UTA Engineering dept question

I know we have a bunch of engineers on here, as well as at least one or two who's graduated UTA recentely(Ian, right?). I've just transferred to UTA from community college this semester and i've got a bit of a dilemma on one of my classes I thought i'd bounce off of yall. Pretty much made my decision but some real word insight might help. Nobody I personally know has taken this class and I don't know/trust my classmates.

Ok I took all my math, physics, chemistry at DCCCD, i've basically got all classes done and only engineering specific ones left. I know I know, maybe not the best idea, but it's what I've got so i'm running with it. I also made the horrible mistake of taking a couple ENG classes at DCCCCCCCCD as well, never ever do this. Those classes were the biggest joke and waste of time. Eng Statics was horrible for many reasons, difficulty not being one of them, I dropped it with close to a 98% average out of frustration, decided it was worth my time to get fundamentals at a real engineering school.

Before I arrived at this I took intro into engineering at Richland. Big mistake, class was a freaking joke. We learned more about how much money our professor made with her "Degrees, yall, i'm talkin' M-O-N-E-Y", yep this is a real quote and pretty much sums up that whole class experience. The tests consisted of bunch of crap that wasn't even remotely covered in class, and the class projects were literally a paper airplane throwing contest, calculating friggin gas mileage, and programming a lego robot using nickelodian style drag & drop controls...a 10 year old could have figured it out. The one project that was interesting was wiring a digital system to control a bomb timer. It was cool but we had about an hour of digital systems brush up from the lab guy and nobody knew WTF to do, digital systems was not a prerequisite.

All that to say this, TL;DR, DCCCD Intro to Eng class was a joke. Would it be worth my time to retake the class at UTA? I have until next week to decide, that's the deadline for UTA to complete a questionnaire so they'll accept credits for that class. I'm thinking re-take it, but that is assuming UTA is much better at this class...and i'm assuming yes, lol.

Basically i've been taking classes for 7 years off & on while having a career and making babies. I need to graduate, but don't want to put myself in a bad position, or rather want to soak up as much knowledge and experience as I can.

Thanks and sorry it got a little wordy, never got a change to vent about the horrible waste of time that was that class.


P.S. This is not to say anything bad about community college. My math and physics professors were great, learned a lot. Just don't for a second consider their engineering courses, leave that to engineering schools.

In my experience (University of Florida) the only kids that took that class were ones who weren't sure what discipline to go into. If you fall into that category, then sure take it. Otherwise I wouldn't waste your time or money. However, the class at UTA may be different so hopefully someone that attended that school can chime in. If it's not required by your degree plan there will probably be more interesting engineering electives to take down the road.

^ Good to know. I hadn't considered that aspect and I am decided Mechanical Engineering major.

The class is required, then you take an intro to ME, was planning on taking in the summer. The main thing that got me thinking is reading about the class and how it's kind of an intro to the engineering department, i.e. study groups, internships general info and all that on top of the engineering career stuff & projects. Wondering how much of it I might need.

The questionnaire basically forces you to find all this departmental info on your own and submit it to the department for approval, so that might suffice if the class isnt terribly needed. I don't want to get into intro to ME and be expected to have already done their level of projects and such, since basically the class I took might as well have not existed.

Oh and I should mention my company pays 100% reimbursement with my class load so money isn't an issue, it's burning another semester that's the issue.

I'd ask one of the professors, or a grad assistant.

So if you can already claim credit for the class from DCCCD, why not go ahead and take that. If you determine that taking the course at UTA would be beneficial could you audit the class? i.e. your credit/grade from DCCCD, but you could sit in on the UTA class for informational purposes. Since it's an audit, you wouldn't necessarily have to be worried about project/test/workload/grade/etc.

Of course it's been 27 years since I've been out of school so maybe things don't work that way anymore....

This class must be a relatively new requirement - I don't recall taking it when I went through the program at UTA, but I graduated in '05. So I'm afraid I can't give you any insight.

I will encourage you to sit down with an adviser and look very closely at your transfer credits. I was similar to you and I brought some credits from TCCC and SOSU with me, but the Physics I and Trigonometry classes I had taken elsewhere did not transfer into the BSME program at UTA, so I had to retake them.

