Help/Support ► Tough education/job/life related decisions.

[Dogenzaka]

I'm going to tell you right now while this is generally the case, lots of majors still have you starting intro level courses while you are doing your gen ed if you want to graduate in four years. If you don't do those entry level prerequisites from the start, you are setting yourself back multiple semesters.

Yep. Only now was accepted into chemical engineering over the summer, but I'm a junior. Although I have all my general education credits done and a few general engineering classes, I'm taking sophomore level chemical engineering courses and am having to catch up. It's all gravy though.

But yeah they start you off with specific courses first semester that you can't delay very long in taking if you ever want to graduate.

 

[Deleted member 36435]

I'll try again.



The bolded is the big no, that's a huge assumption nobody should take. He should talk to his campus' counselor and make sure it is fact.

So, you don't think that Organic Chemistry, Biology and Chem classes are similar classes? General education courses can't be used towards multiple degrees?

 

[Dogenzaka]

I mean sometimes they can. However, for example, most engineers at my school (outside of biomedical & chemical engineering) are required to take 1 semester of accelerated engineering chemistry (it kind of smushes concepts from the two semesters of general chem while adding new topics like solid state chemistry) instead of the 2 semesters of gen chem. I had to take that my first semester (although I also took a second semester of gen chem because I ended up becoming chemical engineering and they want that).

And my biology credit that I took at community college doesn't count for anything because I have to take "engineering biology" (of which, like thermodynamics, all the different engineers take different versions), which is a lot harder and covers topics like metabolic engineering, bioreactors, and other things general biology wouldn't cover.

Also, for example, math majors at my university take different math credits from everyone else. There's a version of calculus for science majors, calculus for business majors, calculus for engineering majors, and calculus for math majors (which heavily focuses on proofs). Once you get past, say, calculus II (I think), they won't let you transfer into the math department with math credit unless you've taken that math department's version of their course because it's tailored to the major.

So, general education transfer credit only goes so far in some cases.

But yeah, it can be used for multiple degrees sometimes, but sometimes not. Like the money I wasted on biology. Lol.

Like Monkey said, you need to talk with a counselor and look at a degree plan because there's the possibility of courses you take not transferring for anything at all if you don't plan carefully.

 

[inasuma]

Also wanted to address this:



This is something we think at a younger age. This is absolutely not true at all. The further you get in your career, the less and less your degree will dictate what type of job options are available to you.

I know engineers that ended up becoming finance people and finance people that ended up in Human Resources.

To add on to this, I know a finance major at my school who is also working to become a journalist/photographer. He's really good at both journalism and finance, which is good, because advertising is a big part of most news agencies.