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How different is second year engineering? (1 Viewer)

klavier

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Hey so far I found first year engineering subject to be pretty relaxed.

Most subjects they give you bunch of free marks like MATH1131 online tests and PHYS1121 Lab.
And the exams don't seem too complex.

I wonder how different will those courses be in second years ( I am Mechanical )
Do they still offer a bunch of free marks through moodle assignments or something ?
 

D94

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Even if you gained 80 free marks, that does not mean you will achieve at least 80. Courses will be scaled accordingly. You aren't the only person who is able to achieve those "free marks" and course conveners know that. Notably, MATH2019 will scale down unless you achieve some raw mark in the 90s. Most of the marks in that course are fairly easy to achieve, so it's mainly the final exam differentiates students. You might find the exams to be easy - good work, but others may not find it as easy as you. It does not mean they are necessarily free marks. For MATH1131, those tests and online quizzes aren't to "test" you, but rather to see if you are up to date with the basic concepts. They were never designed to rigorously test your ability. Likewise with the labs. They are designed merely to complement the theory, and not to make you sweat. Do the actual past papers and see how you go. MATH has a course pack, and you can find PHYS past papers online.

In second year, the assessments will overall be much harder and designed to rigorously test you since it may be the only test for a certain module - the finals may only be on the last module you do. Some courses may have a few free marks here and there, but ultimately, when there's a 40-60% final that is much harder, those free marks don't mean much. Still important to get them, but they generally do not reflect the difficulty of the finals.

On a personal note, I enjoyed second year much more than first year. You actually do 'engineering subjects' (well in mechanical at least) like thermo, fluids, solid mechanics, design for manufacture, not like PHYS or COMP or ENGG1000 (which was a complete waste of time).
 

anomalousdecay

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On a personal note, I enjoyed second year much more than first year. You actually do 'engineering subjects' (well in mechanical at least) like thermo, fluids, solid mechanics, design for manufacture, not like PHYS or COMP or ENGG1000 (which was a complete waste of time).
Same goes for electrical.

As for free marks, I'm doing a second year course now and I would say maybe less than 15% is free marks, in the form of a few quizzes online to guide you along as D94 said, and also maybe a few things here and there in labs and stuff.

However, the labs we have at the moment are a lot more challenging and practically if you don't prepare (usually 1-2 hours is required minimum) then you could get much lower marks.

Although the final exam weighs roughly the same with first year exams, they tend to have other assessments along side which take a long time to complete, or are difficult, etc.
 

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I'm enjoying most of my 1st year engineering courses, except for PHYS1131. I really hope that there won't be any more courses like that in the later years.
 
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D94

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I beg to differ. By far, one of the most straightforward mechanical engineering courses that you will do. In fact, if one struggles with MMAN1300, I would be seriously worried about how they will handle 2nd and 3rd year considering a lot of it builds from MMAN1300 (such as MMAN2400, MMAN2300, MMAN3400, and even MMAN2100).
 

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I beg to differ. By far, one of the most straightforward mechanical engineering courses that you will do. In fact, if one struggles with MMAN1300, I would be seriously worried about how they will handle 2nd and 3rd year considering a lot of it builds from MMAN1300 (such as MMAN2400, MMAN2300, MMAN3400, and even MMAN2100).
Yes I agree that it is a straight forward course but some of the people I talked to said that it is uninteresting and its just bookwork. They also said it is the start of proper engineering
 

D94

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Yes I agree that it is a straight forward course but some of the people I talked to said that it is uninteresting and its just bookwork. They also said it is the start of proper engineering
Well I don't know what they expected... They are hardly qualified to make engineering decisions so a bit of theory of basic mechanics wouldn't hurt. The theory is still important. It's about understanding why things happen so the decision you make factors in that theory and so things like power generation or HVAC systems don't self-destruct. The majority of courses is just bookwork, with a lab here and there. If they didn't know this, then that shows their lack of research in Yr 12.

Maybe they found it uninteresting, and I can understand why that is, but MMAN1300 is probably the most important first year subject that you will do.
 

klavier

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In terms of usefulness yeah it seems to be

MMAN1300 > MATH1131 / MATH1231 > Computer course / Phys

Haven't heard one positive review of ENGG1000 yet...

The electives are mostly quite irrelevant and I am having Chem1011 which serves as a WAM Booster I guess.
 

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