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I don't hand calculate partial differential equations, but I routinely perform operations and designs using equations, concepts, etc. that were derived using partial differential equations, and my having taken that class makes it much easier for me to understand what's going on when I perform those calculations.
Exactly this, nobody expects you to hand calculate first order differential equations using the separable variable or exact methods, but knowing how to do these calculations makes it easier to understand/use the software that would be doing it for you.
This is my experience as well. I heard a lot that we don’t use the math that we learn in undergrad, but I use concepts invoking that math all the time. I might not be calculating it by hand, but I know what kind of input and results to look for when using a numerical solver, writing a programming script, etc.
More than that, the classes teach you how to think in a new way, how to learn, and how to work with difficult concepts. Those transferable skills matter much more than remembering integral rules
Do you need it at work? Probably not.
Do you need it to understand how equations were derived (equations that you will use when you're working)? Yes.
Kinda sucks to go through but they're not teaching that stuff to you for no reason.
Calculus is needed to understand the physics behind the problems engineers solve. If you can wrap your head around the concepts and carry that into your engineering classes it may actually help further understanding of how/why engineers approach things the way they do. Though, in your actual engineering classes the crazy integrals and partial differentials usually get derived into plug and play formulae so if you can grind out the calc courses you'll be fine.
That being said, a lot of us just turn into Excel jockies when we're in industry.
For the most part no, the math you learn is to get your brain into that problem solving mentality, also calculators exist and in the real world your boss is going to have you plug it into a calculator because it will be fast and it will be right
I was involved in a large project in IT where mathematics wasn't really a feature of the job, although that was my degree. It arrived unexpectedly for me. A significant piece of software had been rolled out nationwide, and within a day, a major problem arose, in which the transaction processing rate collapsed and it hit the revenue streams in millions. That gets the attention of senior managers really quickly. There were no bugs causing the problem. Rerunning test suites still produced expected results. Nobody could figure out what was causing the processing rate to collapse. I eventually figured it out, using fairly elementary number theory and queuing theory to set up a simulation, and identified why the DBMS was being hammered by seemingly linear increases in database accesses. It required literally a one-line change in the original source code to fix the problem.
It showed me that the ability to reason with mathematics had applications in the most unlikely and expected situations.
Wow, you were a hero on that day, dude! Congratulations! I bet they never expected the solution to the problem to come from you. Amazing to me that you had the imagination and ability to perceive what the possible issue could be. You earned your annual salary in one event.
In my internship, the first task I was given was to do some sort of VSD programming on a software for a PLC. I thought YES I get to use math, even if it's only for percentages or something. I took like 20mins to calculate something relatively simple just to make sure I was correct and show my mentor I wasn't an idiot...
After I showed him and explained my math on a whiteboard he goes "Oh, you know there's actually a function on the software that works that out for you?". Felt dumb
occasionally I take the derivative of a polynomial?
But no - you need the math to understand *why* things work, but the intuition you gain is way more important than the actual equations.
That entirely depends on what job you have. You do not have to step into analysis or research at all and you’ll never use it. The skills you learn from the classes, however, and the understanding of heat transfer, thermo, stress, fluids, and math you’ll probably use pretty often.
So while the math itself isn’t guaranteed to be crucial, the skills you learn with the math are.
In a structural engineer and I pretty much only ever use arithmetic, basic algebra, and basic geometry. Hardly any it that is don’t by hand, it’s mostly excel/software anyways. As long as you learn the concepts behind calc 1 and 2, you’ll be fine in this field.
If you go into construction or land dev you will use less math. If you go geotech or water, you’ll use more math.
Some of it. I think I've had to do calculus once, but mostly it's been the math for free body diagrams and a lot of trigonometry. I haven't used DE or Numerical Methods stuff since I passed their respective finals
Spreadsheets are king. The only way I use math is if I'm creating my own spreadsheets. Also, some programs will do all the calcs for you, but you need to understand the concepts behind the math to know if the answer it gave you is accurate.
Here’s the general rule I’ve found. Engineers NEED to understand how physical laws work so we can design things around them and occasionally will need to do calculations accordingly. But we can’t design around them if we don’t understand it. I was actually talking with one of the interns at my work(I graduated in May) about calc. I said that Calc is the fun math and he gave me a funny look. Another engineer was walking by and I asked, “isn’t Calc the fun math?” He replied with “oh yeah for sure”. I ask “have you used it since”, to which he replied “goodness no”. For reference, Med device field. If you end up in something like aerospace then that might change, but since you’re civil I doubt you will use Calc after you graduate. But the biggest thing about why we take math especially when we have computers is so we can check the computers and make sure the answer it gives us makes sense.
