Im the guy who went back to school like Rodney Dangerfield and wanted my degree in Electrical Engineering. It seems nowadays there is always one old person going back to college…I was that guy. I’m pretty smart but failed Calc I and had to retake it. The Ti calculator that was able to be programmed hadn’t come out yet during Calc. I. When it did in Calc. II – and I found out that it could be programmed – I was on my way and got A’s for Calc II and III (By the way, I Got an A for the Calc I retake also).
Very interesting qeustion. What you must know is that at almost every university statics as well as dynamics is needed for fluid mechanics. From what I have read fluid mechanics is broken into fluid statics and fluid dynamics. It can be extremely useful to have the special cases that extend much further than physics 1 from those courses. If you are extremely smart you could do it, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I also think fluid mechanics has differential equations (Navier Stokes equations) in it, although I think if anything you will be plugging in the equations after they are derivated. A tip I have for you is to look through a fluid mechanics book like Introduction to Fluid Mechanics (wiley) and see if you can crack the problems. I have noticed that the civil engineering fluid mechanics at my school, which is probably almost a carbon copy of the fluid mechanics in ME only requires physics 1 though. Kinda weird. In most cases though it is pretty universal that fluid mechanics requires up to Dynamics and Diff EQ, although the extent of knowledge used in the subjects might not need to be recalled all the time.