Statics was one of the easiest classes in the entirety of the engineering curriculum.

All you need to know is:

• ⁠How to draw a FBD (with a defined coordinate system)
• ⁠Sum of Forces in the X = 0
• ⁠Sum of Forces in the Y = 0
• ⁠Sum of the Moment about a point = 0
• ⁠positition vector formula
• ⁠unit vector formula
• ⁠calculate magnitude of a vector
• ⁠projection formula
• ⁠basic trig

If you know these, you can solve any statics problem. You can learn the position vector, unit vector, magnitude, and projection vector formulas in less than 20 minutes.

(Static Moments of Inertia and Friction problems require a couple more basic things of knowledge.)

Just need to rant. I'm non traditional going back for EE. Due to being non traditional with a family and bills, I also have to work. Due to working less to make room for classes, we are pretty broke atm. Got some fafsa, and some other grants that would pay for 100% of my classes. But because I have to work 20 hours a week to make ends meet, I'm only taking 8 credit hours. Unfortunately for me, I already knocked out all my ace electives at the community college.

Well financial aid was posted. It will only pay for 40% of my classes. Lost a bunch of grants because I'm not doing 12 credit hours. Problem being, to reach 12 credit hours this semester, I'd have to take intro to EE, intro to programming, linear algebra, diffeq and calc 3. Which we all know would be impossible to do while working 20 hours a week. And since I knocked out ace electives, I have no fluff classes.

Just seems broken. A student not working and going full time is financially better off than I am. I can't afford to not work. But due to me having to work, I lose aid. Engineering being so time consuming is also part of the issue, as one math class takes the same amount of time as half of another areas semester.

Honestly, it's might be better to stop working and go full time. Working a low wage job just to have the freedom to be able to step away to do the homework, almost pays the same as the aid I would receive. But I'd get done quicker with a couple thousand more in debt per year by not working.

Rant, they really need to change this system. Or at least have fafsa take into account hours worked. If you work 20 hours, that should have a credit equivalent.

Also curious, anyone else run into the same issue? What did you do?

Edit. Since I'm getting a lot of crap. I also have a child, children take time. Driving them to school, moving them around to sitter and events, helping them with school. We also have a home, so I also have to do maintenance. I can't just retreat to my small apartment and spend all free time doing homework. On top of that my wife is also working slowly towards a masters. So we have a lot going on and a lot of balancing we have to do.

Will hand in my thesis tomorrow and felt it was fitting, also if anyone’s into Timoshenko beam elements and wants to do some proof reading :)

For someone who works minimum wage job , and willing to study engineering (any field) and dont wanna get stuck in loans , are there ways to study online and get a degree that employer can accept?

To keep a long story short, my dynamics teacher last semester absolutely did not have any knowledge on the subject and taught word for word from the textbook, couldn’t provide help for a simple question yada yada yada. After our first test, she announced that there would be no more tests or a final, and the STUDENTS WOULD BE TEACHING EACH OTHER. Yes, we all had to teach each other a subject we didn’t know. We would read material ahead of time and prepare a PowerPoint presentation. I don’t think I have to even say it, but literally nothing was learned from watching each other’s PowerPoints, not being able to ask questions and not getting any assignments or assessments. At the end of the year she just passed everyone with an A. This was during my athletic season so I honestly was happy with the easy class at the time but now I don’t know shit about dynamics. Has anyone gone through something similar, and how would you recommend actually learning the material?

TL:DR: My dynamics teacher decided to stop teaching us a month into the course, basically gave us all A’s, and now I know nothing.

i took intro to stats and probability during high school so i have at least a background but im literally feeling so fucking dumb in my statistical analysis class in engineering why is nothing making sense suddenly?? did calculus rewire my brain or something

I'm about halfway thru week 3 and just finished learning about partial fraction decomposition. Everything so far makes sense conceptually, it's just pretty tedious and can be sloppy. This stuff is difficult, but not that much harder than Calc 1. People speak of Calc 2 like it's an urban legend. At what point might I start seeing topics that prove why Calc 2 is so difficult?

Hello all. Joined this sub when I flunked out a few years ago, graduated in December and now have 2 job offers! I want to see what you guys would consider. Both are the same commute.

Offer 1 is 75k with 3.6 bonus as an Associate Application Engineer. Liked the office better and seems to be a great place to be. Job seems pretty chill.

Offer 2 is 75k with 8.5% bonus as a Test Engineer. This role involves more stereotypical engineer work. It’s a cooler job than offer 1, but I hear mixed opinions about Test Engineer work with the documentation and policies. But seems to be closer to what I’d want to do.

I’m really torn, offer 2 seems to have a more fun job, but offer 1 seems to have a better office environment. I’d also add that Offer 2 is a much bigger company and you all know it very well, but offer 1 is also a pretty big company.

What do y’all think? I’m very torn right now.

