Ok, so, I need another place to gripe and moan about this... so far, this Mechanical Engineering major thing hasn't been too bad... I like physics... Statics isn't nearly as hard as everyone made it out to be... I haven't had the best teachers for Cal II and III but that's ok... same with Physics of Electricity and Magnetism (sorry EE guys... that stuff blows )... but OH MY FREAKIN' GOD!!!

WTF IS UP WITH THIS MATLAB!?!?

Seriously, not only do I hate this class with all my being, but I see NO use for any of it. No really, I have an A+ in the class because I do all the work on my TI-89... a fancy calculator which is basically all MATLAB is EXCEPT I don't need to know any crazy, useless programming language that ONLY MATLAB uses...

Thanks for listening. I feel better.

 

You may never get to use the full capabilities of MATLAB, but I don't think that a TI can handle (or maybe it's just way to cumbersome to input it) 100+ equations with 100+ variables.

 

We have to use that at Tech for ME too. Hate it.

 

So my question is... what field uses equations with so many variables?

 

Pure science for one. and MechE for another (especially in the Aerospace industry). Don't worry tho, industry has much better interfaces, and unless you get a Masters, it's highly unlikely that you'll ever get heavy into it. However, it's important becuase it's fundamental.

You probably didn't see the need for factoring in the 9th grade, or memorizing the trig functions in 10th either. But those two skills will be crucial for your next few years in simplifying equations. Profs love to put together hellacious functions that are quite simple if you have the above two skills mastered.

 

I got my ME degree about three years ago. I completely agree with the MATLAB. I still have the TI-89 I used in school. I use it daily at my current job.

Mechanical Engineering... don't worry, you'll get there. It sounds like you're in your second year. The real fun begins next year. Good Luck!

 

Yeah, Matlab's interface sucks beyond all comprehension. I can't really think of a field where you'd be using just matlab - I can barely remember what I used it for. All I remember is; "FREAKING MATRICES".

I went into Mfg Eng after I got me BS in ME. The math is a hell of a lot simpler, that's for sure.

 

MATLAB is just glorified C...you could just do it in that.

 

I hated MATLAB with a passion in college. Chances are you'll never use it, but it's good to put on a resume, even though the 5 companies I interviewed with had never heard of it.

Just struggle through it and you can spend the rest of your life cursing at it. Now I just get to swear at pro/e because it won't put the surfaces in I want or has a ^(&*ing open loop somewhere in my sketch!

 

I remember taking this class while I was getting my Mechanical Engineering degree. My teacher, she was so hard and the class sucked. I hated it. I have to say that I have never used it since I took that class and I graduated with my BS back in 2001.

 

I am a chem e and i use matlab a crap load
I guess it really differs by school to school, but matlab is a really powerful calculator in a sense and you can do a lot with it if you really sit down and learn it.

Good luck man

 

Good thing I'm done with Matlab. I really suck at it. I preffer VHDL programming and using Multisim or PSpice and AutoCADs rather than writing equations using Matlab. I was just lucky I had Matlab freaks in my class who helped me out.