How much do I need to know about engineering before college?

Being the first in my family to go to college and not having any role models to ask questions to, I was not sure I fully understood what an Engineer was. I was passionate about the space program and my school advisor suggested Engineering would be a good career fit for me if my interest was doing something related to the space program. I did not really understand the scope of engineering until I attended my freshman year.

You’re right that some people get opportunities in school or in after school activities to be exposed to engineering before college. It definitely helps to become familiar with it, at least a little, in high school. Look for opportunities but if they’re not available to you, don’t give up on engineering! There are online resources like coursera.com or other “Massive Online Open source Classes” platforms. Google that phrase. Websites like khanacademy.com, hackerrank.com, instructables.com – all of these let you take classes or learn for free and Hacker Rank is a free (last time I checked) platform to learn coding online. CSforAll and Code Academy also provide coding/programming resources. Helping your family by fixing broken things in the house is also a great place to start learning engineering!

Even without experience, you can take the more challenging high school math and science classes/AP classes to help you prepare for engineering. College is a great place to learn about engineering too but be prepared to work hard! There is the option to be an undecided engineering major in college so that helps you figure out what you like within engineering!

There was always someone who seemed smarter or better prepared than me but I learned that the most successful students were those who put in the effort and the hours and tried to find or make the most of opportunities. Focus on that, and you’ll do great!

You’re right that some people get opportunities in school or in after school activities to be exposed to engineering before college. It definitely helps to become familiar with it, at least a little, in high school. Look for opportunities but if they’re not available to you, don’t give up on engineering! There are online resources like coursera.com or other “Massive Online Open source Classes” platforms. Google that phrase. Websites like khanacademy.com, hackerrank.com, instructables.com – all of these let you take classes or learn for free and Hacker Rank is a free (last time I checked) platform to learn coding online. CSforAll and Code Academy also provide coding/programming resources. Helping your family by fixing broken things in the house is also a great place to start learning engineering!

Even without experience, you can take the more challenging high school math and science classes/AP classes to help you prepare for engineering. College is a great place to learn about engineering too but be prepared to work hard! There is the option to be an undecided engineering major in college so that helps you figure out what you like within engineering!

There was always someone who seemed smarter or better prepared than me but I learned that the most successful students were those who put in the effort and the hours and tried to find or make the most of opportunities. Focus on that, and you’ll do great!

College is where you will be exposed to the concepts needed to give you a good foundation for your profession. The college expects you to have completed the normal high school work required to graduate.

Colleges will look at your high school transcript and GPA and may consider SAT or ACT scores as they evaluate your application for admission.

The classes typically offered in the first year of college help ensure that students at different levels or exposure prior to college will gain the skills and exposure to concepts needed to be able to advance to the higher level specialized courses.

Finally, realize that each career path is unique, and an engineering education opens the door for a variety of career options to suit a diverse range of interests and strengths.

Do not worry one bit about not knowing much about engineering before you step foot onto a college campus! If you have the prerequisites covered – some science classes, as much math as you can tolerate in high school, and other basics (English Composition and Basic Computer skills to name a few), you are safely on your way to a college engineering study that should prove successful. The more you can prepare, the less time you will have to spend taking entry-level courses in college, of course, but that does NOT mean you need them to start your college journey! College offers you the opportunity to explore and learn and there is no set rule that you need to get through college in a definite set time. If you find you start an engineering program (let’s say Electrical) and you later learn that you are more suited and interested in Chemical Engineering, so be it and you make the switch and begin the courses you need to complete that degree. Nothing you take in an Engineering school will be “wasted” per se, but if you make changes to your course of study, that could elongate your time in college. If you are in a hurry to get your degree program completed, a more focused plan makes most sense. If you are not quite sure what area of study you like, or if you prefer to take things in a little slower, there is no harm and everyone learns at different paces, so do what makes most sense for you.

But heavens, don’t worry about not having skills or a background in engineering before entering college, that’s what college is for and you’ll be able to soak it all in there! Enjoy your high school and college days…there is lots of life outside of college books so don’t forget to look up and enjoy…those are some of the most fun and formative years of your life and a work-school-personal life balance is important for success now and later! Wishing you great success and know that you have a whole legion of women engineers cheering you on as you venture into the world of engineering.

