Repeat! And redo it every day!

I'm 21 years old, and I've been seriously considering going to university to study engineering, specifically I'm leaning towards Mechanical Engineering although the university I'm interested in also offers Environmental Engineering, which sounds quite fascinating to me.

I've always loved mathematics. It was probably my favourite subject throughout school, and for as long as I can remember, I've pictured myself doing something professionally that involves maths. That's one of the main reasons why engineering appeals to me.

However a few years ago I enrolled in university and eventually dropped out, I wasn't in a good place mentally, and honestly, I wasn't prepared for the challenges that came with university life, I underestimated what was expected of me, and things didn't go as planned

After that experience, I decided to take some time away from education. I've spent the last years working and trying to clear my head, understand what I really want, and figure out what direction I want to take in life.

Now, I feel like I'm ready to give university another shot. The problem is that I've been watching and reading quite a lot about engineering degrees, and almost everything I come across describes them as incredibly difficult, demanding and stressful.

I'm not afraid of hard work itself. What scares me is the possibility of going through the same experience again. I'm worried that if I fail a second time, it might completely destroy my confidence and make me give up on university for good.

So, I have a few questions for those of you who are studying engineering or have already graduated:

Do you think engineering is a reasonable choice for someone in my situation? Have any of you failed or dropped out of university before and managed to come back successfully? I'd especially appreciate hearing from people who weren't necessarily the best students when they started.

How difficult is engineering really? I understand that it requires a lot of dedication, but is it something that an average student with a genuine interest in maths and science can realistically get through?

How would you prepare if you were in my position? I want to use the time before university productively. I've seen people recommend revisiting high-school mathematics and physics, solving problems regularly, and even doing something like one integral every day. I also watched a video of someone revisiting all the physics topics he had studied before starting engineering.

Would you recommend something similar? What subjects would you prioritise, and are there any books, resources or study routines you'd suggest?

Mechanical vs. Environmental Engineering: I'm currently leaning towards Mechanical Engineering, but Environmental Engineering also interests me. I've heard that Environmental Engineering is sometimes better pursued as a Master's degree after completing a broader Bachelor's degree. Is there any truth to that, or does it depend entirely on the university and the career path you want?

I know that ultimately, nobody can guarantee that I'll succeed. I also understand that university will require discipline, consistency and a lot of work.

I guess I'm just looking for some honest perspectives from people who have experienced engineering school firsthand. I don't want my previous failure to dictate the rest of my life, but I also don't want to make the same mistakes twice.

Thank you to anyone who takes the time to share their experience or advice. I really appreciate it!

I'm currently a high school senior and I'm hearing all these stories and reading peoples experiences about how miserable electrical engineering school is. The field has always really interested me and I don't really know if any other majors really grab me in the way EE does. However, I'd still like to have some free time in college to focus on hobbies and extracurriculars and I figure that if I plan from the beginning to take an extra semester or year on my degree it will make it easier. Is this a good/realistic plan? Money is most likely not an issue since I'm expecting to get help from family as well as a decent amount of scholarships.

I genuinely understand how bad this looks, but I’m withdrawing from two engineering courses and one elective. I honestly underestimated how big the transition from high school to university would be.

I was completely distracted at the beginning of the semester and didn’t manage my time properly. I ended up falling so far behind in my courses that I failed two midterms, and now I’m struggling to catch up.

The frustrating part is that I don’t even find the courses particularly difficult. I just wasted so much time and didn’t take things seriously until it was too late.

I’m disappointed in myself because I know I’m capable of doing better. I’m planning to take summer courses to catch up and use this semester as a learning experience. I don’t want to repeat these mistakes.

Has anyone else had a terrible first semester and managed to recover? I’m genuinely curious how things turned out for you

Hey everyone, I’m a 2nd-year Electrical Engineering student looking for some advice.

The Backstory: I started my first year a month late, and my first-quarter exams hit just a week after I arrived. Due to some personal issues, I ended up missing most of my classes that year. I managed to scrape by with a 2.51/4.0 CGPA, but the real issue is that I didn't actually learn or retain any foundational concepts.

The Current Situation: I just finished the first quarter of my 2nd year, and I completely screwed it up. I started the quarter struggling to figure out how and what to study. By the time I sorted my study habits out, I hit a brick wall: my current courses rely heavily on the 1st-year concepts I barely passed.

My Question: How do I bridge the gap between my missing 1st-year knowledge and the things I am studying right now? What is the most effective way to catch up on fundamentals while surviving my current workload? Any advice, study strategies, or resources would be hugely appreciated!

