Mechatronics and General maths (1 Viewer)

Drongoski

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I'm going to say there is hope for General Maths students out there. Currently, tutoring a General Maths student and I seriously think the kid , (Band 6) at the moment could have and would be able to do Engineering or Science related maths course. I have tutored a student in the past who also said to me he wanted to do Engineering , with only a General Maths background. There are bridging courses, Youtube links out there that enable that knowledge to be gained.

I said this before in another thread , if you are in Year 9 or Year 10 5.3 maths class, you should without any hesitation choose 2 Unit maths or higher in Year 11. The standard is no more difficult than General.

General Maths is only slightly behind in content in comparison to the IB Mathematical Studies. (In studies they cover the basics of differentiation which is more than catchable in about 4-6 weeks)

I also am not sure how strict universities , over here are with pre-requisites and what not. But I do get the feeling if you believe you have good reason to do a certain course, the university will let you do it. (i.e you did a bridging course like http://sydney.edu.au/science/fstudent/undergrad/entry/bridging.shtml where if you showed you have taken some assessments and have sufficient background THEY will let you do a course. )
You're certainly being more magnanimous and optimistic. There are perhaps a small minority of the General Maths cohort who can easily handle 2U. Students from this minority, like mattstaker, have not picked Maths 2U, in a possibly misguided thinking that they are going to ace their General and hence boost their ATAR. But in my view, the typical Maths General student, who are not quite able to do 2U, are unlikely to handle the typical maths in Engineering - you, having done Engineering, would know that better than me. I'd like to know how many students with only General maths completed a solid Engineering degree.

I also don't agree that General Maths is anywhere close to the IB's Maths Studies. The level of maths in General is laughable.

I also don't believe you can in a matter of a few weeks of the crash course in Bridging Maths cover what has taken the typical Maths Ext 1 student a full 2-year of study. Wouldn't it be nice: just complete a 2 or 3-week bridging course and you'd have done the equivalent of the full Maths Ext 1 or the Maths Ext 2. Can the students, typically with a weaker aptitude for maths, be able to absorb so much higher-level stuff in a mere 2 to 3 weeks? No way!
 
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leehuan

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You certainly being more magnanimous and optimistic. There are perhaps a small minority of the General Maths cohort who can easily handle 2U. Students from this minority, like mattstaker, have not picked Maths 2U, in a possibly misguided thinking that they are going to ace their General and hence boost their ATAR. But in my view, the typical Maths General student, who are not quite able to do 2U, are unlikely to handle the typical maths in Engineering - you, having done Engineering, would know that better than me. I'd like to know how many students with only General maths completed a solid Engineering degree.
This is because (generally speaking, not for every case including maybe matt) whilst they can get 90 in general they'd get a 60 in 2U.


Which of course goes back to why they shouldn't do engineering obviously.

A general math student would not be able to complete a 3u bridging course. You need 2u.
Yeah, this is true lol
 

clementinez

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It's not even a question of how easy or difficult general maths is. It doesn't cover the content you need for engineering so you have to learn it in your own time because you'll need at least 2u knowledge to even begin to understand what's going on. There are students in general that would be able to handle 2/3u maths but this is a very small percentage because most people that choose general either want an easy maths course or dislike maths altogether.. not exactly a winning combo for engineering.
Also MathsStudies IB is a much tougher course than general maths.
 

Zoinked

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Lol the pain of being mentioned for choosing the wrong subjects
pjmEWWA.jpg
 

joshman94

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Uni students who have taken Mechtronics or any engineering courses but only studied general maths during the HSC, how are you coping?
It's not too bad, if you study consistently enough to pass the first maths course you should be fine from there as everyone is basically on the same level from there on. There are a lot of tools uni will give you to succeed as it's not like they want you to fail, it's up to you to utilise them.
 

Squar3root

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tbh mechatronics and general math aint happening.

In 1st year subjects everyone is on the same level with 2U at the very minimum and they achieved usually band 5 or higher. SURELY they struggled a bit and got through. if you're finding it difficult to keep up with general math concepts tbh engineering is not for you. When you get to 3rd year you start doing things like programming mathematics into robots and you need to think about the box for degrees of freedom etc which requires higher understanding so unless you're really on top of your game in general and didn't do 2u or higher for a really good reason look at other options
 

joshman94

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tbh mechatronics and general math aint happening.

In 1st year subjects everyone is on the same level with 2U at the very minimum and they achieved usually band 5 or higher. SURELY they struggled a bit and got through. if you're finding it difficult to keep up with general math concepts tbh engineering is not for you. When you get to 3rd year you start doing things like programming mathematics into robots and you need to think about the box for degrees of freedom etc which requires higher understanding so unless you're really on top of your game in general and didn't do 2u or higher for a really good reason look at other options
Yep you're essentially behind everyone else in your class from the start, it requires much more of an effort to pass than someone who did 2u or extension. You have to have a consistent study plan before the class starts. However if you are able to study enough to catch up and you're able to keep those study habits in future math courses then I believe you'd be able to pass higher engineering math courses like DE's, Linear algebra and the higher calc stuff.

It's important to consider why you want to do engineering and why you're currently doing general maths. Have you only just recently developed in interest in maths? Does math actually interest you? Do you just want to do engineering because you think it pays well?
 

turntaker

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I have done 4u maths at high school and it helped me tremendously at uni. In my opinion you should at least have done 2u maths at uni and gained at least some familiarity with calculus. (Even then 1st year uni maths is like 4u level + more)

General maths doesn't teach you anything relevant so you will have a very hard time with the maths. Your best choice is to do a bridging course
 

BreeJones01

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What does Mechatronics actually involve? What type of subjects do you study?
 

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