Originally Posted by *spark*

You can go ahead and try if you like but I'm just trying to warn you that it probably won't work out because of the permissions and physical constraints. I know a person that had an awesome gpa and had a hard time trying to overload by just one course. I also have a friend who tried to simply take a few upper level courses ahead of time to free up some space in fourth year, but found out that it wasn't possible because of conflicting cores, so all that trouble went to waste. You can try talking to an academic counselor but I can almost guarantee you that they'll tell you it's impossible.

It would just be a big disappointment if you try to overload and take a bunch of courses every summer and then find out that it really won't work out even though you've already put so much effort (and probably gotten lower grades than you otherwise would be able to achieve).

It may turn out exactly as you said but i'll give it a shot anyway. I'll try to make it work in the first few weeks when you can drop a course without academic/financial penalty and if it doesnt then atleast i'll know that i tried
But yeah judging by how no one else has done it before successfully , i'm in for a big disappointment .

I think it might be good for you to know something.

You will never please everyone. It is not possible to do so. You will save yourself a lot of stress, headaches and mental issues if you learn this now and stop making your life about what other people want. You're talking about doing something that is next to impossible to do and trying to circumvent the rules by taking on a second workload at another school. This is a terrible plan.

You took time off for yourself, and you have a lot of great memories and experiences to show for it. Own it. There's no shame in this.

Your friends WILL NOT CARE if you're still in school while they're working. They might even be a bit jealous. My best high school friend works at LoyaltyOne and envies the experiences I'm still having here, rather than working 12 hour days in a cubicle.

Enjoy your time at Mac, and stop listening to your parents, because they are wrong.

You are only responsible for your own happiness.

The best advice anyone can give you is to just get over yourself and learn to stop living for other people.

You made the decision to travel for two years. I assume you had a good reason for making that decision, so why are you regretting it now? It's not like you didn't know ahead of time that it would lead to you starting university two years later, and there must have been reasons that made traveling a good idea for you.

It's going to be a big enough adjustment without crazy overloading. Plenty of people actually extend the engineering program from 4 years to 5 years because of the intense workload (and I'm not referring to the 5-year programs, just the normal BEng spread over 5 years instead of 4).

Even if you're some crazy robot, it's not logistically possible to do the degree in three years, and you're not doing yourself any favours by trying. Your GPA will suffer, your health will suffer, and you'll get far less out of your degree.

Honestly, it's not nearly as depressing as you'd think having friends who are working real-life jobs while you're still in school, as long as you know where you're headed and that you'll get there eventually. At least, that's what I've found. What really IS depressing is rushing into things and then screwing yourself over.

Oh boy.
Imagine highschool. Now quadruple the workload. Thats the easiest program in engineering over 4 years (if you let your average drop 20%). You will NOT be able to take more than the required courseload in firstyear. IF, in first year your average is in the top percentiles you will be allowed to overload further your already overloaded courseload. But then that is 3 years in two which, as Spark said, is virtually impossible with the way prerequisites work.

4,5,6 years is VERY common for engineering. Why? Courseload, course difficulty, and COOP.
-Courseload: people get burned out around 3rd year and decide to extend to 5 years. This also gives the added benefit of taking far more technical electives in your final year which gives you more knowledge and skills
-Course difficulty: failed classes combined with prerequisites means many people often have to stay an extra term.
-COOP: A full year of coop with a good company is worth more than your degree. You want that high salary out of school? You need coop to compete with the people that did take it. Now your at 5 years.

The whole "I need to stay with my year" thing is (not to be harsh in any way) childish and tends to disappear for most people between 2-3 year. Guaranteed your friends will joke about taking eng in 3 years once they have spent more time in university. In engineering, completing a degree in 4 years seems not to be the norm, but rather the exception.

As someone who graduated from Engineering in 6 years I don't think this will end up being as big of a deal as you think it will be. Many of my friends from first year graduated 1 or 2 years before I did. Best part about university is that there is always someone else out there to meet.

Also you will be in for a surprise with the workload. My final year consisted of 39 units and it was a very challenging and time consuming feat that I am glad to have accomplished.

Originally Posted by Tsunade

..My parents , relatives and some friends are giving me a horrible time saying stuff like how i have been left behind by school mates and honestly i'm really tired of all the comments they make

If my parents in any way started to dictate what I do in school or what I should do with my life, I would have probably left the country and have not gone to post-secondary schooling like I did

Your relatives don't know what they're talking about and are putting unnecessary pressure on you.

I'm all for being supportive of first year engineering students but... I can't help but wonder if this is all some really weird troll...