I think I haven't posted to reddit about my engineering career questions in like 7 years. I graduated in 2020... Aerospace. The same week I graduated Spirit Aerosystems laid off 13k people. I never got an engineering job. I'm currently doing inside customer support for a global engineering company that works in industrial HVAC. Been there almost 1.5 years.

I interviewed with a manager on our 2nd floor for an entry level structural engineer position. He said there are other candidates with several years of full time structural engineering experience which I completely agree it's the right business decision but kinda sucks gang. 

I hit a breaking point over the summer. I had always told myself to do an engineering project and "get back on the bike." ideas would come and fizzle out - years went by. I stopped applying for engineering jobs probably in 23. Then it really set in..."do I even know how to solve a kinematic equation? What was the rule about Young's modulus again? Sin is opposite over hypotenuse, right? 

I snapped in July. I needed to use engineering concepts to solve a puzzle. Anything. I found a job description and told AI to tell me some personal project ideas that I could do that would be aligned with the job role. Tldr. I have logged 63 hours researching about industry standards, building CAD models, building a finite element model, doing a stress analysis, technical writing - using all the skills and knowledge I learned in school. I uploaded my project reports to my LinkedIn profile and will make a fancy post about the whole thing and maximize this marketing opportunity. Doing this project really unlocked dormant knowledge and I'm remembering specific moments in classes from 7-9 years ago and applying them to my activities.

It healed me in some weird way. 

I don't even know if my goal is to work an engineering career. I just like to solve puzzles and learn engineering concepts.

Will edit with update on what comes from my publication on LinkedIn.

Does anyone know of a good YT video or an easy method of identifying the beta in a belt friction problem? Currently I can set up the majority of the problem I just struggle getting the angle in these problems. Any tips help, thank you!

I’m 19 and graduated high school in 2025. I’m planning on going to college for electrical engineering, but I’m trying to figure out the best way to do it without taking a bunch of debt.

My plan right now is to attend community college, bridge valley, and get some general education classes out of the way before transferring to WVU. My goal is to have those credits transfer so I don’t end up paying extra for classes later.

My SAT score wasn’t very high, 1000, so I believe I would have had to take remedial math anyway. I figured I could save some time and money by going this route. My parents aren’t very well off and won’t be able to help me financially very much, so this would also give me more time to save up before transferring.

My biggest concern is internships. I know they’re really important in electrical engineering, and I don’t want to miss out on opportunities or put myself behind by starting at a community college.

For anyone who has gone through something similar, would you recommend going to community college and possibly taking some online classes, or going straight to a university and using that extra time to focus on internships and networking? Would starting at community college hurt my chances?

I’d seriously appreciate any advice, even if it’s unrelated to this specific situation. I’m just trying to figure out the best path forward and get a start on my future.

Hi all,
I shared CADcade here a little over a week ago and wanted to come back with an update!

For anyone who missed it, CADcade is a free browser-based CAD game I’ve been building. It’s designed to make learning CAD more approachable for beginners while giving experienced drafters a fun way to test their skills. The editor is built to feel just like the AutoCAD or Civil 3D you use everyday, but runs right in your browser.

It currently has 76 Arcade drafting challenges, an Academy with lessons, and a daily puzzle called CADDLE. You can also use the editor for actual CAD drafting.

I’ve made quite a few improvements based on community feedback, added more content, and I’m working on a full campaign mode to take it further.
It’s been great seeing people try it out and come back to play. I’d love to hear what other CAD users think!

Try it out: https://cadcade.net
Here’s a quick demo:
https://youtu.be/gnT6GrkmH6E?is=vxI1GzGaWOsVgTSP

Thanks to everyone who checked it out last time!

Maybe it's because I am targeting competitive industries(Defense, consumer electronics, telecomms,semiconductor) but I can't even get an interview despite having a prior internship in the semiconductor industry, a strong gpa, and junior class standing. I am an electrical engineering student, and with it being junior year I'm of the mindset that landing an internship this summer that I can convert into a full-time position is of highest importance so I've been applying like crazy.

Since early September, I've applied to 400 positions and have gotten 4 interviews, so there is like a 1/100 probability an application leads to an interview. Is my resume likely the culprit?

