What is a Typical Schedule/Day Like for an Engineering Student?
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- čas přidán 30. 07. 2024
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In this video i discuss what a typical day and schedule is like for an engineering student. I can't speak for all students but I do outline what my schedule was like and how much I worked.
Typically incoming engineering students are afraid that they will be overwhelmed with work and won't be able to have a life outside of school. The day in the life of an engineering student will differ from person to person, but many of the engineers I knew managed to find a balance between school and other activities.
A college day doesn't usually involve that much class (maybe around 4 hours on average), so it is important you use your free time and breaks to study or complete homework. Doing this will free up your time in the evening and night or at least reduce the amount of work you need to do.
Now be aware there will be semesters where you have a lot of units or you are taking very demanding classes. It is those times where you might be studying for 30-40 hours per week to try to stay caught up with everything. However, from experience not every week was this demanding, it just depends on your classes for that semester/quarter.
I've answered this in some comments below but since it's coming up a lot....
I went to school at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (located in California, a little north of Santa Barbara) and I majored in electrical engineering.
What is your name?
It's so hard to get into Cal Poly :(
Honestly Cal Poly kind of confused me. When I first talked to an administrator there at a college night he told me it's almost impossible to get in which scared me cause I really wanted to go. Then I applied and got in. I had a high GPA and decent SAT but it wasn't anything crazy. And I knew plenty of people who got in with pretty average grades so it's hard to pinpoint exactly what it takes to get in.
MajorPrep yeah :/ I got a friend who goes there and know a some people as well. They are all very smart/driven with high GPAs. Im at a community college right now and have a low GPA right now.
Man that's so dope how you went to Cal Poly SLO. My mom's boyfriend went there. That is my dream school, but sadly my gpa isn't good enough for SLO. I just applied as a transfer undergraduate to SJSU, SDSU, Long Beach as aerospace engineering and ME for Sac state and Fullerton. Wish me luck! I'll hopefully hear back from them in February to March.
I highly recommend to stay away from doing all nighters. I once fell asleep during an exam I shit you not.
I disagree
All nighters are very bad. I recommend taking time to actually learn about what ur doing to ur brain by not sleeping 7-8 hours everyday. Not sleeping enough is very bad
Sleep, Schoolwork, Social Life. Pick Two.
XwingMechanic
Exactly!
Accurate, very very accurate. Current IE student, it’s real
No the only option is schoolwork and that it 😂😂
Grades, sleep, social, daily living requirements. Choose any 1 or 2, lol.
Yes
Just because homework isn’t required or graded DOESNT mean you don’t have to do it.
Yes it does, tf?
don't do it unless you wanna fail lol
@@user-wp5nl9yx8e you need the practice. eventually.
(i know u're joking but this seriously is a huge mistake to make)
My homework does get graded, hell we even get graded on reflection of our homework. Oh yeah don't forget to give feedback to your teammates reflection or youll fail class :)
@@user-wp5nl9yx8e bro most of the time the "optional" homework are the exact types of questions that are going to be on the exam i swear
You have one of the highest qualities of informational videos about college related stuff on youtube imo, these videos are so insightful!
Thank you for the comment!
Eat, Sleep, Homework, Repeat! Thanks again for another awesome video MajorPrep! You rock brother :)
Yup those 16 weeks is grind time.
*Showering and bathroom optional.
I saw your Shark Tank pitch a few days ago.
I just wanted to see if you'd reply to this comment
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Jake Voorhees- are u even an engineer bro? why do u make engineering videos?
Popomp P. Yes lol I’m a civil engineer
This is a how a "day in the Life" video should be like.
As a current senior level mechanical engineering student, I can say that most of the things he says is consistent with my college experience. Junior year has definitely been the hardest for me and most people I know. The "killer" classes that everyone talks about are hard, but you have to keep in mind that most professors don't want to see you fail and will help you pass if you put in the work and talk to them.
But they also put out some rediculous requirements a lot of the time. Wich is very discurraging to even aproach them.