How can someone really be so silly and immature after taking 2 years off after high school, and getting into engineering? How do you figure out that you want to study engineering, but get concerned about when your friends graduate, before you even start school?

If you are for real, smarten up and don't try to stuff 4 years of some of the most difficult undergraduate academics, into 3 years... Live a little, get some relevant experience while you do it, and don't waste even 2 weeks of your first year trying to make it happen: The first two weeks aren't when you'll realize you made an enormous mistake. And when your parents bug you about your friends graduating first, then you'll have a responsible answer: You were doing your undergrad the right way.

Originally Posted by Moghue

If it makes you feel better none of your friends will be making 70-80k in their first year after graduation unless they are geniuses

Or if they move out west

The people responding don't understand that OP still has the mind of a high school student. They think university courses and the workload are exactly like high school, and they're used to being a big fish in a little pond, and think that they're "gifted" and can do what no one else can.

To OP, I'm not in engineering, I'm only a humanities student (which, compared to engineering, is a joke) and I was just like you, had straight 90s in high school. I was one of those people everyone went to for essay editing and help with assignments. My first year in university, I got a C in English (my best subject in high school). During my English course, we had essay workshops where we would pair up and edit each others' essays. My partners' essays were unbelievable, to the point where I started to realize that my "writing abilities" were nothing, and even those partners I had with the great essays still couldn't manage to get a mark of an A.

I know the essay-writing thing doesn't apply to you, but the point of my post is for you to get somewhat realistic.
No matter how smart you think you are or how hard you say you're going to work, you're underestimating the difficulty of the program.
Most students who have been accepted into the engineering program are either just as smart as you or even smarter, and out of them, a ton either fail or drop out after first year because they can't handle it.

As for your other problem of graduating 2 years after your high school friends:
You're going to meet people of all ages during your time here, you're going to make new friends, and I don't see the problem in being in school while your friends are out looking for jobs. It's not like you dropped out and have settled for working in fast food the rest of your life. You're an engineering student, that is not in any way anything to be embarrassed or ashamed of, no matter how long it takes.

Originally Posted by Kudos

I think it might be good for you to know something.

You will never please everyone. It is not possible to do so. You will save yourself a lot of stress, headaches and mental issues if you learn this now and stop making your life about what other people want. You're talking about doing something that is next to impossible to do and trying to circumvent the rules by taking on a second workload at another school. This is a terrible plan.

You took time off for yourself, and you have a lot of great memories and experiences to show for it. Own it. There's no shame in this.

Your friends WILL NOT CARE if you're still in school while they're working. They might even be a bit jealous. My best high school friend works at LoyaltyOne and envies the experiences I'm still having here, rather than working 12 hour days in a cubicle.

Enjoy your time at Mac, and stop listening to your parents, because they are wrong.

You are only responsible for your own happiness.

I guess you're somewhat right about me not being able to please everyone ... honestly i dont care myself what friends/relatives think about me .. its just that when my parents started doing the same thing thats when it got hard ...
I accept i took time off on my own and i can't really regret that (not that i should) but there's just some uneasiness inside that i cant get rid of . I hope first year univ. punches me in the face and i'll start seeing things more clearly but for now that's just how feel but i certainly hope that i can get over this attitude of mine .
Thanks though maybe all i needed was to hear from someone else other than me that it's okay to be where i am

Originally Posted by starfish

The best advice anyone can give you is to just get over yourself and learn to stop living for other people.

You made the decision to travel for two years. I assume you had a good reason for making that decision, so why are you regretting it now? It's not like you didn't know ahead of time that it would lead to you starting university two years later, and there must have been reasons that made traveling a good idea for you.

It's going to be a big enough adjustment without crazy overloading. Plenty of people actually extend the engineering program from 4 years to 5 years because of the intense workload (and I'm not referring to the 5-year programs, just the normal BEng spread over 5 years instead of 4).

Even if you're some crazy robot, it's not logistically possible to do the degree in three years, and you're not doing yourself any favours by trying. Your GPA will suffer, your health will suffer, and you'll get far less out of your degree.

Honestly, it's not nearly as depressing as you'd think having friends who are working real-life jobs while you're still in school, as long as you know where you're headed and that you'll get there eventually. At least, that's what I've found. What really IS depressing is rushing into things and then screwing yourself over.

Travelling was FUN , really haha .. I dont regret it one bit . Its just the time i lost that a bit saddening .
I agree with you that my plan would most definitely end up hurting me instead ... but uhh i dont know .. maybe i should just put this whole thing off for now when i'm depressed ... guess i'd really have to go for that counselling afterall

Originally Posted by qwerty91

Oh boy.
Imagine highschool. Now quadruple the workload. Thats the easiest program in engineering over 4 years (if you let your average drop 20%). You will NOT be able to take more than the required courseload in firstyear. IF, in first year your average is in the top percentiles you will be allowed to overload further your already overloaded courseload. But then that is 3 years in two which, as Spark said, is virtually impossible with the way prerequisites work.

