College? Mechanical engineering

I to am struggling with the math courses… prepping for a midterm that starts in 8 hours

IM GOING TO DIE

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It’s weird, I loved the physics and had no problem with it, but the math haunted me the whole way through. Meanwhile a friend of mine there aced the math but just couldn’t visualize the physics. I dunno, guess I just hate abstract numbers. Hang in there, good luck with your midterms!

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I’m was a smart but lazy. Took three quarters of physics in college late 90’s. Instead of learning, I made programs on my TI that asked for values and gave me an output. Now kids got apps

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How old are you?. Don’t be scared of the “im to old” scenario. If you’re not ready to study then wait abit. Especially if you have pay for it…I graduated as an EE at 26…here I am at 29 looking at masters programmes cause “they seem cool”. Then again, maybe abit different cultures.

Here’s my mediocre advice, since I was in your shoes not too long ago.

Moving away from home can be kinda scary. My school is about 1.5 hours from where I grew up, but it felt like 1000 miles when I was a first-year. I was worried about passing classes, making friends, everything. My family was sad to see me leave, but they understood that it was a part of growing up. My mom is still sad whenever I have to come back to school, but she knows that I’m learning what I enjoy and loving college. You can do it.

Taking a gap year can be really helpful for some people, but not everyone. IF you KNOW you want to go to college eventually and IF financially you CAN go to college now, then I think you should go now. I had a friend who took a gap year for no real reason and was bored after 3 months. If money is a concern, however, then I think waiting and avoiding debt is the best option. A little bit of boredom is worth not having tons of student debt.

As for dealing with anxiety, I can’t speak to that personally, but I’ve had friends deal with it. Like it was said, therapy is amazing. Most schools will offer some form of free or heavily discounted therapy for their students. Just a thought.

On the practical side, if you’re considering studying engineering (of any variety), be sure the school you go to is accredited by a 3rd party professional organization. What that means is an official non-governmental organization has given its seal of approval on the education quality of the school. In the USA, that means ABET accreditation is key. Since you’re in Canada, it looks like you’ll want approval from the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB). This basically means that a group of professional engineers has given your school the thumbs up.

Apologies for the short essay. I hope some of my ramblings were helpful.

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First: get over the fear. You will make more friends in college than you have at home. Everyone there is about the same age with similar goals. A very important lesson is “don’t worry about what you can’t control”. Or you could go with the quote from an imaginary green little person: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Any way you want to look at it, it is wasted energy and it will prevent you from reaching your goals.

Second: you will have to improve your English to get an engineering degree. Everything we do is documented - you have to be able to write well and they will enforce that during your education. If you also need remedial work in math then I suggest you enroll in a local community college immediately, or if you can afford it, hire a tutor.

Third: stand up straight. Look someone in the eye when you meet them and give them a firm handshake. Smile a lot. If you appear confident people will treat you like you are confident and you will become confident. Understand that all humans have anxieties. Some just hide them better than others.

Good luck.

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Another ME here, graduating in a month, it’s not for everyone, live 5 hours from home and I enjoy it, do what you have to for a solid education, I would not wait.

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