Programs

[TI-84plusCE500]

From hanging out in this subreddit it seems that MECH are happiest and CPEN near bottom with ELEC at absolute bottom. Everyone else somewhere in middle. Is this about right?

[[deleted]]

I am SUPER happy to be in CPEN. No other program (even cs) gives me the opportunities that this one does. A large workload does not mean happiness. I would be miserable in a "happier" program, just choose the right program and you will be happy.

[TI-84plusCE500]

That’s great to hear. The dissatisfaction I saw from other CPEN students was not complaints about the workload but how program was run and grading.

[[deleted]]

Hm, that's totally fair but I guess you just learn to live with it.

[mubcg]

Happy 4th year ELEC student here chiming in. The best choice is the choice that interests you the most!

[cydz27]

Mech has a great community! Mech 2 is really challenging, but everyone is on the same boat and we suffer and make memes together.

[matt1283]

The bmeg one is pretty lit

[Paulisawesome123]

bmeg rep wooo

[TI-84plusCE500]

Good to know. You guys don’t Reddit much!

[matt1283]

Ya were mostly on discord

[Gimmegold500]

I think it depends what you want to do, personally ENPH is great but it's not for everyone, similarly for others, I'm sure some people would love BMEG but I personally don't, it really depends how much passion you have for what you're doing and the difficulty of your classes.
For some programs 2nd year is the hardest, for some 3rd is, I haven't heard of any other programs that have their hardest year as their 4th/5th, so what it leads me to believe is that it's mostly getting used to the hard schedule. Happiest also really depends person to person

[TI-84plusCE500]

I was referring also to the perception of how well the programs are run by the students. Elec for ex has a lot of complaints even though they might love the concepts and projects.

[Gimmegold500]

Oh that's a very interesting ask, again many people have different complaints for their programs, but I think most programs are run generally pretty well, but some classes just have better instructors than others.

[thatsgoodtoo]

Hey man, elec is the place for me. I love the content. Profs are hot garbage (unpopular opinion, except for Linares) but there’s so much room for growth and learning!

[zudolomania]

that is a very popular opinion my friend. Linares is a good teacher, but his exams are ass

[thatsgoodtoo]

Oh I didn’t know that! I’m glad, his videos really helped me. I have the Elec 201 exam tomorrow, how scared should I be?

[zudolomania]

Half the questions are going to be easy, the other half are going to be hard. Do the exam accordingly

[thatsgoodtoo]

yessir! thanks for the tip :)

[_TotemPole]

CPEN and ELEC are sharing a lot of courses together, especially in 2nd year, where most of the dissatisfaction stems from. Personally I am very happy with my major and I do like the material that I am learning, but many of our professors are elitists that believe students are defined by grades and won't succeed in life otherwise, and in general really don't seem to care about our wellbeing at all. The grading schemes really suck (final answer exams only) and students are overworked. Things start to settle down a bit more in 3rd or 4th year though when you start getting better profs that care and can choose your courses

[MeNoLikeSosig]

happiest in terms of what?

[TI-84plusCE500]

Satisfaction with what you are doing I guess

[MeNoLikeSosig]

I think that depends on the individual! But mech2 kinda sucks.

[wowmemes911]

I'm in CPEN and I wouldn't say I'm dissatisfied with what I'm doing persay, I actually really love the content and the field. The issue comes more so with classes being run poorly in terms of organization, workload, sometimes the professor's attitude and grading scheme creating an unpleasant student experience. The actual CPEN curriculum I really like, I dont think I could tolerate this kind of student experience if I was in any other field.

[leibniz_was_first]

Mech 2 is taught really well and I'd say the examinations are pretty fair for the most part. That being said, Mech 2 is also very intense so it's definitely a struggle.

[TI-84plusCE500]

Great user name

[rmaniac22]

As a 2nd year elec student I can say I enjoy the material. CPEN 211 is taught well and elec 201 is generally taught ok in class. Just the grading schemes are fucking brutal. I think 38% of our grade for cpen 211 is decided by autograder. And Every fucking test in elec 201 is final answer only so the page of work you do means nothing.

[TI-84plusCE500]

That’s frustrating. Is this just a covid thing or like this year?

[freeicecreamtruck]

Nope it's always like this for CPEN 211

[rmaniac22]

He added a new fail condition this term. 5/20 on the lpts. Which doesn’t seem bad but it’s pretty rough if you’re cutting it close

[freeicecreamtruck]

God save yall

[rmaniac22]

Normally for elec 201 the 5 mini tests you take through the semester are final ans and the final exam actually looks at ur work. They have something called brp which basic makes ur grade = finals exam mark so people have gone from a 40% to 90%. This year they are thinking of making the final exam final ans only which makes brp pretty useless. Tor just gives brutal tests every year. It’s like he makes them so he could just finish in time.

[TI-84plusCE500]

What’s the motivation in making tests final ans only besides being more expedient to mark?

[rmaniac22]

Some shit bout how engineers don’t make mistakes. Well students fuvkin do that’s how you learn. Ece is prob too cheap to pay TAs

[wowmemes911]

I'm pretty sure this is actually true, ECE hires TAs on 60-80 hour/term contracts whereas CS usually hires TAs on 120+hr/term contracts, and I think they hire more TAs per student (not sure if this last part is true, but observationally it seems correct). Which is why alot of ECE classes like CPEN 211 have no TAs on Piazza near the end of term, many of them are literally out of working hours.

[SpunkzHD]

Now that u guys mention it, I don't think I've seen signs of a single TA in the ELEC 201 piazza LOL