^Yea I went through the grueling transfer credit check with the advisor. Lucky for me, the only classes that didn't make the cut were Chemistry(engr chem = chem 1&2) pre cal(alg/trig), and Differential Equations....GAHHHH. That one hurt a lot. It's integrated into an applied class at UTA, at least I'm familiar now and i'm taking that pesky chem2 online this semester.

I'm probably going to go back to the advisor tomorrow. They're tough to get an appointment with, but if I remember correctly he's the professor that teaches intro to ME and i'll try to get an honest feel for the class. I'm expecting a biased answer though.

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Originally Posted by Keifersmith

If you determine that taking the course at UTA would be beneficial could you audit the class? i.e. your credit/grade from DCCCD, but you could sit in on the UTA class for informational purposes. Since it's an audit, you wouldn't necessarily have to be worried about project/test/workload/grade/etc.

Of course it's been 27 years since I've been out of school so maybe things don't work that way anymore....

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This is a good idea. Problem for me is i'm taking the intro to ME in the summer. The other intro class is a prereq and I may not have the time to add to summer class load. And i'm not sure how much I could sit in on since the class structure is mostly lab work and group projects.

No, never retake a class, especially intro to engineering. The M-O-N-E-Y is in the petroleum business by the way. I've doubled my salary and then some since leaving the auto industry.

Off topic but related to UTA, I recently got to tour the UTA FSAE department. It was hugely impressive, from what I heard they get well over $1 million a year from FSAE alumni.

Good luck with ME, I'm a sophomore ME major down at A&M right now.

Edit: FWIW, our intro to engineering was a complete joke as well. Barely went to class, built some simple lego robots, easy A.

^You're at A&M right? That tells me all I need to know about the class.

And yea the FSAE program is awesome. If I have the time I really hope I can somehow make it into the program. It would be a shame to have that kind of program available and not make use of it, but you know, work, kids, life. Hope I can get into the program some how.

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Originally Posted by AnthonyS

No, never retake a class, especially intro to engineering. The M-O-N-E-Y is in the petroleum business by the way. I've doubled my salary and then some since leaving the auto industry.

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Thanks for the advise. I hate chemistry though, lol. I have family in the Austin and Houston areas so that's an avenue I can pursue when I get closer to graduating.
What type of systems do you work on? I hear petroleum and I always think petroleum engineer for Exxon Mobile, are you by chance referring to hydraulic systems and drilling equipment? It's the one thing I know nothing about, like what to do with the degree after I graduate, which avenue to take. I don't want to end up working on cell phone cases for a living.

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Originally Posted by Jiggerachi

^You're at A&M right? That tells me all I need to know about the class.

And yea the FSAE program is awesome. If I have the time I really hope I can somehow make it into the program. It would be a shame to have that kind of program available and not make use of it, but you know, work, kids, life. Hope I can get into the program some how.

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Yeah, I heard plenty of horror stories about A&M engineering. Turns out the actual engineering classes are a breeze, its the math and physics, etc that get you.

AFAIK, the UTA program is a volunteer thing, I'm not sure you have to get in, rather just show up. I could be wrong though.

Yes, the UTA FSAE program is volunteer. You don't have to qualify for it, but they expect you to devote a significant amount of time to the team. It's a great organization, but might not be a good fit for someone with a full-time job and family. I was married and working when I went to UTA and I spent some time working with the FSAE team on a couple of projects, but ultimately I did not have enough time to devote to the team.

If you're interested in finding out more about the team, contact Dr. Bob Woods in the Engineering Department.

I am an ME Major at UTA and I am a FSAE Team member. It is an incredible opportunity and it is one of the best things you can do for your career. It is a ton of time that needs to be devoted, but in my opinion well worth it. Plus we are looking for experienced auto-x drivers for competition in Lincoln, Nebraska and Hockenheim, Germany...just sayin

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Originally Posted by Keifersmith

So if you can already claim credit for the class from DCCCD, why not go ahead and take that. If you determine that taking the course at UTA would be beneficial could you audit the class? i.e. your credit/grade from DCCCD, but you could sit in on the UTA class for informational purposes. Since it's an audit, you wouldn't necessarily have to be worried about project/test/workload/grade/etc.

