“Darn,” I missed watching the Aerohydrodynamics Glider Competition, that would have been a good featured picture. And no, I don’t know what aerohydrodynamics is, either.
Oh well, here’s a crumpled formula sheet from one my exams. I might’ve taken my anger out on it at some point, but at least I didn’t litter!
Mechanical engineering. I suppose the most relevant Part I subject (at least in Semester One) is Dynamics, which is half a course about stuff that moves (The other half is about stuff that doesn’t move. Take a wild guess which one is easier). I’ve also taken a look at the Part II course schedule for Mechatronics and Mechanical Engineering, and I found they were pretty much identical except Mechatronics has a software thing to it. Just something to keep in mind.
One of the prerequisites to get into engineering is taking Physics in high school, and for good reason. I went from taking Scholarship Physics in Year 13 (I dropped it after 2 days, but still) to the Dynamics exam just wrecking my brain. Whoops. Just serves as another reminder that most people in my year (about 900 of them I believe) did pretty well for themselves in high school (else they wouldn’t be here). And “pretty well” is really just average at uni (comparatively) as I’ve come to learn. Did you know they tell you what the class average is for everything that gets graded? This can go either way from really motivating to really demotivating. And you also get to know the range of marks attained, which is usually between 0 to the highest mark anyway. The boxplot themselves are generally left-skewed, even for tests. For comparison here’s my MAX (Accelerated Maths) results from last year:
Yes, that’s a B+ but A- overall (linear algebra = 🙁 Coursework saves your life)
Other than that though, existential crisis aside, everything else went smoothly. [insert coefficient of friction pun here]. I don’t think I did as well as I hoped, but it seems to be the case with everyone so I’m in the clear! ~optimism~ Here’s a word or two of advice: Try not to worry about things you can’t change (I say as I continue to worry about my results…)
That’s definitely enough about me, here are some questions I asked the #1 RA of all time, Jack, who is currently studying Part II Mechanical Engineering:
How would you describe Mechanical Engineering?
Mechanical engineering is the specialisation that focuses mainly on the workings of machinery and mechanisms. A whole lot of what we learn about is how things work and how they interact with the environment round them. We learn mathematical logic and then apply it to some situation in the real world.
Why did you decide on Mechanical Engineering?
I chose mechanical engineering because since I can remember I’ve been taking stuff apart and putting them back together (TVs, computers, motors, you name it) just to see how they worked, often fixing them along the way if they were broken, ever since then I’ve been all about learning how everything works and how to fix them if they ever break.
What advice would you give to someone considering Mechanical Engineering?
If you enjoy learning about how things fit together and how they work this is the specialisation for you, It’s a very rewarding specialisation and career choice and there’s something for everyone in the course
That’s all, folks