First of all, you have to be motivated to succeed. I don’t know how to help someone with that, so I’m going to skip it. Instead I’ll talk about what I do know…how to succeed once you are motivated.
Time as an Investment
Engineering school takes time. Lots of time. I’d estimate the average 3.0GPA and above student spent well over 40 hours a week on school. Some spent as many as 80. Go to school early in the morning, and don’t leave at night until all your homework is done. I don’t know how to say this, but electrical engineering can be dry subject matter. There are no engaging story lines in this field, aside from the ones that you write yourself. Occasionally professors will bring up how a discovery was made in engineering or science, but these are few and far between in an engineering program that on average takes 5 years to complete. You must constantly remind yourself why you are doing this, what it is you want out of the program, and how it will benefit you in the long run.
Time Management
Use a Calendar. Carry the calendar with you everywhere (I printed mine on 8.5×11 sheets of paper and put it in my assignment binder) as soon as you are assigned a project, put it in the calendar. Live and die by that calendar. If an assignment changes dates, make sure that you change the date in the calendar. Continually come back to that calendar, use it to motivate yourself (or others if you can’t do your homework without them).
Be Good at Math
If you didn’t crush Calculus 1 in highschool, don’t expect to be able to pick this up without remedial math, and a lot of hard work. Start working on your math skills right now (preferably before the semester starts). My own math background was lackluster, and I managed to get through the program via sheer willpower. It can be done without this prowess, but the engineering program will be much easier for you if you excel at math.
Professors as a Resource
Go and talk to your professors. This is so inconvenient, but there are times when it is very worthwhile. I would sometimes force myself to complete assignments a day or two early only so that I could go and talk to the professor before the item was due when I had a problem. Some professors are vastly more helpful then others are. You’ll discover in the first few weeks of a class which professor is helpful and which is not. I also discovered that many professors like (or at least don’t mind) if you come to them to talk over a test that you recently completed. It helps them see that you care about their class, especially when your grade on the exam was better than average.
Friends as a Resource
Make school friends: The more friends you have, the less likely you are to miss something important that will affect your grade. Especially make friends with at least one person who knows how to take good notes. Sometimes being able to look over the notes that someone else took can save you a lot of points on a homework or exam.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. This was a hard one for me personally because I always felt like it was cheating to ask for help. Like somehow I should be able to do this all on my own. Obviously there are cases where you can’t do this (take home tests for example) but when not specifically prohibited from doing so, I would often find someone who was doing better in the class then me, and bug them. This got far easier as I got further into the program and had built relationships with people who started the program around the same time as me.
Chegg (or Slader)
Don’t use Chegg. This might be a controversial take, and I think that there are strong opinions on both sides, but I don’t recommend Chegg. I feel like having this subscription was a barrier to learning for many of my fellow classmates. That being said, I highly recommend having a friend that you do homework who has Chegg. That way if there is one question that you are both stuck on, they can look it up for you and walk through the problem. Depending on how much busywork your school requires, having this subscription may be more or less detrimental to your learning.
Top Resources for Completion of an Electrical Engineering Degree:
The best resource on the internet for engineer students is doubtless this website. Obviously geared toward physics, but helpful none the less.
Somehow they manage to make learning equations fun. The other CrashCourse courses are very good too, but physics is probably the best.
This guy knows how to teach circuits and electronics. A friend of mine found him on Youtube, and he helped me immensely. You’ll spend 1/3 the time learning that you would with other lecturers, because he doesn’t ever allow you to get confused.
His videos come up often using youtube search for STEM search terms. His videos are gold.
MathtutorDVD “Math and Science”
This guy knows what it takes to learn Math (and several other subjects) and can break the process down it to small steps that anyone (even the math challenged) can master. It would probably be worthwhile to order the DVD’s from him, but I never did.
Super strange and memorable dude. Reminds me of a rarely seen eccentric uncle. But sometimes his examples are so spot on that you really can’t beat him.
Useful during calculus based Physics 1 & 2
This website has answers to the “canned” textbook questions that are a waste of time. I must emphasize that you should never look at the answer to a question before you have spent a fair amount of time understanding what the textbook has to say about that subject, and thoroughly completed the problem (attempting to do your best to solve it). There are no shortcuts to learning.
Post Graduation
These are best for real world practical application, not theory, but they always reminded me why I chose EE in the first place: