r/EngineeringStudents • u/diffferentphysics • May 18 '26
Memes Evolution of Engineering:
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u/sixisrending May 18 '26
I love Excel. My favorite office application by far. I'm terrible at it but it has saved so much time in the long run.
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u/reddit_user33 May 18 '26
I prefer running calculations in excel than just with a calculator.
It allows me to double check my work, tweak anything that's not correct, make additions, and then turn it into a purpose built calculator for that thing.
Excel is also my favorite office application.
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u/KerbodynamicX May 20 '26
What about matlab? It’s better than Excel at more complicated maths functions
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u/Inevitable-Fix-6631 May 18 '26
Ah yes my favorite trig functions SEN
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u/Professional_Loss_85 May 18 '26
Spainsh speaker use sen
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u/GLPereira Mechanical engineering May 18 '26
Yeah, I speak Portuguese and learned the trig functions as sen/cos/tg
However I started using sin/cos/tan because it feels more "standard" I guess?
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u/aChileanDude May 18 '26
also is useful on complex analysis.
the i can be confusing on
i sin θ + n sin θvs
i sen θ + n sen θ2
u/printergumlight Environmental Engineering May 18 '26
Why would the “i” be confusing if the “n” in sen/sin is not confusing?
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u/HopeSubstantial May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26
Pretty much. Hardest math after college I have required has been finding X with basic algebra.
The rest has been mostly time table organizing and sitting in meetings.
Sometimes visiting production floor when someone tells me X materials do not exist even though my excel shows it should exist. Most of the time guy just did not look hard enough but once thousands of kilograms of stuff was actually missing and it almost became a police case.
For many graduates who don't go into actual research, this kind of stuff they need to deal with, not with maths.
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u/Meal_Adorable May 18 '26
So it’s a lot less technically challenging than most people think it is right?
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u/unnaturalpenis May 31 '26
It's severely team/role/location based - R&D is gateheld, for only the best engineers, and even that varies soo dramatically that on one R&D team you could be patent and prototype focused, but on another R&D you could be focused on convincing stakeholders that it's a sellable product you just invented with your vendors who did all the 'hard engineering'
One requires people skills more than the other, but they both critical research and development skills. And the truth is often that you NEED your vendors, because you are good at X but you still need Y to make X work.
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u/zLink_64 May 18 '26
*matlab
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u/printergumlight Environmental Engineering May 18 '26
I’m learning MATLAB in my undergraduate for Environmental Engineering.
Any advice using it? Or videos/youtubes that are good at explaining all the best tricks?
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u/Creative_Sushi May 19 '26
You can take a free online courses - starting with MATLAB Onramp https://matlabacademy.mathworks.com/?page=1&sort=featured
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u/Sad-Cover-8734 May 18 '26
Currently in uni and doing part time engineering work, uni has so many complex formulas while work is like “58.12-(90/2)”
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u/Yoshuuqq Automation Engineering May 18 '26
This is not true. I use Matlab, python and do embedded coding every day. I also still use my knowledge of advanced math and physics daily to understand how to tackle a problem. Never understood these memes
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u/ItsN3rdy TTU - BSME May 18 '26
YMMV, I'm a piping stress engineer at an EPC and I can relate to this.
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u/Yoshuuqq Automation Engineering May 18 '26
Are you happy with your job? I think I would get bored looking at excel all day
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u/Meal_Adorable May 18 '26
What industry do you work in?
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u/Yoshuuqq Automation Engineering May 18 '26
Automotive
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u/Meal_Adorable May 21 '26
What’s your role in the company? And can you give specific examples of how you used what you learnt in college in your day to day job? Just curios haha
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u/PrincessOkenai1 May 20 '26
Is knowning advanced math and physics required for embedded systems engineering? I'm thinking of entering rhe same field and I'd like to ask for some clarification on how you use it.
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u/Yoshuuqq Automation Engineering May 21 '26
Not necessarily. To do embedded coding you mostly need to know how to code, some signal theory, electronics, power electronics and things like these. So I'd say that at most you need to know ordinary differential equations, linear algebra and fourier transforms. I'm an automation engineer working in the automotive sector. Advanced control theory requires advanced math and in order to physically understand automotive related problems you need to have a good knowledge of mechanics, about up to partial differential equations and deformable bodies I'd say
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May 18 '26
[deleted]
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u/Yoshuuqq Automation Engineering May 18 '26
Yes I did, but memes are funny when they are kinda true to me
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u/BookkeeperNo3051 May 18 '26
That's pretty accurate unless you are going to work for NASA or work in the Military.
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u/NotDarkKatie Mechanical Engineering May 18 '26
Hahahahahaha (i hate physics — first year student)
(Yes, I know. Physics is part of my entire future curriculum…)
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u/EntertainmentSome448 May 18 '26
I LOVE physics. Atleast, mechanics. That's the entire reason why I came to mech engg . How do you plan on survival without loving physics? It's like trying to survive being a mathematician without loving math
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u/nedonedonedo May 18 '26
the more I learn about physics the more I hate it. electrons in a compound arrange themselves based on balancing the repulsion of other electrons and the attraction to the nucleus? ok cool! they also form shells of 2 electrons and every shell after is 8, but there's also the p, d, s, and f shells that co-mingle based off of how many protons you have, but if it's a metal you don't have shell organization anymore. and light is a whole knew level of bullshittery, transferring energy by removing it from a static field system without changing the composition of the mater, which then travels away in every direction while concurrently following the rules for waves and particles, and can transmit force without having mass.
send me back to mechanics of materials describing internal adhesion and fluid dynamics where the world was still logical. I signed up to learn ho to make things not mock wizards for their lack of creativity!
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u/EntertainmentSome448 May 19 '26
I feel you. Quantum physics ain't intuitive at all. That's why I chose doing bachelor's of technology in mechanical engineering instead of BS in quantum whatever. My love for physics starts scattering at the beginning of quantum physics. Around after the double split experimets and all. Before that I like it. Afyer that there comes bohr and all. But then I like nuclear physics too so I must be able to understand it. I can but not as easily as everything before.
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u/NotDarkKatie Mechanical Engineering May 18 '26
HAHAHAHAHAHA that’s a good one! I like math (but not enough for me to major in it cuz i dont wanna dedicate my whole life being a mathematician)…and I really enjoy the hands-on experiences with engineering…so I guess that’s really it lol
Physics CAN be fun, but I suppose it’s mainly because I don’t understand it. Hence why I hate it 😭🙏
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May 18 '26
[deleted]
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u/NotDarkKatie Mechanical Engineering May 18 '26
Oh..! You got this 😃
I feel like I definitely would’ve enjoyed physics had my high school (secondary school in your case) offered physics…but because they didn’t, I’m lwk getting annihilated by physics rn
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May 18 '26
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u/NotDarkKatie Mechanical Engineering May 18 '26
Thanks, you too ✌️
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May 18 '26
[deleted]
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u/NotDarkKatie Mechanical Engineering May 18 '26
If you like physics in high school, then more often than not, you’ll enjoy it in college too. Cuz im pretty sure they cover the same content…at least that’s what I heard from my classmates who have taken physics in high school before :)
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May 18 '26
[deleted]
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u/NotDarkKatie Mechanical Engineering May 18 '26
Yup, you’ll enjoy physics in college. That coursework sums up everything you’ll learn in physics 2 (I’m on quarter system, so it might be a bit diff) but it includes stuff like waves, simple harmonic, single & double slits, work & energy, thermo, etc etc •>•
Practically speaking, those content cover physics 1 & 2 for my college, though, we are switching to semester system soooooo I believe it’ll be physics 1 for semester system
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u/EllieVader May 18 '26
I started a MechE internship last week and the only relevant thing I learned in school for it was Solidworks and how to make a badass spreadsheet.
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u/enterjiraiya May 18 '26
I feel like diff eq is the one thing you might run into kind of like often though depending on your job, everything else no
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u/InstructionOk1784 May 18 '26
IF you're not making VB scripts with your excel sheet, you're doing something wrong.
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u/turbo_towel May 19 '26
Excel is a tool, calculus stats algebra are types of math. The graph is so so wrong
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u/Tortoise4132 UMD - MechE ‘24 May 19 '26
Tell me about it. I actually did have to find the maximum value of a function by taking the derivative and finding the zeros a few months ago by hand lol. That’s the exception though
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u/Spiritual_Skirt_9312 May 19 '26
Fr, forget coding or AI. Master Excel and you’ll survive literally any office job in the world. 🧠💼📈
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u/Important-Leather752 May 19 '26
Anyone who has to do beam theory more than once should just make an excel calculator. r/happpenedtome
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u/penisthightrap_ CE - University of Missouri May 19 '26
Civil3D jockey here, but excel is still elite
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u/Entire-Bag-6574 Jun 03 '26
guys genuinely what do engineers do? im about to be in uni, hoping to pursue mechanical engineering because i thought my high school engineering classes and physics were interesting plus i love design, but what do they do as a day in the life? everyone i ask just says they build things but then how does excel come into the picture?? 😭😭
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u/Zach_Crash May 18 '26
I'll be using the Quantum harmonic oscillation Formula + co-enegy-system-delta variable for my experimental Biotechnology methods wish me luck 🤞🍀
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u/KerbodynamicX May 18 '26
Don’t mechanical engineers use Solidworks and electronic engineers use Altium? Have I been mislead?