Thanks for this, it seems like most engineer CZcams videos try to discourage you for some reason, this gave me everything I needed to know. Kudos man
Glad you liked it! Thanks for the comment :)
They discourage because this guy is the odd ball and found it easier than most.
Join the MajorPrep Facebook Group: facebook.com/groups/majorprep/
It's pretty good!
Your videos are so profound, expensive and helpful! Salute to you sir!
You deserve more viewers man
Agreed!
Thank you!
I love it when all five of your classes assign design task projects on Friday.
I am a second year Computer Engineering major at the University of California, Irvine and my schedules have looked very similar to yours. Great video !
Although I already know most of this since I'm in my junior year, its nice to watch these to remind myself I'm doing ok. first two years I had all this guilt cause I wasn't spending 40 hours/week studying. Thanks for the video man (:
You should feel guilty
Thanks for the video, please keep making!
Thank you for clarifying this studying time misconception! 20hrs/week on average is a whole lot more reasonable and manageable 😌
This channel is a blessing. I enter college in just a few weeks.
We spend at least 12 hours a week on our physics homework, and that's with the entire class working together (8 people) and going to office hours.
12 a week is only a few a day
@@noone101 for one class
For me, classes start at 8 am and end at 6 pm M-Thurs, and 8 am - 3 pm on Fridays. No one shall worry about spending that extra time between classes at school. It's a great time to get work done.
I'm taking courses identical to those this fall - Differential Equations, Digital logic and design, Electric circuits and Graphical Communication. I'm going to be super busy cause I'm also simultaneously seeking a Co-op Placement for Spring next year!
Your videos are really helping me.
Very underrated channel..... so sad because so many people need your videos and they dont know about it
If you live on campus, try to work as the person behind the desk in the dorm. You can do your homework and only occasionally have to sign out an item. Plus there’s little to distract you such as a tv or video game.
If you're bold enough you can start going over some of the material for your classes during the time you have before semester starts.. A lot of students end up learning more on their own from CZcams videos than they do from the professor. There are great channels for math and science..
SKYNET #2025
This 100%. Probably the best advice for future students. Its not the profs job to teach you its their job to proctor exams (sometimes).. and to sit and look pretty infront of the class. Every once in a while you will get a good prof but the majority of engineering is self teaching and learning. That mixed with the sheer volume of course work is why engineering is the most difficult major.
Agreed with the both of y'all!
Another advice would be a finding a part-time job that fits your schedule and try not miss any semsters. The longer you stay out of school, the more likely you will lose any infomation you again in class
I go to community college and it is way more chill with scheduling(until you transfer schools, that is).
I’m an electrical engineer at Michigan State University, I think this is pretty accurate to the work load I faced
I will agreed saying that time management is key, but it is definitely hard to describe an day in a typical schedule/day for an engineering student. For instance mine was totally different to yours, because I was involved in a bunch of different clubs and I was doing two majors at the same time (physics and engineering). For instance during my gaps between classes I used to send emails, unless it was a long gap (3 hours) then i will be doing some study.
During my undergrad, I used to get back home around 9:30pm and I will work from 10pm till 2am, I am more a night owl and I like to study for long chunks of time. I will say that as an undergrad I used to study and avg of 30 hrs per week (counting weekends), but my schools was based on semesters and I used to take at least 6 classes at the time.
I have 3 semesters left in electrical engineering and feel like I’m dying lol But I had an intense prof this summer. I’ve hear the least year is more fun and easier since we get to choose the technical electives related to EE. Yeah by far I agree currently in my third year and it’s crazy!
Not that many parties go on during midterms/finals. So don’t worry about missing those!
I'm a german engineering student and I usually work/study about 50 hours a week including the time I spend at university and at home, though life at the moment... :D
raffmaxi Where are you studying?
@@cimkep8250 In hell
@@daybyday3840 damn nice
In India we have classes 7 hrs per day and 6 days in a week but no one really learns from classes so we have to learn ourselves to understand the concepts .
