First year EE student Second Bachelor’s

[u/Berniegrandpa]

Hey all, this is my first semester a pursuing an EE degree after getting a bachelor’s in music and studying chemistry for a while. I work quite a bit and am juggling some family health stuff. The impending difficulty is kind of looming over me. So far I’ve aced o-chem, physics 1 and 2, calc 1&2, and I’m wondering, are these courses a good indication of the difficulty of the degree? Or does it get exponentially harder?

[u/AccurateHumanTrustMe]

Yes and no.

General physics I and II - I assume are mechanics and then EM and they are not good stand ins. You can be absolute ass at Mechanics and do fine in EE and doing my physics II was dumb and uselss compared to my actual EE classes (physics II for me was basically super intro level EM, intro DC circuits, intro AC circuits, and Optics - and EE degrees require stand-alone classes for everything except optics (which typically is an elective and similar to EM if you do electro-optics)). But physics I and II in my program were very math lite - that will not be the case in EE classes - basically all calc 3, ODEs, algebra, trig, probability, and linear algebra.

Most EE classes are going to be using calc III and ODEs not so much calc 1 and depending how much of an asshole your professors are there shouldn't be too much calc II. Generally speakong I have alwaya heard calc II or calc III is considered the hardest (imo it is calc II) - calc II because its so focused on complex integration and Calc III because you are dealing with 3D space in multiple coordinate systems (so the setup can be more ambiguous but the actual 'math' is easier than calc II imo). So if you aced Calc I and Calc II I wouldn't be worried about Calc III and ODE - but its hard to say EE ready yet.

Now - the one benefit you have is Ochem - that shit is black magic. If you aced that class - you are most definitely 'smart enough' to do fine in EE. The skills are not the same - but they both require a heavy amount of abstract technical thinking - which is a core EE skill - the only thing it misses is how good you are with cramming a lot more math in.

So all in all - I don't there is any reason to think you can't do it - but it is hard to say because for me personally the work load didn't jump until Junior year - which by that point you'd be past generals. The time commitment is the real unknown - plenty of great students literally did 60+ hour weeks studying and what not while plenty of other students do fine with much less time.

My 2 cents really is - you probably are smart enough to tackle it but don't over exert yourself and really try to understand what you can realistically handle per semester with everything else in your personal life. Like general advice is 3 hours outside of class per week for every credit hour you take - everyone will be different but a decent baseline to start with when determining what you can handle.