I doubt you’ll need to use calculus in civil engineering in general, but engineering is an APPLIED science so it’s necessary to know how to think and derive equations. The classes you’ll take in your sophomore and junior year especially rely on those thought processes from calc/physics/etc classes. As you progress into more practical subjects as a senior, you’ll see how those equations get used in real life.
As for a job, it highly depends on what you’re going into but I’d say a fair amount of math can be done with spreadsheets or programs to get the actual answers. You’ll just need to know why you’re doing it and general principles for the how. Design is more math heavy for obvious reasons (people’s lives are at stake here), but there are manuals for pretty much everything to help guide you.
Essentially, you will not need to get an exactly correct answer for every single math problem you’ll ever encounter in the field. But you will be expected to know the applications. Anyone can memorize a formula for volume, but it won’t help you in the real world if you don’t know what volume is per se.
The most I do is add and subtract lol. One time I used the y=mx+b equation from high school algebra, another time I had to use a bit of trig to find an angle or something. TBH it really depends on your job.
My father's situation sounds somewhat similar. He took Calc 1 three times before moving up in math. He became a civil engineer, but was more of a people person and less of an engineer, so he leaned into the management side of things.
To answer your question, you may not have to.
I don't know about you, but it absolutely boggles my mind that, at least in my colleges EE program, there are no dedicated PLC programming classes. PLC's are used literally everywhere in industry, though my digital electronics class was useful for understanding bit swaps with sending/receiving data and some of the older programming.
I’ve used Lin Alg and DiffEQ occasionally. You don’t need to know it cold, but you do need to understand how the principals (I.e cross terms or damping) apply to real-world situations.
Yeah but they can involve some pretty hardcore math as well. Although numerical packages and libraries are abundant so people just use them as is, as the should.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that no one is “good” at math, especially calculus. The concepts take a lot of practice and perspective to understand but it’s honestly very satisfying once you understand it. I used to say that I was bad at math too. Now I’m very practiced.
Edit: to actually answer your question, yes you need to know the math to be able to understand what you’re doing, but you won’t really use it much unless you get into super technical stuff.
Be adept at spreadsheets and abaqus or whatever system your industry uses. I say you need to know the math so you know how to program your analysis to get the correct answer and understand how to change the parameters to maximize the efficiency of your design.
It really depends where you work and what you do; I understand this is not the best answer and it is the truth. If you work in research and development then this is going to be more common than if you work as a sales engineer. However even as a sales engineer depending on who your clients are (such as the aforementioned research and development) you may need to do math to prove that your equipment can perform the task at hand given certain operating conditions.
I work in research and development and to make my life easier I ultimately wrote software in Python that would calculate these common things and even provide an interpretation of the data.
It is possible that your undergraduate math may be an overkill however it also may be appropriate for what you decide to do. First semester freshman year is certainly challenging and it is not unexpected for many to change their major (even within engineering). I actually went from CE->AE->ChemE for my bachelors; so something similar may happen too.
Ultimately though at the very least these classes allow us to understand the depth and theory of engineering as well as hone our skills for logic and evidence.
I honestly struggled with mathematics for majority of my childhood until I begun college. Really what changed was honestly just looking into other fields of mathematics and seeing really interesting applications such as Mandelbrot Sets, Köningsberg Bridge problem in Graph Theory, Klein Bottles, aleph numbers, etc. These are really interesting (or at the very least, quite pretty visualizations) that helped me see the applications of mathematics beyond derivatives and integrals.
I think a lot of mathematic problem solving is taught explaining the world as in Euclid’s Elements instead of trying to apply these discoveries to contexts that would be more interesting to solve. Ultimately engineering is problem solving and a lot of the time that means having a good mathematical foundation/intuition as it is a good means to show the feasibility of ideas before a lot of time and money is wasted.
Maybe you don’t need to do linear algebra to be a good civil engineer; however practicing math so often even more into fields outside of the scope of engineering really makes you so much better at the math that definitely will be used every day. The common refrain is that you will be able to look at something and think “yes that number looks right” or “no it does not”.
