Discover Engineering

A Taste Of First Year Engineering

Rehnuma Alam // TrackOne & Industrial Engineering 1T3 // Jul 08, 2010

First year engineering goes by very quickly. My first few weeks of university were more about adjusting to this new chapter in life than getting down to school work. I was nervous because it was a new place with a lot of new people, new classes and professors. However, I was excited to start a new adventure in a new place.

So, was I prepared from high school? The answer is both yes and no. I felt I was prepared because the material covered in high school was enough for me to go into courses, like calculus and linear algebra and understand what was going on. However, learning how to make the best use of my time and to be responsible about homework was challenging for me.

In university math, you just continue learning where you (ideally) left off from high school. The professors spend a little time in the beginning of the year refreshing concepts such as limits, how to take the derivative of a function, solving matrices, and then show you how to move on from there to the new stuff. For example, you know how to take a derivative from high school (hopefully). Anti-derivative would be the opposite of that. Now we take the anti-derivative concept and develop the concept of integration. It is just one step at a time. Yes, the questions and problems do look uglier, meaner, and more complex, but when you work at it, it all comes down to the fundamentals we’ve been taught already with the addition of new material and techniques taught in university.

Having said that, learning math is not necessarily easy – I did find it challenging to learn the concepts and techniques in university math. I noticed that in university, I slacked off a lot on my math homework. I just attended most of my lectures, read the textbook, and if time permitted, did some questions.

I realized in second semester that to really grill down the concepts and techniques taught in lecture, I would need to practice by doing my homework. At university, it is very easy to skip or put off work because no one will be asking you “did you finish your homework?” This is a big challenge. Because the pace of the material is faster, you need to motivate yourself to do extra work to ensure that you know the information required – which means studying on your own.

Ultimately, for math, it really all comes down to practice! If you have a hard time with math, seek out many resources available at the university as soon as you can. You can get help from your professor by going to his/her office hour(s), TA, friends, math aid office or even get a tutor. The challenge may be to take the help that is there when you need it and at the times given.

A bonus for new students this year is that you can take a series of calculus and algebra diagnostic tests and tutorials that are being launched on the first year website this summer. (You can find them here). You can use those to figure out what topics you should brush up on before classes start so that you’re better prepared and none of the material takes you by surprise.

Before I end off, I have some random tips I learned in my first year at U of T engineering. One, don’t lose hope when things get tough or you do poorly on an evaluation. Bounce back and learn from your mistakes. Two, study groups are great but you’ll get more out of it if you review the material before your group session. Third, breaking your work into little pieces helps you accomplish more. Lastly, scrum! “Scrum” is when you and a friend tell each other what tasks you are going to accomplish for the day and report back to each other the next day.

Engineering is a great program to be in, especially at U of T. It is a great community to be part of. Learning how to balance everything may take a while or not. You will hear many tips and tricks, but it is up to you to find out what works for you.

So that was a taste of my first year in engineering. Hopefully yours will turn out great too.