[Ownaginatios]

Originally Posted by JKSLYR

design a rooftop rainwater harvester, decide it's impractical, then bury it in the ground instead. And then decide it's better to mount it on a helicopter to eat the clouds and have really long dangling straws so the people of Saharan Africa can just reach up and take a sip as it soars overhead.

1P03 project?

[Lois]

Originally Posted by Rossclot

That is not true, McDonalds and Burger King are always hiring you guys.

Every time an engineer gets hired, 100 artsies get their spatula.




hahaha in one of the bathrooms in the arts maze someone wrote "Good luck on exams" and below it someone else wrote "Good luck making my Baconator"

I'm not an Arts Student, but okay.

[Hallandale]

Originally Posted by Rossclot

That is not true, McDonalds and Burger King are always hiring you guys.

Every time an engineer gets hired, 100 artsies get their spatula.




hahaha in one of the bathrooms in the arts maze someone wrote "Good luck on exams" and below it someone else wrote "Good luck making my Baconator"

You're hilarious.
I'm speechless here, basking in the glow of your stellar wit.

I wish engineers would just drop the whole "Artsies are going to flip burgers" thing. It was funny for like, 15 seconds, during frosh week. But to honestly think that people graduating with a BA instead of a B.Eng are going to end up all working jobs like that (not that there's anything wrong with flipping burgers!) is just ignorant.

It brings me to the point that I wanted to add to this:
Make sure your year has balance.
Because of the workload, and the fact that people in the faculty have it too, your study partners will be your friends. Which creates a bit of a social bubble. (Which is only strengthened by a huge amount of faculty pride). Just because you're in engineering, doesn't mean you have to hang out with only engineers and go to only engineering events.

I urge you to get involved in other ways in the school, rather than just going to engineering events and doing engineering clubs. Don't get me wrong, Engineering events and clubs are cool. But McMaster has so much more to offer.

Find friends in other faculties, not just engineering. A lot of engineering articles say to go to engineering events to meet people to help you study and get by and whatnot.

You need balance.
If you're only concerned about academics, you can look at it this way:
Once you get out into the workforce, you're going to be working with all sorts of people, not just engineers. I daresay some of the most successful engineers don't even interact with engineers on a daily basis. Learn to work with different personality types and people with different interests. It will set you up for longterm success.

[Mahratta]

Originally Posted by mike_302

I have a few health sci friends: They admit they don't have too much work due weekly, or as frequent tests, or even as many exams as us! And they will admit their physics isn't as hard as ours, or their math.

This is the only bit I have qualms with. As far as I know, health science students take the Math 1A03 / 1AA3 combination and the physics 1B03 / 1BB3 (or 1BA3) combination. The physics courses are the same courses physics majors take, and the math courses are (basically, with less proofwork) the same courses math majors take, minus 1B03. While I do know that the engineering courses (1Z04,1ZZ5) cover different material than the math courses (1A03,1AA3,1B03), I highly doubt that one is 'easier' than the other. If anything, I'd expect the courses for math majors to be more mathematically challenging than the application-based courses for engineers.
The same applies for physics - engineers cover different material their year of physics than physical science students do (very different, in the second course), but I highly doubt once again that the engineering physics is any harder than the physics for physics majors.

Now, if they were taking Math 1LS3 or physics 1L03, then your point definitely stands.

[Ownaginatios]

Originally Posted by Mahratta

As far as I know, health science students take the Math 1A03 / 1AA3 combination and the physics 1B03 / 1BB3 (or 1BA3) combination.

They can take them as electives. They don't have to take them if they don't want.

While I do know that the engineering courses (1Z04,1ZZ5) cover different material than the math courses (1A03,1AA3,1B03), I highly doubt that one is 'easier' than the other. If anything, I'd expect the courses for math majors to be more mathematically challenging than the application-based courses for engineers.

What makes them hard is that unlike in a true math course where you just learn about one thing (i.e. linear algebra), we get a million things (which are sometimes completely unrelated) thrown at us with only maybe one lecture max spent on each.

So in other words, it's harder in the way it's taught....

I'm still lost as to how vector calculus and partial differential equations fit together in one course... lol

[micadjems]

Originally Posted by Forthex

I do not agree at all with removing bias from my article; this is an article by a first year engineer, specifically for new first year engineering students in the fall. I'm sure many of you all know, we have biases against other faculties. The Red Suits during Frosh week taught me this well, and now that I will be a Red Suit / Engineering Frosh Controller in the fall, I feel I must pass this on, as well as all other aspects of Engineering culture. The biases and jabs are, of course, playful and non-harmful in nature, but they're there and are an integral part of the Engineering experience.