Same here in italy man
Yay I may be able to workout and study at the same time :)
I am a junior EE major at University of Central Florida and this video pretty accurately describes my life.
Hey I'm planning to be a EE junior for UCF soon.
Would it be okay to ask how was your experience with school from junior to senior year?
And how is life outside of school now?
@@bubblegumbp9050 Junior year was the hardest year of school for me in terms of work load. If you can get through the 3 semesters that made up my junior year then you’ll be set. Senior year was way more fun. Mostly elective classes and senior design classes I needed to complete my major requirements. UCF is a great school. I was there before Covid so I can’t speak to it post Covid. But pre Covid it was great place to learn.
I am a mechanical engineer student with 100 credit hours by now my GPA is 3.12 and honestly I barely study 4 hours a week on average but when the midterm comes that's when you gotta get you shit together . It's not as scary as people are telling you.
Im a junior in EE at a top 50 engineering school in the nation and I cant tell you enough how fucking accurate these videos are, I manage to keep a solid 3.86 GPA and the programming class kicked my ass, many all nighters finishing that bullshit but I still manage to have a social life and everything else. Programming made me sacrifice all my entertainment such as my Xbox and it was by far my worst semester, however every other class is manageable. I study probably around 20 hours total each week and get basically straight A’s but it isnt easy
Petroleum engineering I studied 50+ hours per week on average on top of attending classes/labs that would sum up to about 70 hours a week.. had little room for social life
Do you have a nice job now?
Yes I do
I started electrical engineering this year. We lost about 2 months in this semester because of corona. It feels like i work for Ever each week :D... Looking forward to get my exams done ^^... And thanks for your contant you motivate me a lot!
Greets from Germany.
Hey! I want to do electrical engineering too. I have some questions regarding it so could you reply to me if you have any free time ? Thankyou
@@kevinsivanathan9035 for shure :)
my second year, I rarely saw my house because I was always placing extra hours at the lab for Calculus II & Physics II...and that was just those two classes. I can't imagine how much less hair I would have if I took anything additional that semester.
luckily I was already bald when I had a similar semester so the effects weren't too noticeable!
Never clicked on a video notice that quick
i figured out how to manage my time well... 3 weeks before class ended. I did insanely well on my homework assignments and tests but i did so poorly early in the semester that i literally just failed the class. This was in college but i was doing community finishing highschool while also getting college credits
Homework really depends on the professor. Where I go some people had homework and others didn’t depending on who there professor was for the course. It may be for just rn since I’m a first year student
Wish I knew this before. I just dropped out of University last week after I failed 3/4 courses. My GPA was 0.5.
Just working a 10 hour a week job is very hard for me with this major.
He's back baby !!!!lol
In my country we have 30 classes in a week in university :o not uncommon having 8-10 classes in a day. If you don't have a language exam you will have 3 more classes, plus sports for 3 semesters. So different.
I spent 24 hours total on doing structural steel design(senior level course) work the other week. 2 lab projects and a homework assignment. Not the entire time was spent doing work because I have other responsibilities.
I'm a dude thats currently undeclared, but I want to major in Chemical Engineering so my week is like : Mon- 8hours, Tues- 3 hours, Wed.-(same as Mon), Thurs.-(same as Tues BUT I have a 2hour activity for math, Friday - NO school. I guess its okay idk
Im in 2nd year comp eng atm, 4 weekly labs, 1 weekly quiz 1 by weekly design lab with 20page reports, 5 weekly assignments, and 8 midterms overall with 5 finals
Classes from 8am-5.30pm.
SEND HELP ASAP.
Me, I'm in senior year of my civil engineering.. I did not have much time to socialize or do my hobbies anymore.. My social life was sacrificed..It's hard since I'm self-supporting student working on upwork and I try not to fail on major courses/subjects..
you're not the only one :/
Mary Rose Pelaez omg I want to major in civil!!!! I'm currently in high school
Mayra Tavares Same!!