Of course it's been 27 years since I've been out of school so maybe things don't work that way anymore....

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THIS^
If you feel like you need a refresher or even need to actually learn something that they failed to teach you at the other school I would opt for something free and that wont effect your GPA plus you wouldn't have any workload to speak of. But in any case the classes here are really good and there are lots of good professors but there are also some to steer clear of or you might end up with the same sort of experience.

rmonheim were you there for SAE Night?

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Originally Posted by Sloaner00

rmonheim were you there for SAE Night?

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I was, I was with the A&M Grassroots team. We were walking with one of the UTA guys and he said he drove a miata. Maybe it was you?

I was so jealous of your facilities, we were all blown away compared to what we have back at TAMU.

Ya that was me. We are pretty blessed, we just got our shop painted and the floors redone last semester and it made a world of difference. I am jealous of yalls grassroots program that sounds like a blast. Spend somebody elses money to build a car and then get to go race it, sounds good to me

Well looks like I screwed the pooch on this one. I found out there is a requirement to attend a certain research lecture as well as an student organization meeting and write about them to get credit for the course. Due monday and the only one that was scheduled I couldn't make in short notice, didn't see any other meetings and they won't give any extensions. It was my fault they sent the email to an address I don't check so I never saw it till too late. I'm SOL so looks like i'll be retaking the damn thing anyway.

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Originally Posted by Sloaner00

I am an ME Major at UTA and I am a FSAE Team member. It is an incredible opportunity and it is one of the best things you can do for your career. It is a ton of time that needs to be devoted, but in my opinion well worth it. Plus we are looking for experienced auto-x drivers for competition in Lincoln, Nebraska and Hockenheim, Germany...just sayin



THIS^
If you feel like you need a refresher or even need to actually learn something that they failed to teach you at the other school I would opt for something free and that wont effect your GPA plus you wouldn't have any workload to speak of. But in any case the classes here are really good and there are lots of good professors but there are also some to steer clear of or you might end up with the same sort of experience.

rmonheim were you there for SAE Night?

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Once I get more into the department I'm going to hit up a few meetings to see what I can do. I don't have very much free time but I do have at least 2 near free days during the week. I pretty much study at work so depending on my class load it might be feasible. At least I'll be some part of the SAE program, just how much I'm not sure.

I talked to one guy that said they use megasquirt for the engine management and there's hardly anyone who knows anything about it there. Any truth to it? The guy was at a community college and seemed to have dropped out of UTA engineering and all he had was negative stuff to say about them so didn't seem too trustworthy to me, but definitely made me curious.

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Originally Posted by rmonheim

Yeah, I heard plenty of horror stories about A&M engineering. Turns out the actual engineering classes are a breeze, its the math and physics, etc that get you.

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I have heard the same things about UTA, not necessarily that the ENG courses were easy, but rather that UTA math is KILLER. I've heard this from multiple sources including professors(only in community college though). Makes me glad i've got 99% of my math out of the way already at community college. Classes were hard but all my professors were excellent and really helped a lot. I've only got engineering classes from here on out.

Just to toss my somewhat unrelated two bits in. When I started working full time in my industry (computer science), degree related classes all became way, way easier. Not sure if that would apply in your case, but doing it every day with much harder real problems and deadlines was way harder than the contrived trivial examples in class.

^ I took 4 programming classes while working as a jr programmer, VB.NET and C++, probably less than 20% actually related to anything I was doing, I learned more from being thrown a project and figuring out how to make it work. So I'd say this is more than accurate...in my even less than limited experience, lol.

So anyone who is currently a UTA student, where the hell do I find the event calendars for the student organizations? I.e. FSAE and Society of Mechanical Engineers. I got an extension on these requirements so I need to attend these meetings in the next two weeks, but I can't find the information anywhere. All the org websites are dead links and calling multiple depts at the school didn't help either, the organizations manage their own schedules. I'd like to try to join one or more of these anyway so i'd be looking for this information even if I didn't desperately need it.

Simple google search. Hope this helps.

https://www.facebook.com/teamutaracing/page_map

I said it before and I'll say it again...