Andrew, I just dont know if I can agree with this part. We try to do a good job to let everyone know that jabs we pull on frosh week are for frosh week and fun only - we dont actually feel that way about artsies, even though some of them may fit the stereotype, obviously all of them do not.

I do not feel that teaching first years that other students just don't work as hard as us is an "intergral part of the eng experience". It just doesnt sit right with me :/

_____________________ ____________________

Unrelated to that: I have actually found my engineering years getting easier. I feel like my courses are more specific and relate to each other, and I have found how I work and pass courses better

[mike_302]

I love how people are still talking about the health sci thing and trying to argue for or against it It was already said: This is an engineering thread. Not a place where other faculties try to prove to themselves that all the engineering courses are the same difficulty as theirs...

Anyways, about the math thing: It's going to be different next year, with 3 courses, splitting some of that "non-sense" and confusion into 3 courses. Maybe then you won't go from integrals to complex numbers, then to polar coordinates, and then matrices, literally with a couple days between each topic

[Ownaginatios]

Originally Posted by mike_302

I love how people are still talking about the health sci thing and trying to argue for or against it It was already said: This is an engineering thread. Not a place where other faculties try to prove to themselves that all the engineering courses are the same difficulty as theirs...

Anyways, about the math thing: It's going to be different next year, with 3 courses, splitting some of that "non-sense" and confusion into 3 courses. Maybe then you won't go from integrals to complex numbers, then to polar coordinates, and then matrices, literally with a couple days between each topic

btw, are Math 1Z04 and 1ZZ5 still entirely multiple choice for exams and tests?

[mike_302]

yea :( well, 2 marks on the exam to know your name

[khaotic]

Originally Posted by mike_302

yea :( well, 2 marks on the exam to know your name

Lol the free marks for version numbers to?

I miss those...

I'm still lost as to how vector calculus and partial differential equations fit together in one course... lol

Honestly... I have no idea why we didn't learn Fourier series and then PDE's. Instead he decided to teach one at the start and one at the end. Then he decided to stick a bunch of random vector calc topics between them... O_o

[Ownaginatios]

Originally Posted by mike_302

yea :( well, 2 marks on the exam to know your name

Oh weird, some first year just wrote a review on Math 1ZZ5 about how tests are marked fairly... which I find weird when it's multiple choice.

[JKSLYR]

I don't like to be unfair to other faculties.

But engineering is so damn cool.

[Rossclot]

Originally Posted by Hallandale

You're hilarious.

I wish engineers would just drop the whole "Artsies are going to flip burgers" thing. It was funny for like, 15 seconds, during frosh week. But to honestly think that people graduating with a BA instead of a B.Eng are going to end up all working jobs like that (not that there's anything wrong with flipping burgers!) is just ignorant.

Calm down mike it's a joke. If you compare both degrees, engineering teaches you a skill specific to your stream, and you probably end up working in that field. Having a BA teaches you skills, but your job will probably not be related to your stream. There is a large number of people who graduate with BA who return to college to learn a trade because finding work with a BA is much harder. Those who dont typically dont use the knowledge they learned in their jobs, but the reading and writing skills they learned. There are of course a lot of exceptions, but in general you wont be working in the field your BA was in.

The spatula references are part of a long tradition of fraternity between the faculties. A wise person I know once mentioned that it was like playful fighting between siblings. If the spatula jokes really bother you, you should try to relax a bit more and be more accepting of other people. This stuff is about being friends with everyone, not turning your nose up at people. We are all in the same boat, after all.

[JBeans]

Originally Posted by micadjems

Unrelated to that: I have actually found my engineering years getting easier. I feel like my courses are more specific and relate to each other, and I have found how I work and pass courses better

I thought it was getting easier too, until this last year. The last 6 weeks have been a killer with all the final projects all due in the same week, right at the very end. By the time you get close to the end, I find the work isn't hard, its just the volume of work to do. Too many hours in Thode for me (and I already basically live there).

Jackie, piece of advice for next year...start EARLY! Nothing is too early with Matls 4Z06 and 4L04 to finish at the end (but I heard the 2 terms are getting swapped next year in 4L)