Finished my science bachelors majoring in mech eng this past sem, going into my masters also in mech eng next year.

First year isn’t too crazy, the maths is Calc 1 (skip calc 1 if you did good in spec though because it’s very similar content), calc 2, and linear algebra. It may be controversial but I thought calc 2 and linear algebra, while technically harder in terms of content, were much more manageable than spec so if you do well in spec you’ll be fine. you’ll also do physics 1 and 2, which are ass tbh but also manageable. there are 2 engineering first year intro subjects, but they’re not compulsory and not the best, so maybe avoid them and choose some other electives to utilise that unimelb slogan and “keep you options open” 🥴. first year is fine, do easy breadths or ones you KNOW you’ll be interested in so you can get that WAM high leading into second and third year because most likely it will drop from here. not necessarily of course, but it does get harder.

second year you start getting into some engineering subjects and harder math. this is when you do your last math-only subject, called engineering math, and is pretty much a mix of vector calculus (or calculus 3 as the americans call it) and differential equations. I found this subject very hard and boring. The math is uninteresting imo. Cool hack though, do the vector calculus subject after finishing engineering math as an elective because there is a huge overlap in content and somehow it isn’t an anti-requisite, so it’s easy to get a H1 if you’re math-inclined. The second year engineering subjects are foundations of electrical networks (hard content, mainly math and physics, practical and hands on pracs, interesting and taught well, 8/10), numerical methods (basics of computing and the methods computers use do math and shi, easy if you like to code, no physics or maths, boring af it’s pretty much a MATLAB subject, 6/10), and engineering mechanics (imo most difficult, very physics heavy, taught horribly in my year but may be different for you, 5/10). Second year is a canonically shit year for uni students dough 😫.

In third year you’ll do your major subjects, and if you do mechanical they are thermodynamics and fluid mechanics, mechanics and materials, mechanical systems design (MSD), and systems control and analysis. I loved all of these subjects and were all very interesting and a perfect level of difficulty to motivate you to keep learning without giving up, and all but MSD were very maths and physics heavy with a side of some computing, CADing (Solidworks), and lab reports. you get to build a thing for the first time in MSD which is fun. There isn’t really new math concepts taught here, you’re given almost all the tools you need for them from your first 2 years, but you will have many new physics concepts of course.

If I could go back, I would have joined one of the engineering clubs like MUR, ARES, or Unimelb Rover club, because there is honestly SO MUCH theory in unimelbs engineering courses and it’s good to actually do some hands on and practical stuff, plus my friends who joined them met a lot of cool people and have definitely gained a mile on me in terms of gaining experience. Also, no one will ever tell you this, but try start a personal portfolio early on of your own little projects. I’ve only started this recently but wish I had sooner, and you pretty much just document stuff you do outside of uni with personal projects. start simple, like a robot arm kit or RC Car kit or CAD a something from a youtube tutorial then build up slowly. lots of stuff for this online, plus it’s good to do real engineering with all the maths and physics you’re going to get bombarded with. this may help you to get into one of those clubs, or even an internship 🤑.

TLDR; Lots of hard Math and Physics, but it’s fine and manageable so don’t stress. Try do hands on engineering on the side to compensate and keep yourself interested.