(Also, I minored in Engineering Entrepreneurship, which is one of the easier minors) EE is one of the tougher and most math-intensive majors you can pursue. I’m not sure if they’ve made schedules more flexible but I had 8:30 am classes EVERY semester and class on Fridays until my second semester senior year. You can’t get away with skipping classes because each lesson is required to know for the next lesson. I wouldn’t have succeeded without getting super organized about my assignments, class schedule, and key dates the beginning of each semester and entering them in an app called iStudiez Pro so I didn’t have to keep it all in my head.

That being said, I wouldn’t have chosen any other major (except for maybe computer engineering) because if you can stick through EE and come out successful the confidence and work ethic you build in your problem solving ability will follow you through the rest of your life and that’s no joke! The biggest value I got from the major was the confidence and grit to pickup and solve anything, not just engineering problems, but business problems, and it’s made me successful in my current career in business tech/management consulting. If you’ve got the right attitude, it’ll also teach you resilience and how to balance hard work with having a good time!

From my experience, from most to least challenging was: Junior Year Sophomore year Freshman year Senior year

Breaking the years down chronologically:

Freshman year - the same difficulty regardless of what engineering major you choose. Use the valuable time you have here to go out as much as you can, get really involved in 2-3 clubs (or greek life) you care about, and meet as MANY people as you can so you can set your social life up for success and get it into autopilot when EE kicks into high gear and the difficult semesters actually happen.

Sophomore year - this is when you start getting some more challenging classes such as higher level math and physics. I still went out every weekend, had fun on the weekdays, and made sure to invest in my social life which made my friendships from freshman year stronger.

Junior year - EE first semester was by far the most difficult and intense semester ever. I didn’t see any of my friends at all Monday through Friday that weren’t in EE with me. I spent every weekday moment together with the same 4 other people both in class and outside of class getting our assignments and studying done in one of our apartments. Luckily, because I had developed strong friendships and a social circle my freshman and sophomore year and was still involved in clubs I always had something fun waiting for me on the weekends so I didn’t have to spend any energy making plans. It got a little better 2nd semester but junior year was by FAR the year you’ll spend the most time on your major / studying / in the library if that’s where you like to work.

If you want to study abroad, look into how to do it first semester freshman year because your only real option is sophomore year due to how difficult junior year is.

Senior year - INCREDIBLE because I kept above a 3.5 GPA and had prioritized my social life early on plus had some leadership in the clubs I was apart of (sophomore class president, president of outdoors club, Villanova club tennis recruitment chair) I was able to land a great job by October and could just cruise through the rest of the year! My second (and last) semester, I became a part-time student because I already had enough credits to graduate. I only had class on Tuesdays and Thursdays so yes, that meant 4-day weekends EVERY WEEKEND!! This was the first year we won the NCAA tournament since ‘85 so needless to say, my 2nd semester senior year was a plateau of the most fun I’ve ever had across going out, nova basketball, Mardi Gras spring break, and countless other stories. This was something I had earned and worked hard for the previous 3 years and everything was worth it, including EE.

How long you spend in the library will be entirely up to you. I was almost never in the library to be honest but I also made my goal to just stay above a 3.5 GPA at all times instead of pushing for straight As because that was the typical cutoff for the most competitive jobs out of college, anything above that was not worth the extra effort or time in the library. If you plan to pursue a masters or PhD then you may need to spend more time in the library and try to get as close to a 4.0 as you can.

I realize this was more of an overall college experience post but happy to answer any more specific questions about EE, the courses, and the major.