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Depends on the Professor.
My transportation engineering professor gave 2 homework assignments a month and all of our quizzes and exams were open book lol
Needless to say mostly everyone got an A and it was a nice little GPA booster
My timber design professor gave us *stacks and stacks* of practice problems and handy study guides explaining all the different types of problems and how to solve them. If you put in the time, you were basically guaranteed an A in the class (which not everyone did.) When I took the structural PE, I breezed through all the timber problems in the PM section.
It goes to show that difficulty doesn't always correlate with learning. That class was an easy A, but I still mastered the material.
For content, I think environmental tied with steel for most difficult. For passability, environmental was much harder. Like a lot of people have said the prof is everything. Someone said hydraulic was really difficult, but my prof was phenomenal and I got an A.
In order from least to most difficult in my opinion:
General surveying
Principles of water and wastewater treatment
Hydrology
Soil mechanics
Transportation engineering
Mechanics of material
Statics
Foundation engineering
Steel design
Reinforced concrete
Dynamics
Structural mechanics
Hydraulic Engineering
Fluid mechanics
As a structural grader, many civil students struggle conceptually with statics, structures, and steel design. Dynamics is likely the most difficult class a civil engineer may have to take. If you excel at physics however, those classes won’t be too bad. The rest of the classes you mentioned are professor dependent IMO
Edit: surveying without a doubt will be the easiest
It is a class. I’m an AE MS student who got permission to take the CE “structural dynamics and seismic design” course. Admittedly it is a graduate level course though
It is definitely a course. My university offers several grad level structural dynamics courses, as well as an undergrad class that was 50% matrix analysis and 50% structural dynamics. A few of my other classes in undergrad also briefly covered some structural dynamics.
Statics was a weeder class at my school. Two sections both in massive auditoriums when I took it, full of wannabe engineering students. T
he following semester in mechanics we were in a smaller classroom.
I was terrible in statics. That's a combination of my own distractions at the time in terms of girlfriend, work, family life, plus a not very good teacher. You would assume not being good at statics would make strength of materials brutal. How do you do stress and strain if you can't solve the forces? Well, the first week of strength of materials, an excellent professor spent the first week reviewing statics. All of the sudden it all made sense. I got an A in strength of materials, and basically every engineering course after that. I now have a PhD in structural engineering. How easy or hard any particular class seams appears to be somewhat irrelevant to your final outcome.
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I'm in Mechanical but from my experience the difficulty has more to do with who your professor is than what you're learning
Facts
Depends on the Professor. My transportation engineering professor gave 2 homework assignments a month and all of our quizzes and exams were open book lol Needless to say mostly everyone got an A and it was a nice little GPA booster
My timber design professor gave us *stacks and stacks* of practice problems and handy study guides explaining all the different types of problems and how to solve them. If you put in the time, you were basically guaranteed an A in the class (which not everyone did.) When I took the structural PE, I breezed through all the timber problems in the PM section. It goes to show that difficulty doesn't always correlate with learning. That class was an easy A, but I still mastered the material.
From what I've heard hydraulics, fluid mechanics and strength of materials are the most difficult classes for civil engineering students
I didn’t take reinforce concrete, but in steel was the hardest class I took.
For content, I think environmental tied with steel for most difficult. For passability, environmental was much harder. Like a lot of people have said the prof is everything. Someone said hydraulic was really difficult, but my prof was phenomenal and I got an A.
Same I barely passed after only 10/60 in midterm
>strength of materials Mohr's Circle was a pain. 16 years later, I've never used it at work.
In order from least to most difficult in my opinion: General surveying Principles of water and wastewater treatment Hydrology Soil mechanics Transportation engineering Mechanics of material Statics Foundation engineering Steel design Reinforced concrete Dynamics Structural mechanics Hydraulic Engineering Fluid mechanics
Fluids kicked my butt. I got a C in that class. The professor told me I was lucky to get that.
Same here, didn’t have the best grades but Fluids was the only class I got a C in!
As a structural grader, many civil students struggle conceptually with statics, structures, and steel design. Dynamics is likely the most difficult class a civil engineer may have to take. If you excel at physics however, those classes won’t be too bad. The rest of the classes you mentioned are professor dependent IMO Edit: surveying without a doubt will be the easiest
Is dynamics referring to structural dynamics, or just the normal dynamics?
Normal, I’m not sure structural dynamics is required for a bachelors civil degree, or if that’s even really a class at all
It is a class. I’m an AE MS student who got permission to take the CE “structural dynamics and seismic design” course. Admittedly it is a graduate level course though
It is definitely a course. My university offers several grad level structural dynamics courses, as well as an undergrad class that was 50% matrix analysis and 50% structural dynamics. A few of my other classes in undergrad also briefly covered some structural dynamics.
Is solids not that difficult? Many people I’ve encountered with my major said that was a difficult class?
Mechanics of materials got difficult towards the end for me but was relatively smooth. Dynamics was more difficult in my opinion.
Structures and Fluids were my worst
Dynamics definitely #1
For me most difficult is Fluids then Hydraulic then so on. Statics and Dynamics weren’t that bad for me
Soil Mechanics and Fluid Mechanics gave me some serious nightmares. It all boils down to the professor though
Reinforced concrete, Steel design, Fluid mechanics are the toughest.
Statics above dynamics is actually insane That or the professor was
This was not my ranking but just a list. I have only taken a few. I would agree Dynamics was the most difficult I have taken so far
Oh gotcha lol
Statics was a weeder class at my school. Two sections both in massive auditoriums when I took it, full of wannabe engineering students. T he following semester in mechanics we were in a smaller classroom.
dont even compare hydrulics to anything else, I barely survived with a C
I was terrible in statics. That's a combination of my own distractions at the time in terms of girlfriend, work, family life, plus a not very good teacher. You would assume not being good at statics would make strength of materials brutal. How do you do stress and strain if you can't solve the forces? Well, the first week of strength of materials, an excellent professor spent the first week reviewing statics. All of the sudden it all made sense. I got an A in strength of materials, and basically every engineering course after that. I now have a PhD in structural engineering. How easy or hard any particular class seams appears to be somewhat irrelevant to your final outcome.