Anyone else joining electronic and electrical engineering with foundation year?

Original post by chocobunni

Would love to know people ill be with before arriving :smile:

How did you find it? Starting foundation year this September.

Reply 2

Original post by Chris smith6

How did you find it? Starting foundation year this September.

Hi! I’m doing a foundation year now and it’s honestly a lot harder than I expected going into it. The a levels or subjects you did at college heavily affect the amount of effort you need to put in imo, as it’s basically a year of learning the majority of the a level maths and physics spec, on-top of lab and engineering work.

If you have any questions I’ll happily answer any :smile:

Reply 3

Original post by gglr

Hi! I’m doing a foundation year now and it’s honestly a lot harder than I expected going into it. The a levels or subjects you did at college heavily affect the amount of effort you need to put in imo, as it’s basically a year of learning the majority of the a level maths and physics spec, on-top of lab and engineering work.

If you have any questions I’ll happily answer any :smile:

Yeah I got the impression it was gonna be tough when I went to the offer holders day. What did you do at college?

Reply 4

Original post by Chris smith6

Original post by gglr

Hi! I’m doing a foundation year now and it’s honestly a lot harder than I expected going into it. The a levels or subjects you did at college heavily affect the amount of effort you need to put in imo, as it’s basically a year of learning the majority of the a level maths and physics spec, on-top of lab and engineering work.

If you have any questions I’ll happily answer any :smile:

Yeah I got the impression it was gonna be tough when I went to the offer holders day. What did you do at college?

How did you find the offer holder?

I did maths, sociology and physics so I’m doing alright in a sense that I recognise a lot of the content for those modules

Reply 5

Original post by gglr

Yeah I got the impression it was gonna be tough when I went to the offer holders day. What did you do at college?

How did you find the offer holder?

I did maths, sociology and physics so I’m doing alright in a sense that I recognise a lot of the content for those modulesreally enjoyed it, obviously we got shown around the diamond and the mappin building. Got to talk to a bunch of students and lecturers.

I'm coming at this from a different angle than standard, I was an electrician for 5 years and I've almost finished an access course, it's like A levels but we get assignments instead of exams.

So that'll be my biggest adjustment going into an exam heavy environment. Where alot of undergrads did A levels so they'll be used to the process.

Reply 6

Original post by Chris smith6

How did you find the offer holder?

I did maths, sociology and physics so I’m doing alright in a sense that I recognise a lot of the content for those modules

really enjoyed it, obviously we got shown around the diamond and the mappin building. Got to talk to a bunch of students and lecturers.

I'm coming at this from a different angle than standard, I was an electrician for 5 years and I've almost finished an access course, it's like A levels but we get assignments instead of exams.

So that'll be my biggest adjustment going into an exam heavy environment. Where alot of undergrads did A levels so they'll be used to the process.

Ay im glad you enjoyed it! All your labs will be in the diamond so it’s nice that you’ve been there.

I think your toughest challenge will be getting used to the exam setting, especially since the maths and physics modules are graded by 90% exam and 10% homework’s. Despite that though I think you’ll pick it up fairly easily and the engineering module especially, will be your strength as that’s more assignment style and tailored to your engineering choice

Reply 7

Original post by gglr

really enjoyed it, obviously we got shown around the diamond and the mappin building. Got to talk to a bunch of students and lecturers.

I'm coming at this from a different angle than standard, I was an electrician for 5 years and I've almost finished an access course, it's like A levels but we get assignments instead of exams.

So that'll be my biggest adjustment going into an exam heavy environment. Where alot of undergrads did A levels so they'll be used to the process.

Ay im glad you enjoyed it! All your labs will be in the diamond so it’s nice that you’ve been there.

I think your toughest challenge will be getting used to the exam setting, especially since the maths and physics modules are graded by 90% exam and 10% homework’s. Despite that though I think you’ll pick it up fairly easily and the engineering module especially, will be your strength as that’s more assignment style and tailored to your engineering choiceYeah really clinched it for Sheffield to be my firm choice after going to the offer holders day.

Yeah my thoughts exactly, the lady Incharge of foundation, unfortunately I can't remember her name broke down the exams into:
40% easy - covered in class
20% average difficulty
40 hard - not coverd in class,

She also said that you get zero marks for a question if you mess up anything, even if you were right upto a point and you don't get a formula sheet which took me a bit by suprise but guess they're training people to be engineers, not to pass exams I guess.

Thanks for the encouragement, anything else I should keep in mind now to help in September?

Reply 8

Original post by Chris smith6

Original post by gglr

really enjoyed it, obviously we got shown around the diamond and the mappin building. Got to talk to a bunch of students and lecturers.

I'm coming at this from a different angle than standard, I was an electrician for 5 years and I've almost finished an access course, it's like A levels but we get assignments instead of exams.

So that'll be my biggest adjustment going into an exam heavy environment. Where alot of undergrads did A levels so they'll be used to the process.

Ay im glad you enjoyed it! All your labs will be in the diamond so it’s nice that you’ve been there.

I think your toughest challenge will be getting used to the exam setting, especially since the maths and physics modules are graded by 90% exam and 10% homework’s. Despite that though I think you’ll pick it up fairly easily and the engineering module especially, will be your strength as that’s more assignment style and tailored to your engineering choice

Yeah really clinched it for Sheffield to be my firm choice after going to the offer holders day.

Yeah my thoughts exactly, the lady Incharge of foundation, unfortunately I can't remember her name broke down the exams into:
40% easy - covered in class
20% average difficulty
40 hard - not coverd in class,

She also said that you get zero marks for a question if you mess up anything, even if you were right upto a point and you don't get a formula sheet which took me a bit by suprise but guess they're training people to be engineers, not to pass exams I guess.

Thanks for the encouragement, anything else I should keep in mind now to help in September?

I honestly didn’t know that about the exams, from the ones I’ve already done most of the content is covered in class I’d say, it’s just the application on a few like physics which may not appear straight forward.

Physics we don’t get a formula sheet but it is open book so we’re allowed a double sided a4 piece of paper, however maths we don’t and it’s also non calculator (there’s another maths module for people who did a-levels and want a challenge that is calculator but the main one isn’t).

If you want to prepare I’d definitely look at a-level specifications as there’s a big overlap but you’re eased in quite well at the beginning of the year so it shouldn’t be too bad. Only thing I would change about my approach would be to get used to excel as it took me a while to get a grasp of it

Reply 9