So, how has Semester II, Part II Mechatronics Engineering treated me? Honestly, it was exactly what I’d expected. It’s tough. Between two pretty content heavy courses, and a coding paper whose second half has left me utterly lost, my favourite course was ENGGEN 204.
The Courses
MECHENG 211 – Super content heavy. You thought you knew thermodynamics and pressure? Think again. Super super important to keep up to date because you can easily get very lost. I found it very interesting at times but also very overwhelming, and to be honest, I’m glad Mechatronics doesn’t have to do it next year (sorry Mechanical).
MECHENG 222 – Next level dynamics. This is the other content-heavy course (kinda) I fell into the trap at the start of the semester, thinkin we were just doing ENGGEN 121 work when we did coordinate systems and relative motion for the first half of the semester (I was very wrong). It’s important to remember the concepts you did in 121 for this course – especially in the second half of the course. It’s hard, but it is enjoyable once you click!
MECHENG 270 – Also known as COMPSYS 202. This was the bane of my existence for the last two weeks. Coding in C++. The first half of the course I did enjoy, but the second half has me quite lost unfortunately. You’ll either love it or hate it, but you’ll be stressed regardless with a 30% assignment and 20% test in the last week of uni. But! No! Exam! Also, bless the lecturers and the class reps for Electrical/Compsys and Mechatronics for giving us the much needed two day extension!!!
ENGGEN 204 – Communication and teamwork based paper. I got lucky with an amazing group of ten people and had a relatively cruisy time. You have small assessments, mostly in the first half of the semester, then a big group report and an individual oral presentation in the second half. Overall, it’s a chill time. The only thing that could be challenging is working in a pretty big group – but this is preparing us for Systems in Part III and Part IV where we’ll work in even bigger groups. After all, engineering is basically a series of (hopefully not) unfortunate group projects.
So… Σ SemTwo = ?
Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosh. It went by incredibly quickly and it was definitely a struggle to keep up. This definitely was partially my fault though, a lot of procrastination was accomplished, particularly with 270. This did NOT help with the end of semester stress levels. Two exams – yay! But that means about a total of 90% worth of coursework (tests included) due in the last two or so weeks. This sounds scary, but most of these are assignments and a hefty presentation (204) and project (270) were to blame. With each semester that passes, I do feel closer to knowing something, closer to feeling like a “True Engineer” (Engineering Revue, 2019). After all, everything moves, so dynamics is important. Air and water permeate throughout life and planes are really cool, so thermodynamics is too (sometimes, it’s hot 😉). Object Oriented Programming is a big concept that’s important to grasp as an MT engineer, and both verbal and written communication is imperative to success as an engineer.
This will be my last post so I hope everything I’ve written has been helpful and informative, and maybe I’ll see some of you next year at MECHA events! If you have any lingering questions or just wanna have a cute chat, feel free to hit me up on Facebook or email (jng196) 💖
All the best for exams, and don’t stress too much if you don’t get your first pick – if there is a will, there’s a way!
– Jaynie
*Here’s a happy pup just in case you missed AUES’s Wellness Puppy day.
