ENGR 131 & 132

ENGR 131 and 132 are two courses that every engineering student will take at Purdue University, with the exception of honors college students who can take the advanced version of it; which is highly inadvisable as you gain no extra benefit and the class is much more difficult. Aside from this, these classes can seem very intimidating to new students, as they have the word “engineering” in them. When in reality the classes are more like information literacy and teamwork 101. Let’s start with ENGR 131.





ENGR 131


To begin your engineering adventure at Purdue, you are put into ENGR 131 with a large class of all different engineering discipline majors. You will be put into a team of four people and given a variety of tasks, mostly designing something hypothetical. You will also have to learn the basics of Microsoft Excel and the decision matrix. Ultimately, this class is designed to teach you basic skills like teamwork and get you familiar with common programs like Excel. This class should be a piece of cake, but don’t let it fool you, there are much more difficult classes to come!



ENGR 132


After passing ENGR 131 and thinking engineering won't be so bad, ENGR 132 gives you a wakeup call. Commonly referred to as “ENGR 131 but failable”, ENGR 132 introduces you to the world of MATLAB. MATLAB is similar to Excel in features, but utilizes a command window where you type in code to perform tasks. For many students this can be their first coding experience, and Purdue knows this so you shouldn’t be too worried if this is the case. The first month of the class is a learning process where they teach you the basics and slowly branch off to more complicated things. You will also be put into teams of four for this class and will be given projects related to MATLAB. The projects can be tricky as most of the time they are open ended and require your group to come up with an original solution. The pace of the class and difficulty of the subject matter is much more than ENGR 131, but it is completely manageable. There is the possibility of getting put in a bad group, so if this happens talk to your instructor as soon as possible. Good Luck!