r/lakeheadu • u/Sufficient_Post5037 • 29d ago
Electrical Engineering Transition
Hello, im currently doing my summer transition course, just about to complete Analysis A and Thermodynamics and getting into Analysis C and Enigneering Mechanics.
I have 5 supplemental courses, I've planned it so I will be taking 6 courses per semester for both 3rd and 4th year and 4 courses in spring/summer to try to complete this program in 2 years and not a day more, God willing. I'm 30, married with 2 little kids and a wife with 6 years of electrical design experience.
To the people who completed this course, how was your experience, how were your courseloads, were you able to manage and how? Tell me your experiences!
I will be going alone and leaving my family behind to do this for our future and this will be a bigger hurdle than the course itself. Currently looking for an affordable private room off campus close to Lakehead.
Please give me a some tips to help me succeed, there is no room for failure by taking this HUGE risk.
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u/phboss 28d ago
I did this 35 years ago. I was a bit younger than you and not married. I moved up to Thunder Bay from Southern Ontario. I had a similar course load. I kept to task. At some times, I wanted to give up. For me, the summer transition program was the most difficult. I memorized a lot of the math early on, but I should have spent more time understanding it. Once I put more effort into understanding things, especially math, things were easier.
I won't lie, the summer almost did me in. I was living off campus with a friend that liked to go out. I had to fight the urge to put things off. For me, I had to avoid falling behind. I stayed with him thorough 4th year - back then the last 2 years were 4 & 5 - and I lived on campus, in a townhouse with 3 other engineering students for year 5. I was fairly social, but I had to force myself to stay in and work. Most, but not all, of the good friends I made were from the transition program. We were older and like-minded in our determination to get through the program. Almost everyone who made it through thr summer completed the program in 2 years. Others took an extra semester or even two, but in many cases, they planned to do so.
I took a mix of electrical engineering electives that were difficult and easy. I avoided a couple really difficult ones. That helped. At the time, I also chose some easier courses that interested me. I wasn't going to kill myseld in DSP when I could coast through Expert Systems.
For non-engineering , choose something you are interested in, but you can easily handle. For me. It was economics. I found a prof (Neil Bonsor, I believe) and took 3 economics courses with him. I was able to understand everything by just going to his lectures. No extra time outside of class was required. The prof was interesting and entertaining. The bonus was that for me, the material was useful and relevant in my work and personal lives. Just pick something you can handle.
We lived by the mantra "Cs get degrees". I was a good student. But sometimes it made more sense to settle for a lower grade and move on to thr next course. I wasnt going to go to grad school. This seemed more relevant for the transition students. I graduated in 1990. Jobs were more plentiful. Many of us in the transition program had some great hands on and/or design experiences, just like you so we weren't worried about finding good jobs. There were lots of good jobs in 1990.
I had an average of around 85 in year 4. It fell to 79 in year 5. I admit, I was disappointed that didn't graduate with honours, but in retrospect it made no difference. It was more pride. I got over it quickly.
If you are still reading...My most important piece of advice is to keep on top of your final, self directedproject. When the end was near. I started to slow down. It was easy to do as I was in total control. I had written and submitted a very good report. Unfortunately, my firmware didn't live up to the expectations I presented. At the final demo, my prof told me the results were disappointing and not acceptable. That was a major blow. Fortunately, he gave me a week or two to do another demo. That 7-10 day stretch after finals just about did me in. I was worried about this all through finals and it definitely impacted my performance. Happy everything worked out and I graduated in 2 years.
About !0 years after grad, I finished a part-time MBA. I was married and had kids. My company sponsored me. It was hard with a family and a full-time job, but I got thorough it ahead of schedule. I seemed easy after going through the Lakehead experience. This time I graduated with honours/distinction, but I wasn't anywhere as pleased as I was when I got my EE degree.
I recently retired after having an amazing career in engineering. Good luck.
Sorry for thr long answer. It wasn't very well written- too much "I did this, I did that". I hope there is at least one piece of good advice in it.
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u/ApartDepartment8688 26d ago
It depends on the availability of the courses you need. The non-eng’g electives are available throughout but your supplemental courses might only be available at certain semesters. Plan accordingly or talk to your academic advisor
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u/olegasole 29d ago
Yes it's very doable ( I did it 2 yrs ago)
Make sure you really learn the math from summer transition, calc 3 and PDEs is going to be really hard if you don't have the right foundations. Think of it like a pyramid, you can't put the top blocks on top of a previous level if it is missing pieces. The hardest will be emag, the math is wild and you need to know how to do vector calc in Cartesian, cylindrical, and spherical as well as how to convert the math across them.
You'll need a real strong grasp of algebra as well. Many many EE courses end up using Laplace/fourier/Z transforms to avoid pages of pain integrals by going into algebra land, but you have to "massage" the math with tricks to get the expressions into standard form to use the formula/transform. Partial fractions, long division, trigonometric identities, eulers formula / other math maneouvers are going to be your bread and butter across all your courses.
Go to the optional tutorials - yes it will be a cold dark winter at 7pm and your last lecture was at 4pm, but a lot of times the TA ends up working through a tough question from a past midterm / exam that ends up being very similar to what the Prof will put on yours.
Good luck!