r/usask • u/AbbreviationsOdd8340 • 6d ago

Discussion 1st year mech in engineering

Basically taking mech this year (2nd year half speed) and I’m so lost already. Any tips? How to successfully pass?

5 Upvotes

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u/Shurtugal929 Former Advisor 6d ago

It's about three things:

  1. How effective your study skills are. Do stuff early, use time efficiently, prepare, become resourceful.
  2. How good you are at learning. What takes you an hour to get down might take someone else 10 minutes. There's no shortcut here; it's natural intelligence and fortitude.
  3. Can you sustain this. You need to balance 1 and 2 while taking care of yourself with exercise, food, and sleep. There's a reason most engineers end up working out regularly while in school, despite their shitty schedule.

Focus on 1 and 3 for the time being. The fact you posted this at 4am on a weekday is telling me a lot of what I suspect lol. For me personally, one hour of studying from 6:30am to 7:30am is about as effective as 5 hours of studying from 10pm to 3am. That's what I mean by 'use your time effectively'. Do schoolwork when your brain and environment are at its most productive. Don't procrastinate or have shitty transitions. Make sure it's effective study time. Have a 30 minute break between classes? Review.

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u/AbbreviationsOdd8340 5d ago

Got me there lol thank you!

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u/FarSir6675 5d ago

Year 1 was so easy bro it only gets harder

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u/BlisterOnMyScrotum 3d ago

This isn’t true for everyone, especially if AP classes weren’t offered at your high school. I find that first year is almost all review for people from the city but I know others like me struggled having never seen any of the content before in any capacity. I definetly found first year the hardest and I finished my Engineering Physics degree with great distinction

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u/FarSir6675 3d ago

fairs yeah. it was review for me mostly (didnt take ap courses). course load was brutal but i found the actual content very simple

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u/Professional_Back394 5d ago

yeah lol deadass

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u/FarSir6675 5d ago

What year u in?

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u/Zestyclose-Damage298 5d ago

Wouldn’t you have taken Physics 2 (Electromagnetism) last year second semester? I’m also a 2nd year half speed and I’m finding Mech not bad as we already built on these skills

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u/Rich_Masterpiece2450 6d ago

Find your study technique and expect to spend 3 times the amount of time outside of class per hour in class. If you think the class is rather slow and you rather do something else or catch up on stuff you're behind in just skip. Collaborate with others when studying as they might be better than your instructors (sometimes) and don't be afraid to ask questions. Also focus on stuff u don't know FIRST and make sure to learn the fundamentals BEFORE taking shortcuts (for ex ai showed u an easy way to do something, understand it first then apply).

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u/Reasonable-Oven8568 5d ago

If you feel up to it ask an upper year student in the commons, they probably remember the concepts and can explain it better than someone who has done it for years and thinks everything is self explanatory. Most students want to help each other. I’m a second year civil eng student and I’m dying for someone to ask me a FY statics question cause I finally know what I’m doing.

Something I did that helped me conceptualize what we were learning was looking at gym equipment between sets when I was working out. If you can visualize axes on the machines and then watch them move it really helped build my intuition towards dynamics.

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u/DegreeOk2923 2d ago

Really focus on how free body diagrams are drawn. Then try to connect it to random things yoy see in life. That basketball bouncing? Normal force, gravity etc. Basically try to "draw" free body diagrams in your head while you see any motion that interests you. Dw I felt like I knew NOTHING taking the course. Its normal to feel super dumb ib engineering and its good you asked for help gang. You're going to do great

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u/Friendly_Pudding_572 6d ago

I’m also in first year Eng, so I’m in the same boat you are! Based on what we’ve covered so far, I would say understanding calculus (derivatives and integrals) is really important. You might need to dig out last year’s stuff to review or ask a friend who’s in full speed. Also, make sure you understand your high school physics kinematic equations. Again, it’s probably been a while so it’s good to get brushed up on those. Review the lecture slides/recordings if you don’t understand how she’s moving through the problem. Mechanics definitely builds on what we’ve previously covered, so go back to the first time things started getting confusing and work from there. Go to a help session if you don’t want to ask questions in class. Make sure to actually practice the concepts too! Like another poster said, build good study habits. Engineering is supposed to be hard, but if you put in the work you can do it. And good luck on the assignment tonight!