To put it simply, none. You don't need to know much about anything engineering related prior to going to school. Having said that, if you already have knowledge of some subjects prior to going to college, you will have an advantage but you are going to college to learn about all of that stuff. I tell people, no one becomes an engineer by themselves nor do they become an engineer overnight. The purpose of school is for individuals to develop a foundation for knowledge and skills in order to apply them to the workforce. The workforce or commonly called "the field" is where you do your really deep learning. When I went to school I noticed the same thing as some - "Some of these guys know a lot about this stuff." I noticed though, most of those people with knowledge of coding, material sciences, etc. they did that as their hobbies for years prior to starting school. That was NOT me. My hobbies included, baking, gardening, wood working, etc. I still made it through. Anyone who starts school with aims and maintains a willingness to learn, good work ethic, and remembering that you are paying that school and those professors to provide you a service (to teach and prepare you) will finish successfully, no matter their experience, or lack thereof, prior to starting school.

The University can’t wait to have you come through the door and your curiosity and desire to learn is all that is required. Most programs in engineering have a freshman introduction to engineering class that will provide you the gamut of topics that are often supplemented by experiences in the machining workshop and/or robotics area. Just go wild and learn outside the classroom, find student organizations and join etc. Your University ID will typically give you access to platforms like LinkedIn learning but coursera/edx etc. are also available to dabble into new things without the pressure of a grade or requirement to complete it. When you select your school, try to find another student in the program and learn what opportunities there are. I would go so far as to say, the best practical application of knowledge in a University is happening outside the classroom.

Hello! Instead of programming skills, maybe logical skills, I mean can determine a path to get some result in the easiest way. If you are worry about programming skills and want to learn I recommend you some free resources like https://hourofcode.com/es/en/learn and https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/csharp-first-steps/ 
#shirivo

Engineering education is very broad and deep. One of the most important things you learn is how to learn and how to be resourceful. You learn to help others and be willing to ask for help. Students enter college with a broad spectrum of backgrounds and experiences. Regardless of where people's experiences lie, there is a lot of hard work ahead. It is well worth it. Coding is a skill that is useful in many applications. It is never too soon, or too late, to learn to code. Don't let the thought of feeling that others know more discourage you. There will be areas where you are ahead and areas where you are behind. Help and support each other. The friendships you make in college often last a lifetime. An engineering education opens doors and provides great opportunities.

Speaking from experience, you'll be fine if you haven't had much exposure to engineering concepts before you start an engineering program in college. You might have to work a little harder than your classmates who had the opportunity to learn some engineering concepts in high school, but by the time you get to the classes specific to your major, I think you'll find you'll be on a more level playing field. I went to a small K-12 public school in a rural area. It was no frills - no AP classes and bare minimum number of courses. When I went to college, I realized that a lot of my classmates had taken classes like AP Physics, Engineering Drafting, Principles of Engineering, etc. It was intimidating, and I was certainly behind. It meant I had to work a little harder than they did my first semester since I was learning things for the first time that they had covered in high school. But it was fine. I didn't do particularly well my first semester of college; but by the end of it, I didn't feel like I was so far behind anymore, and I ended up doing well the rest of my college career.

I felt alien when I started my first semester of engineering school. I distinctly remember going to a trusted professor and telling her, it's not that I'm not smart enough, I wanted to change majors because I was raised as a girl. I didn't grow up playing and tinkering with cars and tools. I didn't even know the names of the things we were designing in my CAD class. Luckily, this professor was an ally and urged me to persevere, and I did. I picked up everything I needed to know along the way. I even developed an interest and understanding to many of the engineering hot topics we would discuss and utilize in class. I know it's hard at first. It may feel like trial by fire, but please persevere. Please surround yourself with people rooting for you. Acknowledge that you are valuable and your knowledge, skills, and professional opinion are needed in this profession. How much you know about engineering before college is irrelevant. You are entering an institution aimed to help teach you how to practice the engineering profession. Don't do yourself a disservice by deeming yourself "unqualified", when they clearly thought you were qualified enough to enter the program! Let them do their job. Let them teach you and learn with an open mind.

For any major, including engineering, you just need to know this: 1) enough so you can take the required courses (but if you don’t have the background, you can catch up by taking on-line courses and/or getting tutoring or other type of help to catch up); and 2) enough to know if you are interested in trying the major out. The rest, you will learn as you go along; nobody knows everything, and college is the time for you to learn and explore.