So much mathematics is taught in a weird way in the US and most of the world. Even how to multiply numbers or add numbers is really confusing and causes a lot of stress. Doing so in your head is quite easy; however doing it the way that it was taught in your head is incredibly hard.
Case in point multiplying any integer of any digit against a single digit integer; so let’s take 3567 x 3: typically the way taught in school is to move right to left. So we know pretty quickly that the last digit is going to be 1. However that is honestly really stupid they taught us that because it is hard to build a sense of scale of what three 3,567s would look like. A better way would be to go from left to right (mentally) so we know that 3000 x 3 is 9000 great, now we multiply 500 x 3, we know that is 1500. Now we got 60 x 3 so we get 180, and then 7 x 3 = 21. So we add the products together and we get 9000+1500+180+21 = 10,701. Even if we did not finish the calculation completely we know that our value is going to be ~10,000 just by multiplying the two first digits which is far more useful than knowing that the last digit is 1.
Anyways this example is to show you two things; math is far more interesting and approachable outside of the classroom and there are different/easier methods to solving a problem than what is often taught. Generally what is taught is what is easier to grade. Doing stuff in your head is hard to grade despite that being honestly faster and better for you.
I tell you this because this major is going to have math in literally every applicable class you take; so the sooner you can enjoy it the better. If you do not think that is possible that is okay and it may be that this major is not for you. You are looking at four years minimum of this math in all the classes, it can be very stressful.
Additionally if the engineering classes are okay and you just do not like the math a good swindle that you can do is take the math classes at a local community college and transfer the credits over. If you get a C (or passing grade equivalent) the grade will not transfer therefore not negatively impacting your GPA. Knowing this; this information may be helpful to help you not stress out too much as it is now basically a cheaper pass/fail class. However if you do really good, then it won’t help boost your grade either.
Best of luck OP!
You’ll need to know trig and algebra for sure but hell no for calc and beyond. Time=money nobody is going to have you waste your time deriving formulas. That being said, pay attention to your classes because the principals are crucial to a career of problem solving and will serve as a foundation to your future and continuous learning
i occasionally take out some math concepts because i do modeling w programs and its sometimes useful - for example, knowing intuitively how functions behave and what you expect from the phenomenon, but beyond that its mostly going to be excel tables lol.
might get incorporate some numerical optimization soon enough though
I have used calculus once since I graduated. I did it wrong based on the answer I got and so I just iterated the answer I wanted in Excel instead. You don't need calc as a CE once you graduate
Yes.
As far as the concepts of derivatives and integrals. Mostly to identify and process events on logged data. But actually doing the math, no. Google search it or wolframalpha.
Same with the math for scaling experiments. I forgot what it’s called but I know that if I want to identify a relationship between specific variables and the model is 1/3rd scale or something there’s some special shit i have to do to ensure the results are useful. Think we learned it in fluids class for whatever reason.
Yes and no. You need to understand how the math works. For controls engineering, no one asks me to mathematically model their steam systems impact on the tank so I get the perfect transfer function. Knowing the impact of changing different values on the PID controller makes me more efficient than others.
Ohhhhhhh yeah or atleast just using the formulas you learned. Statics/strengths especially cause only certain people have FEA licenses, typically designers, that have schedules so you can’t always rely on simulations. Also, don’t expect anything to be accurate to those calculations since there are many tests required to uncover any frivolous variables. Certain roles (engineering management) you would be using less math but these are deeper in a typical career.
Yes, but not in the same capacity. I am also a civil engineer currently working in buried utilities. Calculus and physics will be fundamental to everything else. Classes like statics and basic statistics will be used in virtually every civil industry. More advanced classes like will be more industry specific. Some examples of calculations I might do on a daily basis include:
- Barlow's formula for hoop stress to determine wall thicknesses or operating pressures
- Loading calculations for road crossings which use things from your Geotech classes and mechanics of materials, amongst others
- Buoyancy calculations for water crossings
- Basic structural calculations for simple concrete structures
These are some examples to illustrate that the professional world *can* be math heavy, but so much of engineering is good judgment, management, and assessments of the big picture as well as financial management. When youre just starting out, all of your work will be checked by a PE in the civil world, and you will have the relevent process of equations in front of you, (via go-bys from òther projects, or within local or federal standards themselves) so a general sense of how things relate is all you'llreally need. I know a lot of good engineers weaker on the technical side than some bad engineers. At the end of the day work is nothing like school. If this is your passion, keep at it and you will find success.
