Sorry to interupt guys but im new to the forum and am also a 1st year ENG student, just wanted to ask if anyone knows of the criteria required to get Vacation work, and also what can i expect?
You might be lucky to find some volunteer work, but generally for paid work most firms will only take 3rd year up (that way they can capitalise by having a grad already familiar with the business). Some places do take second years tho. My advice would be to go to a career's fair at uni and sign up for Engineers Australia, they publish a guide on Engineering firms around Australia, what disciplines they take etc. When I was looking for undergrad work I basically emailed every firm in the guide relevant to my field.
Also guys just wondering if calculus runs pretty much all the way through the course or not? im interested in chemical engineering but every time i see an equation with derivatives it freaks the crap out of me. Does it get really hard or is it just something you pick up? also, apparently engineering has a really high drop out rate, anyone heard anything like this??
i dropped out of engineering because the math just sucked. and yeah, id imagine you would have to do it for a few years
Ive done maths since first year however I think it kinda peaked in second year. In that year I learnt how to do fourier transforms etc. In third year we were given a lookup table for transforms as it was assumed we could do them- in the real world no one would waste their time calculating them, so why should we need to. From then on it was all about applying the concepts we had learnt in first and second year. In my course there was a large dropout in first year, a few in second, but after that everyone stayed on. The way I got through it was just to take one subject at a time, and by working hard at it. Once you come to understand the calculus you can basically tackle every problem they throw at you. It may seem daunting at first but just work through it and it'll be over before you know it.
Yeah cheers thats some good advice, i am determined to pass and pull through even though the odds are against me, however some of the work we do is just beyond me and i wish it just made sense!
Just stick with it man, its not as hard as everyone makes it out to be. It will all make sense to you in the end.
Engineering is maths. You will learn differential equations which are painful but after that you will be shown tricks on how to avoid them. There is far more maths in Elec eng than chem eng but you will need to be on your toes. It just takes hard work. You will also have to get used to people says "you uni students have it easy". "Engineering. The hardest four years of your life or the best seven." Mike
Nothing. Just change to electrical/electronic/communications because that's where all the fun is. BTW: Any engineering students interested in vacation / part time work in Melbourne ? Electrical/electronic/computer/communications discipline preferred.
Grrr! Where were you when I was doing my degree! Would have loved to have done some part time work in that field.
Just outta curiousity tommo what sort of work would be involved? Joint I'm working for atm have my trying out rf engineering, currently designing and building a class c amp. Sort of a project for me to work at over the year, while I finish final year at uni.
yeah what kind of work? did a year of elec engineering, now doing computing, and have a years experience with utilities
Yeah its all good ay. Think you may have read to hard that i have ambitions of being a mine manager, i understand there are more steps to take, and really you want to be heading towards the deputy, undermanger ect... path rather than engineering which i have no interest in doing. I only wanna do my electrical degree and get my "in charge" off the DPI. I can dream of that stuff once i get to my goal first. But my first passion is electrical engineering as it requires many concepts and different ways of thinking and challenges the way you think and see things. These degrees and jobs are challenging but i dont think they are as hard as what some think. If you have the time and the ability to learn then its simply a matter of putting them together and you will have yourself the competencies to take on these roles. There is very little prestige that comes along with these roles. Plenty of pitts here use bord and pillar and its definatly somthing people should be familiar with. Just not common in alot of the new and re-oppened mines. But mines that have been ticking along still use this method. Alot of Centenial pitts were bord and pillar setups. Personally i think its the most fun as its a fast paced at the face sorta mining but breaker line supports have taken the fun out of it. But its alot safer now too.
I little joke shared by eng students. Go to parties and piss around and it will take you seven. Works bloody hard and you'll be out in four. Things to look forward to (I did my phD in chem eng, my u/g was elec so I only observed the chemE students) 1)Maths and lots of it 2)Actually using the maths, yes when you hit the big bad world there are computer programs to do all the calculations for you but if you don't understand them them very bad things can happen. 3)Rate of chemical reactions 4)Heat flow. 5)Working along side some idiot in the lab who will take all your results. 6)Organic chemistry (almost universally acknowledge as the hardest thing you will do. 7)When you do your thesis your supervisor will have a project so broad you will think at the start you will actually save the world and find a cure for baldness. Halfway down the track you will realize that you have barely achieved 5% of your initial scope. Don't panic this is normal. 8)You will discover that most stuff you learned in high school was an oversimplification. 9)You will have a major design project to do, this may almost be as much work as the thesis. Mike
