USNA engineering
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Navy92
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It was tough 25 yrs ago, particularly 2nd class year. I know there has been much change since then, but in general (without several validation courses) the first two years are pretty similar for all mids. The course load is tough 2nd class year, but what adds to the rigor is leadership responsibility and other Navy requirements that goes along with progressing through the Academy. All in all fantastic program.
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Your own plebe year experience and performance will be a good indicator. You'll be taking typical plebe courses and getting briefs on majors, while observing and talking to upperclass in your company, sports team and ECAs about all kinds of things, including majors, service selection, summer training, etc.
Declaring a major happens later on. See how you do with managing USNA academics and courses with labs, your sports team, plebe pro quals, military duties and overall time management. Be open to all the majors. You will have plenty of time to make a decision.
Much will depend on you. Your classmates will have similar HS performance backgrounds in terms of abilities, grades and test scores. It is a fact of life some in your class will now get the C, D and F grades. Balancing everything is something you will learn, sometimes the hard way. You will learn to optimize performance over a range of competing demands, rather than maximizing. The key is to be sat in all areas, academic, athletic/physical, military performance, conduct. You will only have x hours in your day, and quite often you don't get much say in how you spend them. You will learn how to invest them and become very focused and efficient. When the going gets tough, you might settle for a B in a 3-credit course because you are spending extra time on a 5-credit course to bring your C up to a B.
In the meantime, finish strong what you're doing now, enjoy this time at the top of the school heap, fine-tune your fitness (many threads on this) and score "good kid" points with your family.
Declaring a major happens later on. See how you do with managing USNA academics and courses with labs, your sports team, plebe pro quals, military duties and overall time management. Be open to all the majors. You will have plenty of time to make a decision.
Much will depend on you. Your classmates will have similar HS performance backgrounds in terms of abilities, grades and test scores. It is a fact of life some in your class will now get the C, D and F grades. Balancing everything is something you will learn, sometimes the hard way. You will learn to optimize performance over a range of competing demands, rather than maximizing. The key is to be sat in all areas, academic, athletic/physical, military performance, conduct. You will only have x hours in your day, and quite often you don't get much say in how you spend them. You will learn how to invest them and become very focused and efficient. When the going gets tough, you might settle for a B in a 3-credit course because you are spending extra time on a 5-credit course to bring your C up to a B.
In the meantime, finish strong what you're doing now, enjoy this time at the top of the school heap, fine-tune your fitness (many threads on this) and score "good kid" points with your family.
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northstarfx
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- Feb 26, 2015
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Mech E is incredibly challenging. My son is a Nuke E and the curriculum is very similar. He was a top 3% in a large high school, but has had his fair share of Cs and even a few Ds...mostly because of the lack of time available with all of the other requirements. That being said, it is one of the best educations anywhere in the world and definitely worth it.
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You indicated that you plan to major in Mech E this fall. Have you been appointed already? I assume you have and that you are trying to decide whether to accept your appointment. If so, your best bet may be to speak to a current Midshipman or professor. You might want to ask your admissions counselor if s/he can put you in touch with one of the professors in the engineering department (or call one yourself -- they should be easy enough to identify). Or perhaps your BGO can put you in touch with another Midshipman who has navigated the engineering curriculum.
My son is a 1/C Mech E. It's hard, but he's a pretty serious student. Whether it is or is not challenging for you will depend on your learning style, retention, time management and a thousand other factors. One important thing to keep in mind is that there are resources available to help you succeed if you are willing to seek them out. My son was the MGSP tutor for Physics, which was a subject that came naturally to him. Conversely, Cyber was like swimming through Jell-O, and he took advantage of in-company peer tutoring and other resources to get through it. The help is there if you want it, and your shipmates won't let you down.