You need to know absolutely nothing about engineering before college! As long as you have a good work ethic, no prior knowledge is needed to succeed. I was the first in my family to go to college, so I had no prior experience or knowledge about engineering. When I started my degree, my counterparts knew so much more than I did. They came from engineering families, where their parents and grandparents were engineers. I, on the other hand, was just good at math and science. My advice though for anyone going into engineering with no prior experience is to join engineering clubs. Look for clubs that partake in annual competitions, like the Human Powered Vehicle Competition, the concrete canoe, the chemical car, etc. You will learn a lot from your peers in these clubs and you’ll be able to get a lot of hands-on experience. Aside from this, the classes are designed to help you succeed as an engineer in the industry. With no prior knowledge or experience in engineering, I was able to get really good internships which eventually led to getting a job at one of the top aerospace companies in the world! The only hold back you’ll have is yourself, so don’t second guess yourself and be confident, because if I did it, so can you.

You definitely don't need to know anything about engineering before college! Coding, robotics, and engineering curriculum have become more and more popular in high school education over the last 5-10 years, but remember, the majority of professional engineers that are already in the field did not get these opportunities when they were in school and they are still very successful. You will learn so many new things in college because that's what college is for! Your undergraduate education (and graduate if you choose to do a bit more school) will give you the foundation you need to apply fundamental engineering principles at your place of work. But even then, the learning is not over! You will continue to learn new things, specialize in your field, and even advance your field as you navigate through your career. We all have to start somewhere! Don't feel shy or embarrassed by not "knowing" engineering yet - if you have the motivation and passion to study it, you are already halfway there!

You don’t need to know coding, although it’s becoming more common. But, the keys to being a good engineer are problem-solving skills, moderate capability in math & science, ability to work in teams and to communicate. Just make sure that the college you attend is aware of your level of expertise – it’s OK not to know how to code, but you don’t want to be put in a class where it’s assumed that everyone already knows.

This happened to me in grad school. I was getting my Master’s degree in Acoustics, and acoustics students had very diverse backgrounds. Classmates had degrees in Engineering Mechanics, Mechanical, Electrical & Architectural Engineering, Physics, Music Performance, Music Composition (they had to take some remedial math & science), Math, and Architecture. We all are working as engineers now. There was one class that had been designed for those of us with limited electrical engineering background, to teach us how our equipment worked so that we could use it properly. Unfortunately, a bunch of Electrical Engineering students decided to take the course as an elective, and the teacher assumed that we all had that level of knowledge. It was not fun – it was like they were talking another language. I ended up dropping the class. So – talk to your advisor to be sure that you have the prerequisites for each course.

But – problem solving skills & willingness to learn will take you a long way. My classmate with a degree in Music Composition is now a senior research engineer at a Navy lab, working on sonar and infrasound in the ocean. A classmate with a BS in Physics ended up going from sonar signal processing to aircraft noise to radar to infrared to blood flow – and now is a senior researcher designing pacemakers! And I’ve applied some of my knowledge of musical acoustics to the design of jet engine test cells. After all, it’s a tube with air going through it that makes noise, right?

Good luck!

Absolutely not! The best thing to bring with you to college is curiosity and a desire to learn. The more time you spend in the world of STEM, the more you realize that there is always so much more stuff to learn! The smartest people I know are constantly looking into learning new skills and solving new problems. …However, I would highly suggest that before you get to college, you look into clubs and groups that interest you – coding, robotics, space, cars, the environment, etc. Don’t look at them as skills to master, but as fun experiences to learn about the vast world of engineering and as opportunities to see what interests you!

Like any new endeavor, sometimes you know a lot about a new subject and sometimes you know little. When I went into engineering, all I knew is that it involved a lot math. As I learned more about the field of engineering, I learned it also involves a lot of logical problem solving. I enjoyed both math and problem solving, so it was a good fit even though I knew nothing about engineering when I registered for college. Upon taking some classes I found some other students knew A LOT about certain topics. I was confused as to how they knew so much, since we had been taking the same courses. When I asked, I found out some had developed hobbies and had played in different subjects (software coding, bread boarding electronics, etc.). It was clear it gave them great insight and made the course easier for them. But after a semester of the introduction classes, for these different topics, we were essentially at the same level. I also found that they would know HOW to make things work, but did not know WHY it worked that way. Good insight for them, but it was good to learn that weren't as far ahead of me as I thought they were.

When you enter college, you do not need to know much about engineering. The university will help make sure you have the background to succeed by ensuring you have taken math, physics, etc., but beyond that it is yours to explore. Remember no one was born knowing these topics, everyone has to learn sometime. If others appear to know more, and happened to have learned something things before you, don't sweat it. You both will be at same level before you know it.