Why do engineering majors always worry about graduating on time?

The reason might be because universities around you don't accept students half way through the academic year. All engineering students almost have the same classes for first 3 semesters. If you join the university late you would be out of phase from these classes and you won't have classes to take. Again, this might be the reason. My university did not take any students half way through the year also, but I never took a minute to think about it until now!

It's because the engineering class load is large, and continuously growing. You can't be useful without the basics (math, chemistry, physics, etc), you have to have at least SOME humanities classes (english, foreign languages, art, music, etc), and by that point you're done with your first two years. Then there are the basic classes at the bottom of your major, the 101s for whatever you're doing. After that is the labs, the more advanced classes, etc. Since we're continually discovering new things and want students to graduate at the cutting edge, the science and engineering classes keep growing, so either the work per class gets high enough you have to delay other classes, or the class splits into two. And if you do a double major, it's that much harder. Also, even if you have the capacity to do everything, the class schedules may overlap such that you can't do everything you want unless you can be in two places at once.

I did my undergrad over 20 years ago, and even then I had only six free elective credits (out of 128) and took 4.5 years, and that includes taking double-speed classes one summer. Granted, my last semester was relatively easy, but there were two or three classes that just didn't fit in beforehand. I've known people who graduated in 4 years with an engineering degree, but they had no lives, no jobs, and no distractions while there, and that sounds like a lot of no fun to me. While you're doing an undergrad degree you're also supposed to learn how to be an independent person, and that also takes time.

Why is this worse than a humanities degree? Well, did we have cellular phones 30 years ago? No. So now we need to teach how they work as well as everything we had to teach 30 years ago. Art history, on the other hand, is largely static in comparison. Languages don't change that much. Business is still business. If rules change, then you don't have to teach the old ones. But with engineering, it's always a hard decision what else absolutely HAS to be taught, and if anything can be cut in order to do so.

The engineering curriculum is pretty full without many electives. If a class is full you have to wait a semester or possibly a year before it is offered again. Make sure you take classes that are offered occasionally as soon as you can. If you plan well, and have a back up plan, you should do fine. This may be the first test of being an engineer....engineers must stay on schedule, be creative and mange their time. Good luck.

An engineering degree requires a considerable number of prerequisite classes during the first two years. You must be thorough and on-the-ball to be sure you take these classes in a timely manner. As A Freshman newly entering a college, you will typically have the lowest "seniority for singing up for popular, prerequisite classes. Check with your prospective college to be sure that these classes do not fill up, forcing you to wait until you have more "seniority" in order to register.

Given the very high annual cost of attending college, it quite literally pays to work hard to get you degree in 4 years. A fifth you could easily cost you an additional $20,000.

Pete Sturtevant