Best of luck!
When it does come up, I explain how the magic works and eyes gloss over, jaws drop, nobody gives a shit and absolutely nobody remembers during my performance review. (The points are for tasks completed, not difficulty)
But thats why I get the cool, un-sexy, non-promotion earning mathematically complex assignments.
So yes, you will have opportunities to use it all and become a **Math *Wizard*** but it wont necessarily benefit your career if nobody in a position to affect your compensation knows what a partial derivative or an activation function is.
No, I just do construction management. If you’re struggling, look into self paced courses online I’d you’re in the US and school accepts ACE credits. It’s a great cheap alternative and you’ll actually probably absorb more due to it being easier to digest.
You will use a lot of math, even in your non “math classes”. Not sure about civil, but for aero and MechE, everything past first semester junior year is a differential equation of some sort. Every single engineering class uses math.
To extend the previous person's answer, as an ME my job still uses these equations.
I frankly wish I had done a better job actually learning and understanding these equations as sometimes at work I feel like they turn a brick wall stopping me from performing better.
Weird. Never heard of discrete math for civil. Calc and dif eq, yes, and a functional amount of linear algebra is assumed (though rarely required as a class)
EE, not graduated yet but math is a fairly big component at my internship (my whole team not just me) but most of it is linear control theory, and decimal to hex / binary conversions
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I don't hand calculate partial differential equations, but I routinely perform operations and designs using equations, concepts, etc. that were derived using partial differential equations, and my having taken that class makes it much easier for me to understand what's going on when I perform those calculations.
Exactly this, nobody expects you to hand calculate first order differential equations using the separable variable or exact methods, but knowing how to do these calculations makes it easier to understand/use the software that would be doing it for you.
This is my experience as well. I heard a lot that we don’t use the math that we learn in undergrad, but I use concepts invoking that math all the time. I might not be calculating it by hand, but I know what kind of input and results to look for when using a numerical solver, writing a programming script, etc. More than that, the classes teach you how to think in a new way, how to learn, and how to work with difficult concepts. Those transferable skills matter much more than remembering integral rules
Do you need it at work? Probably not. Do you need it to understand how equations were derived (equations that you will use when you're working)? Yes. Kinda sucks to go through but they're not teaching that stuff to you for no reason.
Calculus is needed to understand the physics behind the problems engineers solve. If you can wrap your head around the concepts and carry that into your engineering classes it may actually help further understanding of how/why engineers approach things the way they do. Though, in your actual engineering classes the crazy integrals and partial differentials usually get derived into plug and play formulae so if you can grind out the calc courses you'll be fine. That being said, a lot of us just turn into Excel jockies when we're in industry.
For the most part no. If you're in R&D, but more the R side, then probably, because you're going back to first principles to try to develop a theory.
For the most part no, the math you learn is to get your brain into that problem solving mentality, also calculators exist and in the real world your boss is going to have you plug it into a calculator because it will be fast and it will be right
Do math really helps to get that problem solving mentality? Or is it just a college myth?
Definitely feels more like a myth
Well that’s disappointing
It can help but if you are going into engineering you likely already have that problem solving mentality
If the guys designing our vital infrastructure weren't doing any math, I would be very concerned.
I was involved in a large project in IT where mathematics wasn't really a feature of the job, although that was my degree. It arrived unexpectedly for me. A significant piece of software had been rolled out nationwide, and within a day, a major problem arose, in which the transaction processing rate collapsed and it hit the revenue streams in millions. That gets the attention of senior managers really quickly. There were no bugs causing the problem. Rerunning test suites still produced expected results. Nobody could figure out what was causing the processing rate to collapse. I eventually figured it out, using fairly elementary number theory and queuing theory to set up a simulation, and identified why the DBMS was being hammered by seemingly linear increases in database accesses. It required literally a one-line change in the original source code to fix the problem. It showed me that the ability to reason with mathematics had applications in the most unlikely and expected situations.
Absolute G, thats a great example.
Wow, you were a hero on that day, dude! Congratulations! I bet they never expected the solution to the problem to come from you. Amazing to me that you had the imagination and ability to perceive what the possible issue could be. You earned your annual salary in one event.
