How to Survive First Year EngineeringWritten by A Khan
So you just got accepted in your engineering program…joy, but you are still doubtful. You ask yourself, could I actually handle stress, sleepless nights, solitary life style and Exams? Well hopefully after reading this guide you might just be able to do so and perhaps without going insane or bald.Buy a Calendar Yes I know what you are thinking a calendar but I don’t need a calendar. I was like that too, heck I never used my agenda through out high school, and I managed to reach here right? Wrong! This is not high school and if you miss a due date for a test or exam you can not tell your mommy to write a note. Trust me I tried. Time management skill is vital if not necessary, it helps you plan for endless upcoming due dates of assignments and gives you a better picture of what tests to study for. A common miscomputation is that you can keep up with all your courses every week. This is impossible especially if you want any resemblance of a social life. Firstly forget time you think you might be able to put aside during weekday. After a long day of lectures and labs you will be too tired to do anything and its best just to get a good night sleep. So, only real time you got to study, play and sleep is during weekend. Hence, a Calendar will help you in deciding what course to study for, what homework or assignment to do, and if it’s really ok to get wasted that night. Join a Study Group I can not emphasize importance of study groups, especially in engineering. Study groups are not only for dummies, they also help nerds. For dummies this is perfect opportunity to understand problem and to get vital input from others and for nerds it gives an opportunity to revise and really understand their stuff. For, there is no better way of studying then teaching others what you know. Apart from helping you pass course, study groups also help to socialize us engineers. I mean you could go to library and study all by your self, achieve top marks in class and graduate with honors but how effective of an engineer would you be in real world? In real world you won’t be given a list of problems to be completed in a 2 hour time period, but rather as an engineer you will be expected to work with others and on problems which rarely have fixed or single solutions.
| | How to email your Professor?Written by A Khan
So its 12:30 Pm and there you are at computer trying to refresh email inbox page. The big test is tomorrow and your Professor still hasn’t replied back, but why? Contrary to popular belief, that your Professor wants you to fail, problem could stem from fact that your email never reached him/her. Hence, purpose of this guide is to show students how to write an effective email to their Professors.The From Field Always use your University or College email address when sending an email to your professor. This not only assures professor that you are indeed a student but also avoids your email from getting put in spam box. Many Universities and Colleges now employ a system of only allowing emails to be received from certain domains anything else (hotmail, yahoo...etc) is either automatically put in spam box or is forwarded to Professor as a potential spam. Example: Astudent@university.edu The To Field This is single most important field, if you mess up in here there you can kiss your email good bye. Avoid putting Professor’s name with email (A Prof ), since not all emailing system can handle this format. It is always best to send your email to Professor’s University or College account, since that is email account that your Professor checks, or should check, most. And again before sending email double check to verify that email address was typed correctly. Example: Aprof@universtiy.eduThe Subject Field The subject field should be of following format: CollegeName-CourceCode-Title-Subject CollegeName: Is name of your post secondary institution (America Learning College, Boston University…etc). Yes I do realize that this may seem a bit redundant but it is important. Most Professors (Usually new Professors) teach at one or more Universities and Colleges at any given term, and email from those institutions gets forwarded to one main address, usually their ISP email address. So to keep things organized its best to write name of College or University in Subject Field. CourseCode- Is code name of course (MTH140, CPS124, GEF345…etc). It’s best to keep letters Capital and no spaces between number and letter.
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