4,5,6 years is VERY common for engineering. Why? Courseload, course difficulty, and COOP.
-Courseload: people get burned out around 3rd year and decide to extend to 5 years. This also gives the added benefit of taking far more technical electives in your final year which gives you more knowledge and skills
-Course difficulty: failed classes combined with prerequisites means many people often have to stay an extra term.
-COOP: A full year of coop with a good company is worth more than your degree. You want that high salary out of school? You need coop to compete with the people that did take it. Now your at 5 years.

The whole "I need to stay with my year" thing is (not to be harsh in any way) childish and tends to disappear for most people between 2-3 year. Guaranteed your friends will joke about taking eng in 3 years once they have spent more time in university. In engineering, completing a degree in 4 years seems not to be the norm, but rather the exception.

"The whole "I need to stay with my year" " i myself find that a bit stupid but i just cant get over it really haha . But i do hope it passes with time.
"4 years seems not to be the norm, but rather the exception." lol , ahh but there's no way i'll allow myself to take a day more than 4 years

Originally Posted by mike_302

I'm all for being supportive of first year engineering students but... I can't help but wonder if this is all some really weird troll...

How can someone really be so silly and immature after taking 2 years off after high school, and getting into engineering? How do you figure out that you want to study engineering, but get concerned about when your friends graduate, before you even start school?

If you are for real, smarten up and don't try to stuff 4 years of some of the most difficult undergraduate academics, into 3 years... Live a little, get some relevant experience while you do it, and don't waste even 2 weeks of your first year trying to make it happen: The first two weeks aren't when you'll realize you made an enormous mistake. And when your parents bug you about your friends graduating first, then you'll have a responsible answer: You were doing your undergrad the right way.

I'm not a troll .. before starting this thread i was confident i'll get into summer school and do it in 3 years.. but i'm not so sure now. the only reason i started this thread was to know if there were any more option like online courses that i could do just from home (yeah i was THAT naive) but you guys certainly cleared things up for me.
I hope that i'll get this mess out of my mind and i'll try to be more mature from now on .

Originally Posted by SweetyTweety

The people responding don't understand that OP still has the mind of a high school student. They think university courses and the workload are exactly like high school, and they're used to being a big fish in a little pond, and think that they're "gifted" and can do what no one else can.

To OP, I'm not in engineering, I'm only a humanities student (which, compared to engineering, is a joke) and I was just like you, had straight 90s in high school. I was one of those people everyone went to for essay editing and help with assignments. My first year in university, I got a C in English (my best subject in high school). During my English course, we had essay workshops where we would pair up and edit each others' essays. My partners' essays were unbelievable, to the point where I started to realize that my "writing abilities" were nothing, and even those partners I had with the great essays still couldn't manage to get a mark of an A.

I know the essay-writing thing doesn't apply to you, but the point of my post is for you to get somewhat realistic.
No matter how smart you think you are or how hard you say you're going to work, you're underestimating the difficulty of the program.
Most students who have been accepted into the engineering program are either just as smart as you or even smarter, and out of them, a ton either fail or drop out after first year because they can't handle it.

As for your other problem of graduating 2 years after your high school friends:
You're going to meet people of all ages during your time here, you're going to make new friends, and I don't see the problem in being in school while your friends are out looking for jobs. It's not like you dropped out and have settled for working in fast food the rest of your life. You're an engineering student, that is not in any way anything to be embarrassed or ashamed of, no matter how long it takes.

certainly not gifted but i think i'm pretty hardworking ... and at this point i also agree it looks impossible . But whenever i'm alone , i start thinking and thats when i start feeling bad. I know that the way i kept asking for more options i might have come off as a bit arrogant and full of myself and i apologize for that. It's just that i was a bit desperate and overlooked facts but i see them now.
I also dont think humanities is a joke at all ... i maynot know a whole lot about the program but some of the people i know struggled in it..... everyone has to work just as hard.
And yeah i hope i make new friends at mac and try to get rid of these stupid thoughts .

I want to thank everyone who gave me advice ..it was really helpful.
I started this thread to know about the options and what needed to do in my first year to finish it in 3 years .but i can see it clearly now thats its almost impossible and i might end up hurting myself in the process. I havent discarded the whole idea yet (that will take some time) but i'll try not to please others and give let things run at their own pace .
Thanks everyone hope you all have a great year !