by cheshster » Wed Oct 08, 2014 6:22 pm
School is why I quit posting on/reading MFA and why, after my happy introduction here, I haven't actually posted or read a damn thing. But I miss y'all so I am trying to make time for this place!
I'm 31 and pursuing a civil engineering degree. I was suffering from severe depression during and after high school, so even if I had an idea of what I wanted to study then (I didn't) I really wasn't in any place to do so. I'm glad I finally got to a point in my life where higher education seems like a reasonable goal, but I have to admit I feel like I've wasted quite a few years now.
After three really great semesters (dean's list my first two; third I was only taking one class because summer financial aid is pretty much nonexistent, but I got an A), I'm having a really hard time. This is my first semester where I'm not taking any gen ed classes and I'm really regretting that. Currently I'm taking calculus 2, surveying, and science/engineering physics 1 (and its lab).
Everyone had warned me that calc 2 was incredibly difficult, but I've found it not to be that bad. It's hard, definitely, but not destroying me like I'd been led to believe it would.
On the other hand, I knew physics would be hard, but I have never felt as stupid in my life as I do in this class. I know it's not me, at least not entirely, but it's hard not to feel like I'm just an incredible idiot. I always come out of lectures feeling like I have a good grasp of the material, but then I look at the homework and it might as well be Greek (incidentally, the professor actually *is* Greek!) A big part of my trouble is that the homework is all online, and even though they give us like 5 chances, there's still no real feedback as to whether an answer is wrong because you messed up in a calculation or because you've done the wrong thing entirely. A classmate suggested I download the solution guide and I think that will help a lot, though I doubt it's going to let me catch up enough to do decently on the test in two days.
Surveying is a lot harder than I expected it to be, but ultimately not too bad. I had expected it to be kind of a cakewalk like the drafting class I took last spring, but it turns out that you have to work a lot harder to take the measurements than you do to put them into AutoCAD.
My school (University of Utah) has a couple of suggested-but-not-required humanities courses for engineers that I took last fall and spring, and I really enjoyed them, to the point that I sometimes wonder if I should go into humanities instead, and my difficulty with physics is not dissuading me from that. I keep having to remind myself that part of the reason I want to be an engineer is to bring my more humanities-focused values to a field that's largely the domain of old straight white dudes and hopefully do something to make it more welcome for women, queers, people of color.