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Maths in Engineering

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Johnwicc:
I have just graduated from my HSC (Higher School Certificate) from NSW (New South Wales) Australia. I have received on offer from Griffith University in Queensland (Nathan campus) for: Bachelor of Engineering Technology in Electronic and Computer Engineering https://www.griffith.edu.au/study/degrees/bachelor-of-engineering-technology-in-electronic-and-computer-engineering-1586.

I need to make a decision before 30 December 2019, to either accept/defer/decline the offer from the university. I'm not confident in my maths skills at all, I have revived a mid band 2 (57% overall mark) in General mathematics 2 for one of my HSC subjects. General mathematics 2 is the easiest maths course you can do in high school.

But there is foundation mathematics class I can take at the university to learn higher level maths stuff. https://www.griffith.edu.au/study/courses/foundation-mathematics-1017SCG#trimester-1-gold-coast-campus. But I'm not sure if I would be able to cope with that class too, I have failed the easiest HSC maths in high school. So what should I do then, I don't have long to make a decision?
 




floobydust:
I would say it is better to crash and burn trying to make it, instead of letting low confidence and official "rank" in mathematics scare you away. Not from Australia but I would both accept, and sign up for the extra foundation math course. I took one over the summer and it gave me a huge leg up on other students. If you get anxiety and worry, that alone can make a person do poorly in math, or a result from a crappy high school maths teacher.

I had poor marks in Gr. 12 general, then took a 1st year Uni math course over summer session. I knew many students that were terrible at math and they made it through engineering. I'll never forget getting 28% on a vector calculus midterm and class average was 22% so I aced that sucker, lol. All the students used to getting 80%+ were in tears. The Bell-curve makes marks totally different than high school where it's arbitrary what the teacher sets is "50%".

anvoice:
Do you enjoy engineering and technology? Or math for that matter? If so, no reason a little bit of effort can't make this work for you. Just don't expect to have the knowledge handed to you on a platter just because you accept.
If you prefer something like what is called the fine arts here in the US, it may be more reasonable to apply for that...

Johnwicc:

--- Quote from: anvoice on December 28, 2019, 06:03:48 am ---Do you enjoy engineering and technology? Or math for that matter? If so, no reason a little bit of effort can't make this work for you. Just don't expect to have the knowledge handed to you on a platter just because you accept.
If you prefer something like what is called the fine arts here in the US, it may be more reasonable to apply for that...

--- End quote ---

I love how technology works especially of how computer hardware works, but I find maths vary hard. I normally get around 20% to 40% on exam papers like this: https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/wcm/connect/d6c0ee8f-7f12-4f19-a62c-716b74015186/2018-hsc-maths-general-2.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=ROOTWORKSPACE-d6c0ee8f-7f12-4f19-a62c-716b74015186-mVoxsTm

anvoice:

--- Quote from: Johnwicc on December 28, 2019, 06:13:55 am ---I love how technology works especially of how computer hardware works, but I find maths vary hard. I normally get around 20% to 40% on exam papers like this: https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/wcm/connect/d6c0ee8f-7f12-4f19-a62c-716b74015186/2018-hsc-maths-general-2.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=ROOTWORKSPACE-d6c0ee8f-7f12-4f19-a62c-716b74015186-mVoxsTm

--- End quote ---

That's a pretty basic math test. In general electronics and engineering requires much more advanced stuff (like calculus, i.e. differentiation and integration). I do agree that if you do accept you should take some extra math fundamental courses in parallel with your main curriculum.

There's something called abstraction in both computer programming and hardware, which basically means you treat some things as black boxes and build bigger systems out of them by just knowing their input/output behavior. In that sense, you can have a good level of success without knowing how all the internals work.

Did you ever consider software development? Also has a lot to do with computers, and (depending on what you do) may not require as a rigorous a math experience.

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