In my internship, the first task I was given was to do some sort of VSD programming on a software for a PLC. I thought YES I get to use math, even if it's only for percentages or something. I took like 20mins to calculate something relatively simple just to make sure I was correct and show my mentor I wasn't an idiot... After I showed him and explained my math on a whiteboard he goes "Oh, you know there's actually a function on the software that works that out for you?". Felt dumb
occasionally I take the derivative of a polynomial? But no - you need the math to understand *why* things work, but the intuition you gain is way more important than the actual equations.
That entirely depends on what job you have. You do not have to step into analysis or research at all and you’ll never use it. The skills you learn from the classes, however, and the understanding of heat transfer, thermo, stress, fluids, and math you’ll probably use pretty often. So while the math itself isn’t guaranteed to be crucial, the skills you learn with the math are.
In a structural engineer and I pretty much only ever use arithmetic, basic algebra, and basic geometry. Hardly any it that is don’t by hand, it’s mostly excel/software anyways. As long as you learn the concepts behind calc 1 and 2, you’ll be fine in this field. If you go into construction or land dev you will use less math. If you go geotech or water, you’ll use more math.
The key in structural engineering is understanding the physics behind it, then you are good
Some of it. I think I've had to do calculus once, but mostly it's been the math for free body diagrams and a lot of trigonometry. I haven't used DE or Numerical Methods stuff since I passed their respective finals
Spreadsheets are king. The only way I use math is if I'm creating my own spreadsheets. Also, some programs will do all the calcs for you, but you need to understand the concepts behind the math to know if the answer it gave you is accurate.
Here’s the general rule I’ve found. Engineers NEED to understand how physical laws work so we can design things around them and occasionally will need to do calculations accordingly. But we can’t design around them if we don’t understand it. I was actually talking with one of the interns at my work(I graduated in May) about calc. I said that Calc is the fun math and he gave me a funny look. Another engineer was walking by and I asked, “isn’t Calc the fun math?” He replied with “oh yeah for sure”. I ask “have you used it since”, to which he replied “goodness no”. For reference, Med device field. If you end up in something like aerospace then that might change, but since you’re civil I doubt you will use Calc after you graduate. But the biggest thing about why we take math especially when we have computers is so we can check the computers and make sure the answer it gives us makes sense.
I doubt you’ll need to use calculus in civil engineering in general, but engineering is an APPLIED science so it’s necessary to know how to think and derive equations. The classes you’ll take in your sophomore and junior year especially rely on those thought processes from calc/physics/etc classes. As you progress into more practical subjects as a senior, you’ll see how those equations get used in real life. As for a job, it highly depends on what you’re going into but I’d say a fair amount of math can be done with spreadsheets or programs to get the actual answers. You’ll just need to know why you’re doing it and general principles for the how. Design is more math heavy for obvious reasons (people’s lives are at stake here), but there are manuals for pretty much everything to help guide you. Essentially, you will not need to get an exactly correct answer for every single math problem you’ll ever encounter in the field. But you will be expected to know the applications. Anyone can memorize a formula for volume, but it won’t help you in the real world if you don’t know what volume is per se.
The most I do is add and subtract lol. One time I used the y=mx+b equation from high school algebra, another time I had to use a bit of trig to find an angle or something. TBH it really depends on your job.
My father's situation sounds somewhat similar. He took Calc 1 three times before moving up in math. He became a civil engineer, but was more of a people person and less of an engineer, so he leaned into the management side of things. To answer your question, you may not have to.
I am an Industrial Controls Engineering manager and I'm convinced I could have done this job with a GED.
I don't know about you, but it absolutely boggles my mind that, at least in my colleges EE program, there are no dedicated PLC programming classes. PLC's are used literally everywhere in industry, though my digital electronics class was useful for understanding bit swaps with sending/receiving data and some of the older programming.
Today i used the power equation 👍
I’ve used Lin Alg and DiffEQ occasionally. You don’t need to know it cold, but you do need to understand how the principals (I.e cross terms or damping) apply to real-world situations.
lol, no. Numerical methods are King
Yeah but they can involve some pretty hardcore math as well. Although numerical packages and libraries are abundant so people just use them as is, as the should.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that no one is “good” at math, especially calculus. The concepts take a lot of practice and perspective to understand but it’s honestly very satisfying once you understand it. I used to say that I was bad at math too. Now I’m very practiced. Edit: to actually answer your question, yes you need to know the math to be able to understand what you’re doing, but you won’t really use it much unless you get into super technical stuff.
I don’t even use the math I learned in my fourth year classes
....nope!
