From Mathematics to Engineering: A fucking nightmare

>Be Mathematics undergrad student
>Graduate with a GPA of 3.71
>Apply to grad school in math; get accepted into PhD program
>graduate with MS with 3.73 GPA in a year and a half.
>during my coursework, discover control theory
>speak to my grad advisor, department and mechanical engineering department
>given my background, GPA and such, they're able to transfer me into the mechanical engineering department on the ''control theory'' track.

>It is the hardest set of coursework I've ever taken. Every class not only has examinations, but projects which take up a fuckton of time.
>Have to be in the laboratory doing shit I have no idea about.
>Reading MOSFET, other transistors and all of this other shit that seriously doesn't make one iota of a difference in my fucking life.
>Every engineering course is extremely difficult. There's not one course I feel comfortable in, where I can safely say I can get an A/B. Every semester is a struggle.

>Last semester, have a nervous fucking breakdown at the end. MATLAB stopped working at 7:00pm, the project was due at 10:00pm; had to go to the school library and use school computer to complete it.

>This semester, one graduate class takes so much of my time that I literally can't fucking do anything else or study anything else. On the exam, he gives a 7-link robot arm that we have to compose the DH table for, compute the linear/angular velocities for and then find the Euler-Lagrangian formulation. Question #1 on a 7 question exam sheet.
>Average is a fucking 56. This is "normal," according to other grad students.
>Decide to say fuck it, this is it -- last semester. Graduate with my MS, with it a smidge above a 3.0
>I haven't had a 3.0 since my freshman year of college where I wasn't acclimated to the environment yet.

Is it meant to break someone mentally? Granted, I don't come from an engineering background, but what the fuck is this?

It's not so much that the work is extremely difficult (it is, trust me) but it's the VOLUME of the work.

They literally go through 3/4 chapters in two weeks, put the hardest and most fucked up problems of those chapters on the exams and then shrug when the averages are between 40-60. Not only that, but the projects are always, ALWAYS, intense, takes 500+ lines of code and it's just a fucking nightmare.

Everything about this degree is nightmarish. I'm partially regretful that I ever decided to switch out into PhD. Everything is a struggling nightmare. I've literally gotten at least one C in every single semester I've been in engineering grad school, with me praying to God/Allah/Buddha/Satan that I get an average of A/B to save me from being under a 3.0 in my other classes.

Just what the fuck is this? Is it meant to just break down students?

For the record, I attend a top 15 Math program / top 20 engineering grad school

Yea, I guess this isn't a blog after all.

Shouldn't have come looking to talk about my problems, anyway. It's Veeky Forums after all.

You talking undergrad? I only do essential work during the term (projects) and just cram a few days before exams, and I cruise by with an 80 average in ME. I have tons of free time.

It says grad in the very first post.

bump

>mfw pure math 4 ecosystem science

if you think people on Veeky Forums are anything but first year pre-med dropouts then you must be new.

go to a bar to gripe

Engineering is for the strong, and you are too weak.

>Is it meant to break someone mentally?
Depends on the degree/program. Mine (materials science & eng.) was pretty easy, since we were mostly PhD students, and our advisors needed us in the lab. MechE probably has a lot more terminal master's, so the profs have less incentive to take it easy on you. Engineering undergrad is more like that.

Overall engineering programs are as much about working hard as being smart. They turn out stress junkies who are totally okay working 60 hour weeks for the duration of their adult lives.

Your story reminds be of a grad lab I took in undergrad:
>no TAs, we are our own TAs
>set up, run, give everybody data for, and present on one week's lab
>4 hour lab always goes over time
>10+ page reports due every week
>exams on top of all that
>final project

I took that the same semester as a 100-level communication class. Maxed out my fucks completely.

Mathcucks everyone

Sounds about right

Math is generally for engineering burnouts.

Math is for people who couldn't make it in engineering, don't feel bad OP

That's why physics is master race. You can't be a faggy lazy math major, and you aren't a brainlet monkey engineer.

I think it's meant to give you anxiety issues and stuff to make you appreciate a normal 50h work week when you're finished. Seriously. I've been looking forward to the exam period all year because all the work is finished. Have barely been outside all semester. Too tired to practice for exams.

t. 4th year EE

I did pure math. I thought physics was 10x harder than math. I can relate. I got terrible grades in physics. I felt like a retard.