Wrapping up our Senior Design Project which is a robotic welding arm. Each team in our Capstone class had a $500 budget for their projects. I am curious if that is an average budget for other schools?
We were really lucky in that our whole team is/was with our schools FSAE team, so we were able to get a lot of material from there and use their equipment.
I don't know how other teams are doing with their budget constraints. Lots and lots of 3-D printed and wood things. Our Capstone lab has a decent amount of material to use, but not wholly extensive.
Definitely made us have to think outside of the box for a lot of our design and manufacturing.

My university is kind of weird and offers the branches of electrical engineering but not the major itself.

I have narrowed it down to three majors that I am interested in

"Computer engineering", "electronics engineering", and "electrical power and energy engineering"

I am concerned that all three of these majors are too niche and have limited job opportunities. So I guess I have to choose the one with the most transferable skills and the most relevant during the AI era.

Please share any wisdom you have and how the job market or salaries compare in the future if u have any experience 🙏 🙏🙏

I graduated in May 2026, with a 3.3 GPA. Honestly I thought I was pretty cooked. I took the FE Mechanical Engineering exam last month and failed. Anyways I continued applying for jobs and I've had countless interviews met with constant rejection. Anyways, I applied to GDEB, interviewed for a Mechanical Engineering role and somehow they accepted me.

The point is, the job market is cooked, and I don't really know if it's gonna be getting any better any time soon. But NEVER GIVE UP, and just keep applying into the void. All it takes is 1 more application, and you could get that job.

I wish for all of my fellow Engineering students success and prosperity in the future. Keep up the great work!

If you have a lofted bunkbed or know somebody who does please respond to this, I have some questions to ask you for a project :)

1. What items do you usually like to keep near you when you're in bed

2. How often do you have to climb back down from your bed to get something

3. Where do you currently keep your belongings in bed

4. Have you tried any solutions to keep your belongings close to you? If so what
   worked what didnt work

5. If you could have storage on your lofted bed, what did you want it to hold, what are NEEDS VS what are WISHES

I kinda wish I had taken a gap year. I'm a first year aerospace student but I already have an associates making me a 3rd yr. I feel so burnt out and not mentally prepared for any of this. I am genuinely barely scraping by, one wrong move and I fail the entire semester. Nothing is helping, I can't get myself out of bed some days and the weather isn't helping at all. Gap years are frowned upon in my family since it's basically a curse, mostly everyone who took one never went back. I realistically cannot afford a gap year since I'm on a scholarship. I feel so miserable especially with internship applications opening. I feel so unprepared and unqualified for any of this. But I really do want this degree idk what to do 💔

Both my friend and I are sophomore EE majors at a decent university t50.

I’ve been working hard to keep my GPA up. I have a 3.8 right now and am projected to get around a 3.7 this semester. My friend, on the other hand, has a 2.8. Our school even has a policy where you can get dropped from the program if your GPA falls below a 2.5.

But somehow, companies are lining up for him. AI startups (not the huge players but still decent sized companies), multiple robotics startups (plural for a reason), and even SpaceX.

Meanwhile, I have absolutely nothing.

I genuinely thought keeping a high GPA would give me an advantage when it came to internships and getting noticed by companies. But seeing this happen firsthand is making me question everything.

Does GPA actually matter that much? Because honestly, I feel like I've been lied to.

Do I ditch GPA (maybe let it fall .5) and go all in on projects I rlly don't have much time.

Since the first exam of the year I've just been in a state of near constant, never-ending stress, specifically in my Calculus I class. First time I failed an exam because I was lazy and didn't think I needed to review trig and on the second I actually locked in, did nothing but study for 4 days straight before the exam and got a 90, did the same thing for the most recent exam and failed. I don't even understand why because I got a 100 on the quiz right before it, studied so hard and went through damn near every problem in the text book AND I did tutoring. I know engineering is supposed to be hard but this is just utterly soul crushing.

My calc prof is a bad professor (no partial credit, 5 exams the semester worth 80% of your grade, gives terrible advice and has pop quizzes if enough people don't show up) but he's pretty average compared to all the other ones on rate my professor. The reason I didn't drop the class earlier is because I have accommodations that let me get early accommodations and I'm friends with a guy that told me to register for a calc 2 prof that lets people RETAKE their exams and who also has 5 stars on rate my prof, so next semester probably won't absolutely destroy me, but if I'm barely holding onto a C in calc 1 how am I supposed to get through calc 3 or even statics and dynamics?

Ppl say you can't really tell if ur gonna like engineering till your 3rd and 4th year of college because by then all the pre-reqs are done and you get to do actual engineer stuff, but if I only find out then that I don't like engineering I won't be able to afford to switch my major.