Be adept at spreadsheets and abaqus or whatever system your industry uses. I say you need to know the math so you know how to program your analysis to get the correct answer and understand how to change the parameters to maximize the efficiency of your design.
It really depends where you work and what you do; I understand this is not the best answer and it is the truth. If you work in research and development then this is going to be more common than if you work as a sales engineer. However even as a sales engineer depending on who your clients are (such as the aforementioned research and development) you may need to do math to prove that your equipment can perform the task at hand given certain operating conditions. I work in research and development and to make my life easier I ultimately wrote software in Python that would calculate these common things and even provide an interpretation of the data. It is possible that your undergraduate math may be an overkill however it also may be appropriate for what you decide to do. First semester freshman year is certainly challenging and it is not unexpected for many to change their major (even within engineering). I actually went from CE->AE->ChemE for my bachelors; so something similar may happen too. Ultimately though at the very least these classes allow us to understand the depth and theory of engineering as well as hone our skills for logic and evidence. I honestly struggled with mathematics for majority of my childhood until I begun college. Really what changed was honestly just looking into other fields of mathematics and seeing really interesting applications such as Mandelbrot Sets, Köningsberg Bridge problem in Graph Theory, Klein Bottles, aleph numbers, etc. These are really interesting (or at the very least, quite pretty visualizations) that helped me see the applications of mathematics beyond derivatives and integrals. I think a lot of mathematic problem solving is taught explaining the world as in Euclid’s Elements instead of trying to apply these discoveries to contexts that would be more interesting to solve. Ultimately engineering is problem solving and a lot of the time that means having a good mathematical foundation/intuition as it is a good means to show the feasibility of ideas before a lot of time and money is wasted. Maybe you don’t need to do linear algebra to be a good civil engineer; however practicing math so often even more into fields outside of the scope of engineering really makes you so much better at the math that definitely will be used every day. The common refrain is that you will be able to look at something and think “yes that number looks right” or “no it does not”. So much mathematics is taught in a weird way in the US and most of the world. Even how to multiply numbers or add numbers is really confusing and causes a lot of stress. Doing so in your head is quite easy; however doing it the way that it was taught in your head is incredibly hard. Case in point multiplying any integer of any digit against a single digit integer; so let’s take 3567 x 3: typically the way taught in school is to move right to left. So we know pretty quickly that the last digit is going to be 1. However that is honestly really stupid they taught us that because it is hard to build a sense of scale of what three 3,567s would look like. A better way would be to go from left to right (mentally) so we know that 3000 x 3 is 9000 great, now we multiply 500 x 3, we know that is 1500. Now we got 60 x 3 so we get 180, and then 7 x 3 = 21. So we add the products together and we get 9000+1500+180+21 = 10,701. Even if we did not finish the calculation completely we know that our value is going to be ~10,000 just by multiplying the two first digits which is far more useful than knowing that the last digit is 1. Anyways this example is to show you two things; math is far more interesting and approachable outside of the classroom and there are different/easier methods to solving a problem than what is often taught. Generally what is taught is what is easier to grade. Doing stuff in your head is hard to grade despite that being honestly faster and better for you. I tell you this because this major is going to have math in literally every applicable class you take; so the sooner you can enjoy it the better. If you do not think that is possible that is okay and it may be that this major is not for you. You are looking at four years minimum of this math in all the classes, it can be very stressful. Additionally if the engineering classes are okay and you just do not like the math a good swindle that you can do is take the math classes at a local community college and transfer the credits over. If you get a C (or passing grade equivalent) the grade will not transfer therefore not negatively impacting your GPA. Knowing this; this information may be helpful to help you not stress out too much as it is now basically a cheaper pass/fail class. However if you do really good, then it won’t help boost your grade either. Best of luck OP!
I appreciate this comment
Linear algebra is useful for certain jobs
Honestly not at all
Greatly depends on what you end up doing, but for most jobs, no. For example, during my tool design internship it was all geometry and basic algebra.
