one used in 1c03 are important for civil engineering technologists, but they would still come in handy for us. Don't sweat it too much, you can easily learn these programs Your primary concern as a civil engineering student should be math and mechanics, and their applications to civil engineering as you will see and experience if you decide to study civil.

Definitely do more research before making a big decision like that. Look into the courses in civil and maybe if you want talk to profs/upper year students and ask them questions.

CAD is used in year projects for mechanical and in 4th year there is an technical elective called CAD/CAM. Other than that, I don't recall much occasion that requires Autodesk Inventor.

Though, CAD is very important tool for mechanical engineers.

Most of (at least 2nd/3rd year) courses requires analytical calculations and solution only, not much use of computation software. Although Matlab may come into help in labs

If you don't mind programming, have you considered mechatronics or civil as others stated?

Wow I didn't expect so many responses so quickly, thank you all for your advice, it honestly is extremely helpful! So I decided that I'm going to go with civil engineering after all, if anyone here is in civil, can you please tell me how much drawing and chemistry is involved? However, I'm still somewhat considering mechanical, depending on how much I end up liking 1C03 by the end of the term.

I really wish there was an easier way to learn autocad, I find the way they teach it in labs to be really inefficient, they should atleast let us follow along on our own computers while they teach it. Just sitting there watching the TA do it for 30 mins usually puts you to sleep and it's really hard to recall what they did afterwards. If they atleast went by the textbook we could follow along by reading the textbook before the labs so we're atleast somewhat prepared but nope, they don't do that. It really frustrates me.

Again thank you all for your responses, they've honestly helped me a lot!

Originally Posted by Ahmed.N

Wow I didn't expect so many responses so quickly, thank you all for your advice, it honestly is extremely helpful! So I decided that I'm going to go with civil engineering after all, if anyone here is in civil, can you please tell me how much drawing and chemistry is involved? However, I'm still somewhat considering mechanical, depending on how much I end up liking 1C03 by the end of the term.

So far, as in 3rd year civil and mgmt, I have encountered 0 chem and no drawings (there may be drawings in the higher years, not sure)

I have to agree with Snowman, no chem whatsoever. However, if you go into environmental you might, just "might" encounter a bit of chemistry.

As for drawing, i honestly don't think there's any in later years. Judging from the course listings in the undergraduate calendar, it seems that math and mechanics are an asset to have and know. Make sure you understand the stuff they teach you in 2p04 and 2c04, because some of the upper year courses build on them.