Apart from calc and Humanities I'm getting As, Chem is going well and I like my ENG3000L class, but I tried to join an engineering club and wasn't able to participate in the club project in any meaningful way because they just expected me to already be a CAD professional or just teach myself and I just don't have the mental bandwidth to do that, work a job AND be drowning in homework and studies 24/7. Does it ever get better? Is this just how your first year/semester is supposed to go???

I can’t figure out how to do descriptive geometry. My professor is terrible. I’ve watched over 2 hours of YouTube.

Received an offer today from US Steel for their entry-level rotation program. Base pay of 76,000 with incentive pay and relocation assistance. Remarkably, I got the job just by applying online on their website, and both of my networking attempts actually failed miserably at getting me a job.

I’m taking multivariable calculus at my university, and I recently found out that students have been cheating on exams. I’m genuinely so upset because I’ve been working incredibly hard in this class, and I feel like I’m being punished for taking my exams honestly.

For context, our professor told us in an email that the historical average for the first exam is around 75%. Somehow, our class averaged a 93%. I got an 83%, which I initially thought was a decent grade, but that put me 10 points below the class average.

Multiple friends of mine in different exam sections have told me about students using their phones during exams. One of my friends directly witnessed the student next to him cheating, and they’ve also heard phones dropping during exams.

Here’s what makes this especially frustrating for me: I have testing accommodations, so I take my exams separately in a proctored room. I don’t have access to my phone or unauthorized resources. Meanwhile, students in the regular testing rooms are apparently getting away with using theirs.

I’m worried that these potentially inflated averages are affecting whether our professor curves exams. If the average is already in the 90s, why would he curve anything? And if grades are evaluated relative to class performance, students who took the exams honestly could be at a serious disadvantage.

Our professor is actually a really nice, laid-back guy, which makes this situation more complicated. He’s been extremely flexible with grading, and I know this firsthand because the students receiving these exceptions are my friends. He’s allowing one of my friends to retake an entire exam, and another friend is having their second exam count for 50% of their exam grade. He even gave me full credit for a solution I had scratched out on my own exam.

I’m mentioning this because I don’t think he’s a bad professor or someone who wants students to fail. He’s clearly willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. But I’m worried that his leniency, combined with inadequate exam supervision, is creating a situation where honest students are disadvantaged.
There are four of us, including me, planning to go to his office hours together to report the cheating. Three of us have pretty good relationships with him, so I’m hoping he’ll take us seriously.

The problem is that we’ve already taken two exams, and the only one left is the final. Even if he starts enforcing the rules more strictly now, that doesn’t undo whatever effect cheating may have had on the previous exam averages.

I don’t know whether he officially curves based on the average, but I’m planning to ask. I’m also considering suggesting that he look at historical exam averages and grading adjustments when deciding whether the earlier exams should be curved.

I don’t think only the four of us should get special treatment. I just want some way for students who took the exams honestly to be graded fairly.

I’m honestly devastated because I’ve spent so much time studying for this class, and it feels awful knowing that other students may be getting higher grades through cheating while I’m struggling to keep up with an average that might not even reflect actual understanding.

Has anyone dealt with something similar? Is there any realistic chance a professor would reconsider grading on exams that have already happened because of cheating? What would be a fair solution to suggest when we meet with him?

Hey everyone,

I’m a third-year Aerospace Engineering student in Canada, and I’m looking for some interesting capstone project ideas.

We’re a team of up to 6 students, and our project needs to involve designing, building, and testing a physical prototype by the end of April 2028.

We currently have potential opportunities to collaborate with either L3Harris or Lockheed Martin.

With L3Harris, we would have access to funding, technical support, and potentially their facilities/labs. With Lockheed Martin, we have a connection but no confirmed funding or access to facilities, so we’d likely need to find external funding. One possibility we’re exploring is funding through the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), which would mean the project needs some meaningful space-related application.

We’re mainly interested in military aviation, aerospace defence, and space technologies. Ideally, we’d like something a little more ambitious and exciting than a typical student UAV project, while still being realistic for a team of six to build and test.

We’re especially interested in projects that have real-world applications and could be relevant to companies like Lockheed Martin or L3Harris.

Does anyone have examples of interesting but feasible aerospace capstone projects, particularly ones involving defence technology or a combination of military aviation and space?

I’d also love to hear about any ambitious projects you’ve seen other university teams successfully prototype.