Engineering with only 2U Maths (1 Viewer)

[Hypem]

Once I finish school, I'm thinking of doing an Extension 1 bridging course.

At the moment, I'm getting in the 90s for all the exams (official and topic).

I've heard conflicting opinions on it:

- Failure rate for those who only do 2U is greater than the failure rate of those who do 3U and above
- Won't have to work as hard to learn the content in the first year
+ People didn't really encounter maths that they learnt in 3U, so a bridging course wasn't really useful
+ You review all the work you do in 2U and then progress through 3U + 4U stuff later on, so that's when you can learn it

What exactly should I do?

 

[Praer]

Did you know that you go through the whole 4unit maths courses, in about a month in uni?

 

[cheepy5]

yeah .... I believe you probably can but you would definitely need to take the 3u bridging course.
To give an idea of the pace of engineering maths, we basically did the whole hsc complex number topic in a 3hr lecture

 

[cheepy5]

+ People didn't really encounter maths that they learnt in 3U, so a bridging course wasn't really useful

sorry just read this bit
Yes some of 3u maths you do encounter in uni ..... really its more than the content, 3 u does open you to techniques and a greater understanding of applying calculus

 

[Nws m8]

sorry just read this bit
Yes some of 3u maths you do encounter in uni ..... really its more than the content, 3 u does open you to techniques and a greater understanding of applying calculus

+1

 

[Lieutenant_21]

You will find it extremely difficult.

 

[D94]

- Failure rate for those who only do 2U is greater than the failure rate of those who do 3U and above
- Won't have to work as hard to learn the content in the first year
+ People didn't really encounter maths that they learnt in 3U, so a bridging course wasn't really useful
+ You review all the work you do in 2U and then progress through 3U + 4U stuff later on, so that's when you can learn it

1. Possibly, but that isn't necessarily because they only did 2U.
2. If you just want to pass, then sure, but if you want to do well then you do need to work hard - that goes for everything.
3. Absolutely false (at UNSW) - there are some topics which you don't cover, but they do cover many 3U and 4U topics; integration, complex numbers, differentiation, trig functions, curve sketching, exponential/log functions, limits, inverse functions, probability etc.
4. No, there's no "review" of 2U and then you proceed to 3U and 4U. Uni doesn't work off HSC topics, they are a separate institution with a separate syllabus. What I mentioned above is covered in the first semester + more topics, so it's a good portion of the 3U and 4U courses covered in only 3 months. Whilst they do cover things from the beginning, that only takes 1 hour (i.e. 1 hour to cover the HSC topic).

They don't just advertise "MX1 is recommended" for no reason - a lot of the topics require at least the aptitude of an average to good MX1 student. MX2 is advantageous. This may not necessarily mean they will do better, but they can familiarise with the content quicker, whereas content will be generally foreign to a 2U student and even 3U students - e.g. complex numbers.

The best thing you can do is to look at the syllabus/course outline for whichever uni you intend on going to, and compare that with MX1/MX2 textbooks and do the work yourself. A bridging course is merely instruction on relevant topics, but you can easily do that in your own time.

 

[brent012]

Did you know that you go through the whole 4unit maths courses, in about a month in uni?

No, fair bit of the 4 unit syllabus is irrelevant to engineering i.e. conics.

 

[SpiralFlex]

I would actually recommend being average-strong at 3U at minimum because if you're taking physics a lot of stuff is assumed and calculations are carried out in a manner that would be quite hard to follow in my opinion for a 2U student. (At UNSW anyway)

 

[Nws m8]

No, fair bit of the 4 unit syllabus is irrelevant to engineering i.e. conics.

I heard they use conics in aerospace engineering ...

 

[brent012]

I heard they use conics in aerospace engineering ...

Maybe, but it's not part of the engineering core math subjects at UTS (not sure about about other unis) and is not something that would be needed by the average engineer.

 

[Nws m8]

Also depends what uni you want to get into, for UWS, the assumed knowledge is only 2u math, and I am sure they start from the very basics ....for UTS and UNSW, the assumed knowledge is 3u and recommended is 4u ...

 

[D94]

No, fair bit of the 4 unit syllabus is irrelevant to engineering i.e. conics.

You named 1 topic out of 7 (excluding Harder 3U).

At least at UNSW, we did cover Graphs, Complex Numbers, Integration and Polynomials. Mechanics was covered in Physics.

So 5/7 topics are covered in engineering - Volumes is just an extension on Integration and Conics is just an extension on Parametrics and Graphs.

Not sure about UTS, but at UNSW, I'd say 4U is quite relevant.

 

[Nws m8]

You named 1 topic out of 7 (excluding Harder 3U).

At least at UNSW, we did cover Graphs, Complex Numbers, Integration and Polynomials. Mechanics was covered in Physics.

So 5/7 topics are covered in engineering - Volumes is just an extension on Integration and Conics is just an extension on Parametrics and Graphs.

Not sure about UTS, but at UNSW, I'd say 4U is quite relevant.

Did you cover those in the first semester? its my 4th week at uni and we have done complex so far

 

[brent012]

You named 1 topic out of 7 (excluding Harder 3U).

At least at UNSW, we did cover Graphs, Complex Numbers, Integration and Polynomials. Mechanics was covered in Physics.

So 5/7 topics are covered in engineering - Volumes is just an extension on Integration and Conics is just an extension on Parametrics and Graphs.

Not sure about UTS, but at UNSW, I'd say 4U is quite relevant.

I didn't do 4 unit in school so can't accurately comment on that as i have no idea how much content in each topic from 4 unit is covered in MM1. But to say the whole 4 unit syllabus is covered in a month is a bit of an exaggeration.

 

[Drongoski]

If you want to do Engineering, why aren't you doing at least MX1?

 

[Hypem]

Also depends what uni you want to get into, for UWS, the assumed knowledge is only 2u math, and I am sure they start from the very basics ....for UTS and UNSW, the assumed knowledge is 3u and recommended is 4u ...

Well I'll be going to a uni in Queensland which has a pre-req of Maths B, and Maths C is recommended.

Not exactly sure what "Maths C" actually is, but now that you've mentioned the fact that they might start off from the very basics...

 

[Hypem]

If you want to do Engineering, why aren't you doing at least MX1?

Because I didn't care about school back in Year 8/9/10, so I pretty much just got 60% for every test (I was in that "advanced" class 5.3 or whatever it was, but still).
So I ended up actually choosing General, then transferred to 2U after a month then started trying.

It was too late to choose Extension by that time + I didn't know I wanted to do engineering.

 

[Capt Rifle]

engineering with 2 unit... I can't say much as Im still in year 12, but i know people who did general and are now qualified engineers... Just focus the first year, that is their advice lol.

 

[SpiralFlex]

But if you are going to do 2U (which is fine by all means), you will need to encounter 3U/4U work minimum in Engineering at some stage. Either way you may need to learn it. It can be learnt over the summer.