I go to a very average university. Nothing special. We aren't even ranked for academics. Most of the kids in my classes are depressed. Some of us have started loosing hair. I gained 60 pounds in two years. Which is over a quarter of my original weight. Most people gain at least 30 in our school but you can literally watch kids grow outwards every semester. None of us do anything for fun. Honestly it all sucks. Our class size has dropped in half of what it started as. Nobody even wants to keep going but were all so close to the end that we won't stop. Everyone is constantly trying to keep from getting sick but our bodies are exhausted. The only easy semester I've ever had was when I took 3 business classes and only two engineering classes. It is honestly the dumbest decision I've ever made in my life. The only benefit I'll have is a degree and a 100k a year job after I graduate. But most kids in my area only make 40-60k starting. It's not even worth it. It's going to take years before our bodies recover.
Nicholas Blancett Damn that sounds horrible...Where do you live?
This will be a totally different story if you are a full-time employee like me. Its super hard
I'm 13 and in my school you choose your subjects. And I chose the perfect subjects for engineering. Maths Chinese English Business Geography computer studies construction physics and some other stuff
My average high school day is close to 10 hours... I’d be happy to go home at 3pm
Watching your video and an engineer wannabe scares the shit out of me
You don't necessarily go to every class in college, even if you do, you can still be doing other homeworks.
I'm working full time...just started engineering program for half time or more at least....trying to stay organized
I am an American studying engineering in Poland and I wish I had that schedule.
I have 9 classes per semester with a minimum of 4 hours of class a day.
Granted some classes are easy It is still a lot.
So we have 24 contact hours for 3 courses (standard amount) in the Netherlands. This leads to a minimal of 25-30 hours of studying per week. However it is more likely for this to be 30-40 hours a week. Which is per course, the 12-15 hours MajorPrep found, however what I understood from the video it was for all courses in 1 quartile?
Differential Equations freshman year lol you lost me at that point 😂
I’m the kind of student start to work on homework the midnight before the due in class, and it works for my whole double major college career lol
Must’ve sucked
Hey @majorprep can yo do a video on welding engineering please
Didn’t attend any class for 4 years (mechanical engineering). Just studied from recordings of courses from the previous years, from CZcams videos and by solving homework/previous years exams.
Also I didn’t study for like 70% of the semester. You can mostly learn a full course in 2-3 weeks of intense studying, given that you have all relevant material and enough practice problems.
So had most of my semester for work and social life.
How did you get previous years exams? Are they in a test bank or something?
@@aintdaniel most lecturers uploaded the exam sheets after the exam, usually solved. The student body uploaded these to a shared Google Drive in an orderly fashion.
For the rare courses which didn’t upload their exams, we still got our exam answers back with marks, the ones with good grades were uploaded, so you could easily reverse engineer the question from the answer.
Wow you have very few subjects. I have 4 subjects a day except friday, and only 15 minutes break per subject. My only long break is on friday.
Yeah much of my engineering student life was 4-5 classes. Which type are you studying for?
my damn high school in belgium keeps us in school for a literal 10h a day (8am-6pm) 3days a week... because we get tons of pointless classes that make 0 difference
Earning straight A+'s is my way of "partying". I choose grades and making money over friends, games, campaigns, sports, etc. I goto social event and meetings only for free food and stipends, so again the decision is solely based on making or saving money.
I only work 1 or 2 hours a week and I have a pretty good GPA
out the 4 subjects mentioned, I say differential equation is the easiest, and history is the hardest, or at least the least interesting one for me. engineering may be a lot of work, but the kind of work is far more enjoyable than writing a history paper.
What it’s like? Pure hell
3,5hrs of class a day my ass, 8am to 6pm classes here...
paulusgaming facts
paulusgaming lol me too!!
a day in the week of my second year went up to 6 hours excluding lunch
4 courses... must be nice, I'm in first year and I have 7 this semester and 8 next (including engineering design courses which are separated from others like physics, chem, calc, etc).. avg 30hrs of class/week
Good for you lol
I had/have to work 40h+ during undergrad to save for gradschool... My sleep doenst exist, but I hit the gym 4xweek and eat once a day something green.
