Mech. Engineering student struggling with Calculus

Post Reply New Topic

As the title states, I'm currently using my G.I. Bill to try to earn a Mechanical Engineering degree, however, I seem to struggle to a great degree with math. I know there are postings about this already, so forgive me for creating another, but I guess I'm just looking for some advice from someone who may have been in my shoes at one point. As long as I can remember I've struggled to grasp the concepts associated with math especialy algebra, but now that I'm getting into the college level maths (Calc1, Calc2 etc..) I can't seem to grasp any bit of it. I generally tend study for about 10-12 hours making literally no progress on any of the problems that I attempt. I watch numerous Youtube videos, read the book, consult with classmates, and even stay after with the tutors at my College and it doesn't seem to help me in the least. Now I know Engineering is basically all math related, but It is really the only subject I'm remotely interested in studying. Knowing how our brains work, I wouldn't be able to put forth much if any effort into another degree program, and I don't want to waste my G.I. Bill benefits for a degree I won't use to start a career in that field. I'm not the kind of person to quit and walk away from something before I've finished, but this is causing me a great deal of suffering. For a while I was seeing a therapist for well over a year to deal with depression, amongst other things, as a result so it is really effecting me negatively. For this reason I have been thinking I should just acceot the fact that I'm not smart enough, and walk away, but I know I would regret it forever. I am turning to the forum in hopes someone may have some advice on what I should do next whether I should suck it up and continue on, or if I should give up. Maybe there are other avenues I could take, or a different approach to learning Calculus. I'm kind of at my wits end here, so if anyone can help me out, I would really appreciate it.

Not sure I can help you out. How are you on trigonometry? That may be more important to mechanical engineering than calculus. When I was in college 50 years ago, there was an excellent book that I found useful. It was called "CRC Standard Mathematical Tables and Formulae". Here is a link. CRC Standard Mathematical Tables and Formulae I found this book to be very useful in listing almost all the formulas used in math.

I was going to suggest a tutor to teach you calculus one-on-one. But it seems like you are already doing this.

The thing about engineering is that it is a good career field.

If you have taken any engineering courses, how did they go? Did you do well? I would base my decision on whether to pursue an engineering degree more on the outcome of those classes than the math classes. Math tends to be theoretical. Engineering tends to be practical. It is a lot of hands on work.

There are different approaches to learning math. Some people are heavily visual. They find it easier to learn if everything is translated into pictures. Which can be done with calculus.

What is it, specifically, that you struggle with about calculus? The central idea in calculus is the infinitesimal limit; once you've spent a large amount of time meditating on this idea, maybe things will fall into place.

https://psrc.aapt.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=133
Visual Calculus
written by Lawrence Husch
designer: the Innovative Technology Center, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
This web site provides tutorials, drills, and computer programs in pre-calculus and calculus. It includes animations, interactive pages, step-by-step solution applets, and illustrations.

Resource found with a search on visual calculus. There are books as well.

Khan academy

Yes, Khan Academy is very good for basic undergraduate stuff.

You wrote that mechanical engineering is the only subject that you are interested in studying

However you could not have tried all of the subjects

Accounting

Trades:. Carpentry, construction, electrician

Take fewer units (do not know if GI bill allows it)

What branch were you in?

What was your military occupational specialty?

Maybe major in a subject related to MOS

What part of ASVAB did you score high on?



When I was 19, a career personality test matched my personality to 20 jobs. All of them in physics and engineering

The easiest, civil engineer

UCSD, structural engineering. Had a f**k load of a hard time

Gained 15 pounds in one quarter, stressing out

Academic probation, five quarters

Nightmare


A fifth year electrical engineering undergrad told me that if she were to have spent as much time as me, studying, she would have gotten straight A's

Got to Structural engineering 110b:. Solid Mechanics. "D"

In that school if you fail one class ("d" or " f")

You have to wait till the next year to take it again

In the meantime, all the other courses you were scheduled to take, has the course you flunked, as a prerequisite



Hire a professional tutor


Took the first two calculus classes, each 2x

The fifth one, three times and flunked


Emotional rollercoaster





Ritalin


Join American Society of Mechanical Engineers. See if your college has it

Meet upperclassmen

Get their old finals


Some schools have academic probation and impacted majors


Majors outside STEM require less homework (according to the school).


You wrote that you are not interested in any other subject, but social sciences and humanities involve a lot less work than mechanical engineering


And if the school Expelled you for academic probation (my situation) , you have nothing but sunk costs. Time, money and energy wasted.

That was when I was 22. Tried and failed to commit suicide over it (same explanation as you, but I am just civilian)


Now I am 35 years old and obsessive over it


Every single f*****g day






Now I have a fear of failure and too lazy to do anything



Every situation is different


In some cases, persistence

In some cases, quit and do something else

It's splitting fine hairs




But seriously


Stress, strain, pressure, tension, compression, force


In summer school,

Statics

Five weeks long

Monday to Friday

Three hours class a day

Week three, midterm one

Week four , midterm two

Week five, final






No TA


Instructor had official office hours, but I went and he barked at me so loud he scared me away


One student purchased the solution manual


The teaching assistant went over a problem with me

I asked if I could keep the paper

He said no and threw it away

And then I dug it out of the garbage




f**k structural engineering