So I was just in here a few days ago about working loads of hours while in school. Well now I have a new issue, or so it feels like…

So I am a mechanical engineering student (second-year) for some context. It has been a dream of mine to be an engineer although when I was younger, I could never put my finger on why I wanted to be an engineer. I kind of thought of engineers as the cool people that make pretty much everything and I wanted to hop on that train and be a part of the engineering industry.

Well.. I have been having some second thoughts. Do I want to do mechanical engineering? I don’t know. I am stuck between civil and mechanical engineering because I think I like the construction side of things, HOWEVER…

My parents are kind of getting to me. They tell me that maybe I am not cut out for engineering and that I am losing passion. And I think it’s taken a toll on me. I cannot get back into the “I can do it!” mindset. It’s making me depressed. On top of that, it’s been an expectation for me to do summer classes and work full time. I did that this summer. But the issue is is that since graduating high school, I feel like it’s nonstop. I have been taking summer classes every semester since starting junior year of high school for dual enrollment and now that expectation has followed me into college.

I don’t think that I am losing passion, I think it’s more of being burnt out rather than losing passion. My other issue is that my father keeps telling me that I am going to end up being a science teacher. Like, numerous times a week. He’s told my entire family about it and they keep telling me about it.

TL;DR: I am having “a little less than a quarter” life crisis and don’t know what to do and my parents are putting it into my head that I am not cut out for engineering and that I need to go into another profession.

In case you don’t wanna read all that:
1. Is there anything I can do to prepare for an engineering major (that might also pad my application)?
2. What are some softwares I should learn to use?
3. Some simple project ideas would be appreciated.

First off, I apologize if this isn’t really the right sub for this but I digress; I’m currently a junior in HS and interested in majoring in some form of engineering (Heavily leaning to aerospace). Anyway, whenever I see any videos related to becoming an engineer, the thing that stands out most to me is the sheer complexity of the tasks. Besides the fact that I can’t comprehended any of the math on the screen, tons of people have projects and are competing in hackathons or other engineering competitions and I just can’t see myself doing any of those things in a few years.

Considering I’m terrified of going to college and failing out of the engineering school like my dad did, I wanted to ask if there’s anything that I could/should be doing prior to college. I’m mostly interested in designing something, (thanks to the reels showing you easy projects) so I was wondering if there’s any “starter projects” or first steps I should be taking.

I have access to a 3d printer, a high end computer and money isn’t really an object. I did try to do some research before coming here, and most of the stuff I found seems pretty advanced. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

I’m looking for some advice. Today, I received a call for my first job offer. They are asking for a decision by tomorrow, however I have another company I am waiting to hear back from.

Would it be professional or appropriate to ask for a one week extension before making my decision? The company I am waiting on aligns closer to my passions and goals, but I don’t want to risk losing an offer either. Thank you.

Hi lads! I'm looking for some references/examples of Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams (P&IDs), particularly for process systems.

I'm currently practicing how to read and redraw P&IDs, and I'd like to find some good examples to use as references.

I'm especially interested in diagrams that show process equipment, piping, valves, and instrumentation clearly.

Any recommended resources, websites, textbooks, or example P&IDs would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Hey yall, just looking for some advice. I'm doing three courses in my masters this semester with no other commitments. It's my first semester and tbh, I feel like I messed up big time because the required courses all feel crazy intense. It's my first time taking courses in a few years, I just moved for this program, and I've got no one here. Basically I'm saying I'm overwhelmed and lonely as hell, and my mental health is kinda suffering pretty bad (not only from this but other externalities I won't go into. Nothing too crazy but draining). I'm afraid I'm not going to actually learn the material.

It's past the add/drop date so it'd cost me some money, but do yall think it'd be a good idea to withdraw from one course and just focus on two? Thanks for any advice.

my first day of classes start tomorrow and looking at all my syllabi 3 exams pretty much make up all of my grade for most of my classes. when should i start intentionally studying / reviewing for midterms. like if i want to get top scores, should i start 2+ weeks before a major exam or even earlier? what does your study schedule typically look like before a mt / final?

Ok

Background: Current Freshman like a week of knowledge. So first I go to a small private school without a lot of engineering clubs other than maybe FSAE (very new), IEEE and those weird engineering frats. My school isn't well known so I want to stand out through this and build some cool things because thats why I got into engineering

I have the idea of making cool projects with my friends 1st yr. We are thinking of making a drone with an umbrella that follows your around using phone gps so that rain doesn't get on you. 2nd project is like a roomba but for grass so it automatically cuts grass outside so you don't have to everyday.

Once we get those done (hopefully one every 1 semester) we reach out to companies 2nd year and show them what we made and kinda pitch them a partnership for a product or something they want built (hopefully through alums or profs). They could provide funding, materials, or an engineer to mentor us, and we would build and test a prototype for them.

The goal is to make these projects similar to a senior design or capstone project, where students work on a real problem from a company and present the finished project to them. If the company is happy with our work, it could lead to more projects, stronger partnerships, and potentially internship opportunities for students who worked on the project.

We would also document the projects through our website and YouTube channel so companies and students can see what we have built. Over the four years, we could grow the club, take on more advanced projects, bring in more EE, ME, and CS students, and eventually have multiple teams working on different projects at the same time.