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Originally Posted by altiain

If you're interested in finding out more about the team, contact Dr. Bob Woods in the Engineering Department.

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Originally Posted by Jiggerachi

I have heard the same things about UTA, not necessarily that the ENG courses were easy, but rather that UTA math is KILLER. I've heard this from multiple sources including professors(only in community college though). Makes me glad i've got 99% of my math out of the way already at community college. Classes were hard but all my professors were excellent and really helped a lot. I've only got engineering classes from here on out.

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Math at UTA was brutal. Much harder than the actual Engineering courses I took. Except for one. Fundamentals of Composite Engineering. That was a graduate level course I took my final semester to fulfill my remaining engineering elective requirement. Kicked my ass.

^Did you also take some math classes at TCC? How would they compare to the UTA math classes?

I had a DCCCD professor tell me that UTA engineering dept relied on required math skills above what they accepted as transfer. So anyone transferring into UTA was basically DOA and wouldn't succeed. Same guy emailed me after dropping his class to specifically tell me engineering school with kids and a job was not feasible and I didn't have enough time to succeed there. I dismissed it as a language barrier but I did buy a massive advanced engineering math textbook in case I needed references outside my calc/diff-e books.

I made As & Bs all through Cal1-3 & Diff Eq so i'm sure I can handle whatever I run into, but I've always been a little curious.

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Originally Posted by altiain

I said it before and I'll say it again...

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Yea I didn't want to bug him directly with a stupid question unless I really needed to, but I ended up talking to him a few days ago. Very nice guy, got the info I needed. There is no calendar, they meet every week. I'm still looking for the ASME info, but i'll start asking around campus next.

Random question for recent engineering grads, how much did you personally use SolidWorks in the undergrad program?

I'm taking an engineering graphics class next semester, and thinking this is a good excuse to upgrade my POS laptop for a more college friendly (size, etc) laptop. I don't want to drop a grand on a high end laptop only to use it heavily for simple graphics in ONE class. But if, and I assume this is the case, it will be used frequently until graduation and past, I can justify spending extra. I'm sure it'll come in handy for the senior design projects and such, but that won't be for a couple years yet.

For the record I hate my POS laptop and I'm looking for an excuse to get a new one, lol. I'm looking at the Dell & Lenovo with 14" screens and Core i5 or i7's & graphics yadda yadda.

I studied Pro/E in school, and it's what my company uses as well. I did not have a laptop when attending school (class of '05). Don't get hung up too much on specific CAD programs - they all do basically the same thing, and you may or may not end up working for a company that uses whatever program you studied in school.

If you want to go into design engineering, I encourage you to focus on mechanics of materials, GD&T, assembly of welded and/or bolted components, finite element analysis, understanding machining and fabrication, etc. These are the skills that will give you a leg up as a new hire.

The core requirements may have changed, but I do not feel that the program at UTA focused enough on these requirements. Mechanical Engineering is a very broad degree, and Design Engineering should almost be a separate discipline.

I got one of these a few months ago for "engineering", although I've yet to do any CAD, etc. http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops...-series/y410p/

It will do any of the latest racing sims on high settings, so it should be more than enough for any 3D design work. I've had no issues with it so far, and it's just stupid fast.

I'll make you a sweet deal on a gently used Lenovo T510 with 15" screen and 8 gigs of RAM...

^I'll keep that in mind. I'm looking at the 14" laptops for portability. I have a 15.6 now and it sucks to lug around and try to use on a classroom desk, the size is among other things though, but the 14's i've tried seem the perfect "student" size. I have a 24" screen my wife uses for working at home so screen size doesn't matter, it's mostly portability as well as performance at this point, but that T510 fits the latter of the bill.

PM me your price. Thanks

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Originally Posted by rmonheim

I got one of these a few months ago for "engineering", although I've yet to do any CAD, etc. http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops...-series/y410p/

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I'm going to frys to check these out today. I'm debating between a gaming rig and one of the sturdy business focused Thinkpads, since I don't really play any games other than Mario Kart, lol.

Dell latitude business laptops. Very study and 3 year warranty. Buy from the outlet with a coupon. We buy fully loaded 7400 or 7200 series for our developers and I hear no complaints. I7, ssd, 1920x1080 res min spec.