To review my first semester of engsci, what better way to do it, than reviewing them all out of five stars? This review will be my personal experience in engsci, so I don’t speak for everyone, but my star ranking will be based on how much I personally enjoyed them, and not official ‘quality’ of the course. I find it hard to describe engsci to be honest, so these four classes can surely give a good idea of some of what it involves.
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BIOMENG 221 
This class is officially about āMechanics of Engineered and Biological Materialsā, but honestly i don’t even know what they mean by that having spent a whole semester in the course. Despite this namely being a āBiomedical Engineeringā department course, there isnāt much that makes it ābiomedicalā specific and it’s a lot broader than that name would suggest, so lowkey itās just a label for the sake of a label tbh.Ā
All of engsci and biomedical engineering takes this course, and in my opinion it’s kind of like a combination of surface level chemmat (stresses, strains etc) and like the ābasic basicsā of what I imagine they learn in civil. I found the coursework super interesting as we learnt about a wide range of different stuff, and even if you have forgotten every single thing from first year this course starts everything from the start so youāre all good.
Honestly I enjoyed this class a lot more than I thought I would, the organisation and way it is run was so great in my opinion, and there were so many resources available so I always felt like I knew what to expect, so for that I gave BIOMENG 221 four stars.
It loses one star because the lecture hall lights were always off (/broken? idk), and it kinda made me feel tired in class :|, but apart from that it was such a slay class I would definitely recommend.
Make sure you keep up with lecture content though, cause it definitely adds up!!
(speaking from experience unfortunately šš)
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ENGSCI 211 
Everyone takes this class, so I feel like my review is kind of irrelevant, but Iām the biggest lover of engsci 211 so Iām still gonna review it anyway. We all know what to expect of this class, and as a direct follow on of engsci 111, it literally was exactly what I was expecting: Ordinary differential equations, differentiation, data analysisā¦
I really appreciated having a class that felt familiar and was less of an adjustment in terms of the type of learning it entailed. While 211 was still all new knowledge, Iām definitely not trying to suggest that it was āeasyā, but the way of learning was simple: lecture notes, practice problems, quiz, and so I found it easier to manage this class’s workload compared to others.
Honestly the clear structure of this course is why I gave it so many stars.
My rating lost half a star from the exam though, I wonāt complain too much about why, but all Iām gonna say is if anyone from the future is reading this and studying for their engsci211 exam, then my best advice would be donāt freak yourself out by looking at the 2024 one! Ā šĀ š
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ENGSCI 233 
This looks like a fairly low rating but honestly I didn’t think this was a ābadā class, this is just a reflection of how much stress this class caused me throughout the semester. As much as this blog is kinda supposed to āpromoteā or convince you guys that engsci is the best spec I feel like I needa be honest with this class aha. Iāll start with the positives: the test is only worth 10%, and the exam 30%. yay! Now for the negatives: there is a 10% assignment due fortnightly for the whole entire semesterā¦
I spent DAYS on a few of these assignments.
In saying that they arenāt all as hard as each other, and not everyone in the class found it as hard as I did, but I feel like I definitely wanna portray the fact that for me and some others, this class was definitely a challenge. The coding knowledge I gained from this is honestly pretty useful though, and Iām glad I learnt everything I did,Ā we learnt a large variety of things, coding in python, intro to data structures, hardware, combinatorics algorithms and so on, many of which help with later classes in an engsci degree.
All I can really say for this one is good luck, work hard and take good notes from the lectures (because it turns out you actually do need to know all that stuff about how computers work).
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ENGSCI 255
This class is technically a stats paper as well, so itās really different to the sort of learning and applications we have seen in other engineering classes. Itās a class fully about optimising certain things, like staffing schedules, materials for a company to make something etc, but this when you’re actually working through it is so much more interesting than it sounds, I promise! I literally loved being in this class and I feel like I miss it this semester!!
I found it super interesting when working through the assignments etc, as everything we learn is directly relevant to real life, and I feel like the skills from this class Iāll still be using when I have a full time engineering job, and these probably could somewhat be applied in my own life for things already.
Everything you need to know is in the coursebook, and there is also the stats hub you can go to if you ever need help(definitely go for assignment help), so there are heaps of resources to help with this class as well which is a big plus!
A little recommendation for this class though is go to every single lecture! (literally every single one!!) Our class test was a few days after the only lecture Iād missed of the whole entire semester and the stuff we covered in that lecture was in the test, so I lowkey flopped for that question specifically :|, but consider that my lesson learned, and donāt make that same mistake!
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Hope this helped you guys and you enjoyed this blog, and that it answers some of your questions of what engsci can involve!! š«¶š«¶
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