Engineering Homework Made Easy: Keys to Tackling What Seem Like Insurmountable Assignments

Being a freshman or even a sophomore in an engineering program can be hard for several reasons. The course work can be extremely challenging and on top of that often professors fail to explain to student what all is to be included in homework assignment write-ups. There are several parts to a good homework write-up for any engineering class, which include header, problem statements, given, required, assumptions, theory, solution and check or verify.

The header is the easiest and a highly important part of an engineering assignment. Engineering paper has four blanks at the top of the page in which basic information should be included. The information that is filled into these blanks varies slightly from class to class but usually includes the class and section number, the name of the student, page numbers, due date and homework assignment number.

The problem statement can mostly be taken from the problem listed in the book or other reference; it is a simple write up of what the problem to be solved is. The homework should be written so that everything ever needed to solve the problem should be included on the written homework.

The given section of the homework is all of the information that is given in the problem that is needed to solve the problem should be listed in this section of the homework. The given information can consist of drawings, equations and/or measurements.

Within the required part of the homework a description of the values that need to be found are to be listed. These should be labeled each with a number or letter so that when the values are solved in the solution section they can be related back to the description of what they value represents with a simple label.
In the assumptions section any thing that is assumed when solving the problem should be listed.

Common assumptions can be that an angle is assumed to be right or that two lines are assumed to be perpendicular. Anything that was assumed in the solving of the problem should be listed in this section because if there is some miscommunication between the instructor and students by including the assumptions in the write-up the student is likely to receive a better date.

The theory section is where a student writes up all the steps to solving the problem using variables or by writing up a small paragraph about the theory of solving the problem. In the solution section is where the problem is worked out step-by-step using the numbers of the problem and the answers are found in this section. Finally, the values that result from the solving the problems should always be checked or verified in some manner, which should be described in the Check/Verify section of the homework right up.

Some final hints to great engineering homework write-ups are that if the problem cannot be finished on the page that another problem finishes on then it should be started on another page. Also, homework should always be written in pencil so that changes can be easily made so that the final product is always neat looking.