I'm one of the many engineering students who will soon be picking the field they want to into next year. I was wondering if I could get some info out of any other engineering students. Things like what program you guys are in. Why you like it? What you dislike about it or could do without. If you're doing co-op then what type of jobs are you ding? What are you learning in your 2nd, 3rd, or whatever year you're in? What were your other choices and why?

Ya a lot of questions, but don't need to answer all of them . Just want any type of info!

My current preferred list of engineering fields:
1. Materials or Mechanical
2. Mechatronics
3. Electrical/Computer
4. Chem or chem+bio program
5. Engineering Physics (preferably nuclear)
6. Biomed

Tron here.

What can I say? If you ever played with Lego as a kid, you know when the Lego Robotics Kit first came out on the market. If your mouth watered every time you saw it in Toys R' Us, you're pretty much a Tron student already.

Mechatronics is the combination of Mechanical, Electrical, and Computer systems. Basically, it means you'll be learning about all three fields, and how to combine them into MORE AWESOME. Plus robots are cool.

I'm in third year. Right now, we're learning assembly code, verilog, and massive amounts of other languages, and how to use them in microcontrollers. A lot of our labs involve playing with embedded systems. So far, we've designed a stepper motor controller, a temperature-sensitive cooling system, a 'reaction' timing game, a digital clock, a binary counter, and tons of other weird stuff.

i think the biggest concern for Tron students is the 'Jack of all trades, master of none'. We're not as good as software engineers in software. We're not as good as mech in mechanical systems. We're not going to beat eng phys at a 'being eng phys' contest. But we're really versatile and end up in almost every field. Think of bleach and soap. Soap isn't as good as bleach for getting stains out of white clothes, but soap can be used everywhere, and bleach can't.

Basically, Tron is a course for those who like to make things that move and flash and ring and stuff. Robot cars, cell phones, clocks - anything with electronic, software, and/or mechanical systems is under the Tron umbrella.

if you love coding/algorithms/proofs/math then get into Software Eng.

Hey snaps, what's Software like? I'm thinking about that for second year. All these *******s keep telling me it shouldn't be in the engineering field, but what do they know :p

Someone when I asked long ago told me that you don't do any programming (but this person was in computer and electrical).

Any insight?

Software don't do a lot of programming persay - but it comes up in assignments and sometimes it's assumed you know what's going on. Second year has a C/Java programming course (was 4 years ago, anyways ) and 3rd year had some Haskell/general language courses and an assembly course. Other than that, some of the assignments we do may include the odd question (though they haven't in a while) which involves programming.

Software Engineering is - just like every other field of engineering - about design. (Some) Civil Engineers design bridges. They don't build them. Similarly, software engineers design software - we don't build it. Of course, there's some overlap in all of these... but you get what I'm saying. We learn about requirements, math, concepts, proofs, design, logic etc. For example, as part of our final year thesis we're building autonomous hovercrafts... and a whole bunch of our marks is the Software Requirements and Software Design documents which support the software. We have to mathematically prove (in some cases) that the design satisfies the requirements before we go and write a line of code.

So no, Software Engineering isn't a lot of programming... but if you like/are good at it - it probably means you have a mind that will adapt well to a lot of the stuff that we learn. A lot of it is logical type things rather than a lot of the theoretical stuff you may find in Eng Phys, for instance.

Hope that helps...

Materials FTW!

I really, really love materials. It's so practical! At first you learn a lot of thermodynamics, the basics of it all, and then you get into things like high/low temperature materials production (3rd year), and things like steelmaking, metallurgy, ceramics, polymers... whatever you're interested in. EVERYTHING is made out of materials, so you can essentially do anything!

I never really liked chemistry in high school (I think it's because I had a bad teacher) but materials is definitely the program with the most chemistry in it. Chem Eng is more about processes, from what I hear.


BONUS! Society

I'm also in the society program and I would HIGHLY recommend this to everyone!! Society extends your stay here at lovely McMaster to 5 years. You get to take a focus elective (I'm doing theatre and film, others do poli sci, religious studies, philosophy, or a general theme such as pop culture and take courses relating to that) as well as taking courses on sustainability, culture and technology and the world around us and the society we live in.

The classes are REALLY enjoyable, and give good marks (think easy 11-12! plus however hard/easy your electives are - sure brings up my mark!). I'm currently in the one semester where there is no society class and I am DYING. I'm dying for discussion about world issues and hot topics, and debates among classmates. It's just SO fun and something you wouldn't learn anywhere else. Gotta love soft skills!

Do society!
...And materials!
........ If you want to!

i fully agree with 'DavidR'

anyone can learn the syntax of a language and write a half ass program.. but it takes a skill to design a program that meets the proper balance of efficiency, security, and deadline.. and software eng is where you obtain the skill..

just a warning though.. if you dont want to do this then dont do it.. i know alot of people that regretted going into software or dropped out because they imagined it differently or just didnt know what else to get into.

What kind of things does one do in software? I mean in terms of projects and stuff.

these are some classes from semester 2.. i believe some of the classes only apply to Software Engineering with Embedded Systems since thats what im taking..



Discrete Mathematics assignment:
http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/~khedri/w...ssignment2.pdf


Algorithms and Data structures assignment:
http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/~se2c03/Assignments/as2.pdf


mathematical modelling of systems assignment:
http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/~mohrens/2mx3/ass1.pdf


Software Design I assignment
NOTE: external link since website is on webct
http://www.fileqube.com/file/JKnNaoPA176827


Mathematics Midterm1 solutions:
http://www.math.mcmaster.ca/gabardo/M2MM3-t1-sol.pdf


etc...

Wow... I shouldn't be able to understand any of that in first year, right? I'm guessing the second year classes may be changed again to match the change in the math courses that occurred in engineering one this year. We've done next to nothing on linear algebra :p

Hey guys, I think I want to do elec, but the only thing that worries me is I have heard that elec has the hardest math courses and Im not doing so great in math this year. Is this true? I am really interested in circuitry etc. but its just the math aspect that kind if worries me.

Other than this, does anywone have any general opinions about electrical engineering? From what I can see from the co-op postings, it seems to be where all the jobs are at, but Id like to be doing an interesting program too.

From what I understand, if you're in electrical, you have to do a lot of differential equations... so get good at those! :p

I wouldn't base your decision entirely on the math aspect. I'm sure every stream is difficult in one way or another.

Eng Phys, Comp, and elec have a different math than the other streams. 2P04 and 2Q04 instead of 2M03 and 2MM3. In my year, the biggest difference was they did one or two chapters and didn't get formulas on their tests.

There is a lot of math, but if you're interested in it, I would say go for it, and if you're struggling you can switch later - don't give up so readily!

Could I get some more info from the mech students? There seems to be a thread created solely for materials. So I was wondering if some mech students could help me out here :S

I have no idea what so ever what I wanna pick. Materials or Mech...

Also if I go into mech or matls. How hard is it to switch from one to the other?