Raw garlic and milk to wash away the burn
amazing
well i'm an African student in india , and this video make it sound like university is easy , but here we have class from 9am to 4:30 pm this on 3rd year while having 10 subjects every week ,did i tell you that every day we have a new topic and exam ? #pressure 0 to 100
I want to go to college. But why can't I even understand this video !!
i'm a telecommunications engineering student in Algeria and here we study for 7 hours per day most of the time the other days 4:30 hours is the minimum , guys you are lucky :/
5:00 So you didn't have to eat, use the bathroom, or travel across campus? 🤔
Hey, I was wondering which university do you go to? And which engineering major are you in? Keep up these amazing videos man!
Went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and studied electrical engineering! Thanks for the comment :)
Go Mustangs! About to start my 3rd year in EE at Cal Poly!
That's awesome! Good luck in the new school year man!
I'm super nervous as im about to start school (northwestern univ.) on the quarter system in engineering. Are there any tips you can give about how to succeed as a freshman and how to adjust to the pace of college?
It's gonna take some time to get adjusted but I would say just stay ahead. If on your first or second day of school you are given homework due to the next week, then do at least some of it that same day, it should be very easy to just do a little but you want to stay up with everything. Don't shy away from going to office hours of finding help on campus either. My school offered free group study sessions for basically any class you could think of that a lot of people would attend.
Have you graduated yet?
y'all have schedules? 👀 i just either cram or chill depending on how stressed out I am
hey can u do a "how to study as an engineering student" im a mechanical engineering student im trying way to hard to get high grades but its not working
As a math major, what’s this quiz you speak of? Is it like a midterm?
How do you guys manage this? I fucking blink and its 7 at night
This is helpful even know I’m only 11 I’m excited for college
Do really good in high school, it will be worth it in the long run.
Gould you please make a video on quantum technology or engineering?
😂😂 I’m an engineering students I’ve got call from 8:00 until 16:00 everyday 👐
I'm in college and on Wednesdays I have a 12 and a half hour day :p
Ugh... I'm currently on first year, taking a degree course I dislike, so I always procrastinate. This makes me feel guilty
In my colleague it's about 6 to 9 hours! Per day ...
In my first year I had an average of about 7hrs in lectures per day, there were days I'd leave my room at 07:15hrs and come back at 18hrs I'm a maths and CS major, I thought engineering had much more work than mathematical science.
Junior year in an engineering major is the worse. Ugh.
Man this sucks those who are living or studying engineering where I am it's totally like hell for example my college starts at 9:30am in the morning and ends at 4:50 pm at evening and guess how much time is allotted for break ? Any guesses? It's f**** 20 min only 😢😢😭 and it happens throughout whole week.
It's almost impossible to work 40 hours a week and try getting a degree in mechanical engineering and working out about 5 to 7 hours a week.
0:40 my highschool day is 9 hours plus another hour in travel, you telling me in college I can get around with 4 hours a day?
Of classes but if you add studying/homework. HOLY SH.....
Nice
In india we have to attend classes 9:45am - 5:30pm(5 min gap between two classes) with 50 min lunch break . I am 2nd year student ( mechanical engineering ) ..🤕🤕😟😟😟
Wow that sounds like almost high school schedule in the west, but for you it's in engineering school. crazy, good luckkk
Same for me and today I did 8a.m to 8p.m with classes all the day + after that you must add projects and homework. I think that's not the same depending on where you study (France for me).
I barely have a social life!! It’s streeful and makes me want to give up, idk if I’ll like mechanical engineering when I graduated, but idk what else to study, idk what is worst, the classes or the professors
Don’t know how to help except say that you’ll pull through. Life gets better for sure.
Each second is a second less till done.
I'm not even worried about that. I'm worried about the foreign language I have to study from scratch to fluent within 3 years from a different country, since I'm moving elsewhere to study. LOL Nice vid though.
But how to eat well while living a lone in college with busy schedule.