Another Engineering question...

I have been conditionally accepted to the college of Engineering in my city if I complete my Calculus class by July 31st. Assuming I do finish the class by then, I am concerned about my knowledge of Chemistry. How much Chemistry should I know before I enter the college? It has been so long, and I would only have a couple of months to review before I go back to school. Maybe I should study for another year before actually returning to school. Do I need to review physics as well? Thoughts?

What are the requirements for chemistry and physics in general and in your major?

if the school requires some general science courses then both chemistry and physics are typical ones taken. a good recall of both at the level from high school will be needed to get through them.

engineering depends on physics, it is applied physics. chemistry is also important for understanding materials which is a huge part of engineering.

High school level Physics and Chemistry were required prerequisites when I went to Engineering school (I didn’t have the latter, and took an entry level community college course the summer between graduating HS and starting college).

It was a while ago, but I seem to remember that of our major freshman year subjects (Calculus, Chemistry and Physics) a good number of students had no problems with 2 of the 3, but for whatever reason struggled a lot more with the third at that level, with the area of specific weakness depending on the individual person (and once you fall behind, it’s a tough hole to dig yourself out of…I remember people changing majors because they just never “got” Statics 101).

So I don’t mean to worry you excessively but IME you definitely want to be adequately prepared, if you’re having doubts I’d suggest talking to some admissions people about where you’re at and asking their advice.

Thanks all, I feel prepared in Math, but less so in Physics, and Chem. I will e-mail them and see what they think.

Being an Engineering Professor I gravitate towards these threads and would like to help, but you don’t say what branch of Engineering you’re interested in. For electrical and civil you need typically 1-2 chem classes with lab. For mechanical you may need many more if you decide to go into materials science. For chemical or petroleum…well, take a guess.

Unless you go down the Chem E or Pet E track, physics will be more important than chemistry.

To get through the basic chem classes in college something like college prep chemistry in high school will help, but is by no means mandatory. I found General Chem 1 to be a sleep-through class where the hardest thing was working with stoner and dizzy-bitch lab partners who did everything under the sun to destroy the experiments via stupidity and negligence.

At my school, the “Intro to Differential Equations” which was a required course for ALL engineering students had a greater than 50% failure rate (one year it was greater than 2/3 failing or dropping). Later on when I joined the faculty I discovered the course was called the “throttle valve” because it kept the number of engineering students moving on to Junior-level courses at a suitable level.

Your question is kinda vague, “entering college for engineering” could mean a lot of things. But assuming your entering as a first year undergrad, I wouldn’t sweat it. Chem and Physics 101 are usually just rehashes of their highschool equivalents with some calculus thrown in. Statics 101 usually reviews the basic physics before they start with the engineering applications.

Usually the main things you need from HS for low level college science courses is basic math (algebra, geometry), so if your doing OK in your calculus course, I wouldn’t worry about the other stuff.

Yes it is an undergrad degree. The first semester has Calculus and Chemistry (no physics I think). Right now my Calculus class is fairly intense and covers both 1st and 2nd term calculus in the program I am entering. So my math skills at the lease should be strong for a first year student, but I wasn’t sure what to expect out of Chemistry.

Also, the first year of the program is general for everyone. I hope to move into electrical or computer engineering in the second year.

I majored in electrical engineering/computer science at MIT. My freshman year 5.01, the basic chemistry class, was closed because it was so bad it needed to be reworked. We could take organic, or beginning metallurgy taught by an emeritus prof, hardly any homework, and trivial tests. You can imagine what EEs chose.
I’ve never felt the lack of chemistry and I’ve been doing this for 40 years.
Physics, on the other hand, is useful.

I think chemistry would be useful if you wanted to work on packaging technology, but that’s about it.