I am currently in year 11 and do specialist maths, methods, accounting and finance, engineering star and English. I want to do an engineering pathway but think I might need physics to get in. I am unsure in what course to take (this is more in general). is it worth dropping accounting and finance and doing physics in year 12 or is specialist maths and engineering enough. I am good at maths btw.

Hello. I am currently starting an undergraduate research positiomn for a professor and I am wondering how to keep track of progress. Should I just keep a word doc or a powerpoint deck? How do you guys do it?

Hello everyone,

I am an electronics and electrical communication engineering fresh grade and I have a very bad GPA 2/4

but I have taped out an edge ai chip for my graduation project and it was sponsored by a small design house on some old node and fortunately this chip went commercial. I also have 2 ieee publications ( the 2 papers are related to my graduation project). I need to apply to a master at one of top tier universities specially in Europe to make up the bad bachelor records but I think I won't be accepted due to this GPA. any recommendations or advices ?

It doesn't have to be sponsored, I can self fund my master

I’m grinding a lot of Signal Problems lately (Fourier Transforms, Convolutions, Sampling, LTI Systems (and even non-LTI systems) and many other stuff, I don’t know why, but after doing this stuff for more than a few hours, my head starts HURTING after using my maximum brain capacity into trying to stay concentrated in order to not make STUPID mistakes (like messing up the limits in a definite integral after a variable change), I feel that my brain is fried afterwards and I sometimes have to wait hours for the effect to start vanishing, is it normal that this happens?

I’m currently a senior in EE and will graduate in May. What time am I supposed to start applying for a post-grad full time job? I know this time last year I was mass applying to internships, had most of my interviews in October and November, and all my offers/rejections by the beginning of December. Is the timeline the same for full time jobs or is it later?

Title: Does missing the CSWA actually hurt chances for Mech Design / Mechatronics co-ops?

Hi everyone,

I’m heading into my third year of Mechanical Engineering and applying for May 2027 co-op positions (primarily targeting Mechanical Design and Mechatronics roles).

I had the opportunity to take the CSWA through a second-year design course, but I didn't pass the exam (mostly tripped up by the strict time constraints, though I passed the course itself). I have solid hands-on experience using SOLIDWORKS for actual design projects and feel comfortable navigating the software.

I have the option to retake it in the next couple of weeks (I may have to pay), but I want to know:

• How much do recruiters/hiring managers actually care about having the CSWA on a resume?
• Is it worth retaking right now, or should I focus that time on portfolio/project work?

Appreciate any insights from past interns or hiring managers!

I'm a petroleum engineering grad from the American University in Cairo (Egypt). Program is ABET accredited. my gpa's are as stated in the title. i have three years of semi relevant work experience, and i wanna shift careers into renewable energy, AES at Colorado School of Mines is one of the best renewable energy programs in the U.S., but they dont have a sharp GPA cutoff stated on their program website. what are my chances of getting in as an international student? at colorado school of mines or other renewable energy master's in the U.S. for that matter?

I'm currently in my last year of college studying Computer Science, but I've been seriously considering switching to Computer Engineering.

My long-term goal is to pursue a Master's in Mechanical Engineering, specifically focusing on areas such as dynamics and thermodynamics.

What makes this decision difficult is that switching to Computer Engineering would require roughly the same number of remaining classes as finishing my Computer Science degree, so it wouldn't significantly delay my graduation.

I'm also considering adding a minor in Physics to strengthen my mathematics and engineering background. The coursework would include subjects such as classical mechanics, thermal physics, modern physics, and additional mathematics.

I'm trying to determine which path would better prepare me and make me a stronger candidate for an MS in Mechanical Engineering:

1. BS in Computer Science + Physics minor
2. BS in Computer Engineering + Physics minor

Would Computer Engineering provide a meaningful advantage over Computer Science when applying to Mechanical Engineering graduate programs, particularly for someone interested in dynamics and thermodynamics? Or would finishing the CS degree and adding a Physics minor be a better path?

I understand that neither degree is traditional Mechanical Engineering, so I'm also planning to take relevant prerequisite courses to fill gaps in my background.

For those with experience in graduate engineering admissions or transitioning between engineering disciplines, I'd really appreciate your perspective.

Which path would you recommend for someone ultimately interested in Mechanical Engineering research involving dynamics and thermodynamics?

I want to work in motorsport for a career and I’m starting my A Levels in a week’s time and I’m taking Maths, Physics and Chemistry, and Further Maths with the option to drop it. I want to do Motorsport Engineering at uni.

I don’t think I would do both years of FM and I would just do the AS. So I have a few questions regarding it:

• How useful would FM be for this course?
• If I don’t take FM, how much catching up will I need to do at university?
• Am I better off putting my time and effort into the other 3 subjects?
• If I do chose to do AS Level FM, will universities look favourably towards it?
• I want to do an EPQ, specifically about motorsport. Will I have better university and employment opportunities with an EPQ specifically in motorsport or Further Maths?