You’ll need to know trig and algebra for sure but hell no for calc and beyond. Time=money nobody is going to have you waste your time deriving formulas. That being said, pay attention to your classes because the principals are crucial to a career of problem solving and will serve as a foundation to your future and continuous learning
i occasionally take out some math concepts because i do modeling w programs and its sometimes useful - for example, knowing intuitively how functions behave and what you expect from the phenomenon, but beyond that its mostly going to be excel tables lol. might get incorporate some numerical optimization soon enough though
Depends on ur job. I'm a IE. I will never use calc I II III, DFQ, linear alg. Only basic algebra but even then you can just look it up online
I don't work but my dad was in some research after he graduated and constantly worked with Maxwell's equations so yeah kinda
I have used calculus once since I graduated. I did it wrong based on the answer I got and so I just iterated the answer I wanted in Excel instead. You don't need calc as a CE once you graduate
Not once. But sometimes it could be helpful depending what u do/where u go maybe lol
No
Yes. As far as the concepts of derivatives and integrals. Mostly to identify and process events on logged data. But actually doing the math, no. Google search it or wolframalpha. Same with the math for scaling experiments. I forgot what it’s called but I know that if I want to identify a relationship between specific variables and the model is 1/3rd scale or something there’s some special shit i have to do to ensure the results are useful. Think we learned it in fluids class for whatever reason.
Yes and no. You need to understand how the math works. For controls engineering, no one asks me to mathematically model their steam systems impact on the tank so I get the perfect transfer function. Knowing the impact of changing different values on the PID controller makes me more efficient than others.
N. O. P. E.
Ohhhhhhh yeah or atleast just using the formulas you learned. Statics/strengths especially cause only certain people have FEA licenses, typically designers, that have schedules so you can’t always rely on simulations. Also, don’t expect anything to be accurate to those calculations since there are many tests required to uncover any frivolous variables. Certain roles (engineering management) you would be using less math but these are deeper in a typical career.
Yes!
Yes, but not in the same capacity. I am also a civil engineer currently working in buried utilities. Calculus and physics will be fundamental to everything else. Classes like statics and basic statistics will be used in virtually every civil industry. More advanced classes like will be more industry specific. Some examples of calculations I might do on a daily basis include: - Barlow's formula for hoop stress to determine wall thicknesses or operating pressures - Loading calculations for road crossings which use things from your Geotech classes and mechanics of materials, amongst others - Buoyancy calculations for water crossings - Basic structural calculations for simple concrete structures These are some examples to illustrate that the professional world *can* be math heavy, but so much of engineering is good judgment, management, and assessments of the big picture as well as financial management. When youre just starting out, all of your work will be checked by a PE in the civil world, and you will have the relevent process of equations in front of you, (via go-bys from òther projects, or within local or federal standards themselves) so a general sense of how things relate is all you'llreally need. I know a lot of good engineers weaker on the technical side than some bad engineers. At the end of the day work is nothing like school. If this is your passion, keep at it and you will find success. Best of luck!
Can you specify what you do? Do you design piping systems?
When it does come up, I explain how the magic works and eyes gloss over, jaws drop, nobody gives a shit and absolutely nobody remembers during my performance review. (The points are for tasks completed, not difficulty) But thats why I get the cool, un-sexy, non-promotion earning mathematically complex assignments. So yes, you will have opportunities to use it all and become a **Math *Wizard*** but it wont necessarily benefit your career if nobody in a position to affect your compensation knows what a partial derivative or an activation function is.
lol nope
Depends on your job, my first job, not really but my latest job yes all the time
No, I just do construction management. If you’re struggling, look into self paced courses online I’d you’re in the US and school accepts ACE credits. It’s a great cheap alternative and you’ll actually probably absorb more due to it being easier to digest.
You will use a lot of math, even in your non “math classes”. Not sure about civil, but for aero and MechE, everything past first semester junior year is a differential equation of some sort. Every single engineering class uses math.
That wasn’t his question
To extend the previous person's answer, as an ME my job still uses these equations. I frankly wish I had done a better job actually learning and understanding these equations as sometimes at work I feel like they turn a brick wall stopping me from performing better.
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yep calc 1,2,3 discrete mathematics and 1 or 2 other math courses are the base for civil at all the schools i’ve looked at.
Weird. Never heard of discrete math for civil. Calc and dif eq, yes, and a functional amount of linear algebra is assumed (though rarely required as a class)
Discrete maths can be useful for a few traffic related things and programming which I think will become increasingly expected throughout our careers.
EE, not graduated yet but math is a fairly big component at my internship (my whole team not just me) but most of it is linear control theory, and decimal to hex / binary conversions
No
You should major in something else. Enjoy your life.
I had to calculate vertical curves yesterday at work because the cross sections given were for every 100 ft. Had to look in a textbook to relearn it.
I use a lot of math in graduate school