>t. state school engineer

all these trolls posing as ''pure math major'' can't name drop anything else than putting the words ''pure'' and ''math'' together. i'm sorry ODE and multivariable calculus fucked you OP, stop making these retarded threads.

all OP

Engineering is a field governed by industrious, robotlike people, whose only passion in life is likely to be their work. Now because everyone takes their work very seriously and has to be very efficient, partly because they have to due to legal and moral reasons, it radiates out into everything else they do, from the way they pick their socks to the way they design their courses. The flip side is, they are pretty bad at dealing with people, and some are downright immoral and inhuman just because they finally gained a sliver of power.

Keep in mind you are dealing with other humans. I would suggest to learn from books and Labs so you know enough about safety, and get some industry contacts outside of school. I can guarantee you will forget or never need 95% of the material you learned, because it is so detached from reality. A sane mind is infinitely more important than some shitty PDE.

>They turn out stress junkies who are totally okay working 60 hour weeks for the duration of their adult lives.

I always suspected this, though I still respected engineers for their intelligence/work ethic going to school. Sad really.

I mean you can really change the world if you design a widget that is 0.3% more efficient, but god damn do you ever pay the price.

Thank god I took physics. And like anyone creative, I work my own hours and get credit for original thinking/research.

>19 unique posters

>They turn out stress junkies who are totally okay working 60 hour weeks for the duration of their adult lives.
This, but I'd say it's filtering out the weak. Soumd more galmorous desu

Is this baitposting? If this is real you should kill yourself

Posts like this aren't really welcome here because of muh math elitism

Engenieering teachers just suck.They just shove at you 500 slides of powerpoint and expect you to understand a thing without practice.If you use the class time to study on your own you will get better grades.Trust me

Literally the same with me. I fucking hate the pace of lectures, in the sense that the lecture itself moves quite slowly while at the same time cramming a lot of info in it, so I just rely on lecture notes + textbook on my own time and just make sure i do work for the tutorial classes (replacement for homework in my uni, you are still expected to attempt the questions but the classes are to get the feedback or guidance on it).

Come exam time I just make sure to start early and do the problems from past papers systematically and then fill any gaps with extra work. It's so much more effective for me to learn on that model, doesn't make me feel stressed about the exam and I still get good retention on the info, if not I just drill the problem types and that's the only real drudge work when studying.

Fucking love just focusing on an exam rather than cucking through the uni's pace. Also discovered the magic of sped up lecture videos way too recently.

t. 3rd year EE

So much this. Feels damn good fucking around in regards to regular uni hours but then acing an exam because you just leveraged your own pace/methods

Dude, having a good GPA in gradschool is a bad thing. It shows that you are focusing on coursework, which no one cares about, instead of research.

Grades really don't matter in gradschool. It's pretty much impossible to get anything other than a B.

I'm an engineer and I can barely do proofs. It sucks

>Is it meant to break someone mentally?
It's to prepare you. If you think your career as an engineer is going to be any different, you should reconsider your career path. I know there are people who'll say otherwise, but most of the guys I know who are worth their salt, have a 60 hour work week.

>I'd say it's filtering out the weak
I'm not sure if "weak" is the correct way to put it.
If I were to tell my students to headbutt a concrete wall 10 times in a row within 1 minute with all of the force they've got, or else they won't pass my class, would it be appropriate description if I called the students who couldn't make it "weak"?

But believe me, university is easy. Problems are always quite well defined.
Now, real life in industry is quite different. You will never have well defined problems, a lot of data has to be guestimated so you can start iterating on solving problems. No one is gonna tell you where to start. Of course, there are different fields, you might just work on improving some minute detail of a huge design. Depending of what kind of person you are it might suck real bad or be just your cup of tea.

If you can't work under stress with deadlines right behind you, you aren't cut out to be a PhD level engineer.

I got a C+ in statics.
Is my dream of structural engineering over

no

>you will forget or never need 95% of the material you learned, because it is so detached from reality
I think the reason why engineers don't use most of what they've learned in college in their professional life isn't because that particular knowledge is so detached from reality (everything they learn is used somewhere), but because of the reasons they are so sought after in the job market.
They are assets which everyone wants to have working for them. They are problem solvers, they are work horses (and graduating with engineering degree is a proof of that) - they have plenty of qualities that can land them a job almost anywhere, not necessarily overlapping with their skills.
Basically, it's a system which doesn't use their potential to the fullest.

Hey OP, at least you aren't as retarded as me! I flunked out of computer engineering, switched to biology, and graduated with a 3.5 without much effort.

Never went to gradschool, so I'm an alcholic lab tech chasing $15/hr jobs!

There are math departments that do control theory. Caltech is the most famous one. Rutgers if that one guy is still around. There was no reason to go into engineering.

No. But please do better in solid mechanics and structural analysis