My Summer Course Essay Example

Decisions make up the entirety of all human activity. I was put into a position where I had to make the choice to take a five-credit-hour summer class. Most summer classes in engineering tend to be vigorous and packed full of homework. Even though it was harder than a regular semester, there were still positive outcomes. By not taking this class; I would have graduated a year late, I wouldn't have been able to interact with international students, and I wouldn't have been able to have one on one time with the professor. My decision to take engineering physics over the summer was logical even though there are reasons that might not make it logical.

Being waitlisted during the fall of my freshman year gave me a logical reason to take engineering physics over the summer. I was getting onto my online account to enroll in my second semester of Architectural Engineering. Every spring and fall when approaching enrollment for the next semester, each student is given a specific date and time that they will be allowed to enroll. As I went online, I noticed my enrollment time was during the second to last week of the fall semester. It turns out that I had received the very last enrollment date to enroll in all my classes. This caused me to get waitlisted for engineering physics. This put me into a panic. Being in architectural engineering, there is a specific flow chart of classes that I must follow. If I cannot take a class or I fail a class, then my graduation date gets pushed back an entire year. In order to avoid pushing back my graduation year, I talked to my counselor. She gave me several options such as taking it online during the spring semester at a higher cost or taking on campus over the summer. I was already taking eighteen credit hours during the spring so I decided to take the class over the summer. By not taking the class online during the spring, I was able to save money and have more time to focus on my other classes. By not taking the class in the fall of my sophomore year and taking it during the summer, I was able to stay on track with my degree. I am now able to graduate on time and have my classes match up to my flow chart.

Engineering Physic Summer Class

Not only did taking engineering physic over the summer help get me back on track, but it also helped me communicate with international students. During the summer, the population of international students outweighs the population of American students by a long shot. A large factor of the international students are people from the Middle East. They come here in hopes of a better education than they would receive at home. Once they come here, most do not ever return to home. During the summertime, since most do not go home, they take summer courses in order to pass their time and to graduate faster. Walking into my first day of engineering physics, I noticed that eighteen out of twenty-two students were from the Middle East. The majority of them had very thick accents and were hard to understand. Since engineering physics was a studio-oriented class, I had to work with them daily. In my first couple of weeks, it was very hard to understand them and work with them. As time went on, I started to catch onto their accents and understood them better. Even though it was a hard experience trying to work with them, I believe I still made the right choice. By sticking through the summer course, I was able to build friendships and understanding of their culture. In the long run, my job will require me to travel and by having this experience I will be better at communicating with people from the Middle East.

As I mentioned before, my class size starting out was twenty-two people. The average class size during a normal semester for engineering physics is around four hundred people. This was a significantly smaller class which gave more opportunities to talk to the teacher. A few weeks into the semester, there were fifteen people remaining. At this point in the semester, people were starting to drop the course because of its intensity and hardness. Before I enrolled in engineering physics over the summer, I had talked to many of my peers about taking summer courses. Most people had told me that summer classes were way easier than the normal semester. So, I decided to get some of my elective classes out of the way. I took expository writing and public speaking online along with engineering physics. I am also an undergraduate researcher that vows ten hours per week to research. During my first week in the class, I realized that they must not have taken engineering physics over the summer. This course came with four hours of in-class participation each weekday. The lecture and studio were two-hour blocks with an hour of lunch break in between. After class, we were assigned roughly four hours of homework per day. Roughly eight hours of each workday were committed to engineering physics. My summer became very busy very fast. With my three classes and my undergraduate research, I barely had any time to myself. As each day went on, my engineering physics class became harder. When I went to look for tutoring on campus, I had no luck finding any. I realized that since I had a small class of fifteen, it would be easier for me to ask the teacher questions. During the lecture, I would take notes and listen thoroughly. During my one-hour lunch break, I would look through all of my homework and try all of the harder problems I saw. If I came upon a question I would wait until studio to ask my professor. In most cases, our lab in the studio would finish about thirty minutes before the allotted class time was over. So, during that extra thirty minutes, I would pull out my questions and he would help me through them. Even though I took a hard class over the summer with no tutoring options, because I had a smaller class size I was able to have more one on one time with the professor.

Conclusion

Engineering physics was a rough course to get through. My whole summer was spent putting my heart and soul into making sure I understood the material. I was able to get an A in the class and leave the class feeling accomplished. By being able to get back on track with my degree program, meeting and interacting with international students, and having more one on one time with my professor, I am able to say that my decision to take engineering physics over the summer was logical. Even though there were downsides to my decision, the upsides made it worth it.