Dropping out of engineering

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS is a sophomore at an elite Ivy, and he is majoring in engineering field.

We live far from DC in a small town in VA, having moved here so I could SAH, the high school seemed well enough, but didn’t have any AP courses or such, and only about a 1/3 of kids go to college (most go to Old Dominion, JMU, etc).

I was talking to DS about declaring his major, and he got a B- in chem, C+ in calc, and C- in physics first semester, and then B+ in chem, A- multivar calc, and C+ in physics second semester. His best grade was an A- in a civil liberties course.

He claims he doesn’t care about grades, he is committed to engineering and even wants to go grad school!

I know the Ivy name might help, and maybe they have some grade deflation, but I think most people would take these kind of grades as a sign to switch to a humanities major, esp with the grade in Civil Liberties. This semester he seems on track for Bs and Cs still.

Will he be employable with these kind of grades? I assume grad school won’t accept him, so just care if he can lead to work. Did anyone stick it out in a hard major even with bad grades?

He will never make it thru engineering program if he is struggling with those intro courses.

- engineer

+1

If OP's kid is at MIT, that is one thing - quite another at a state school.

Not true. My kid is at UIUC. They flunk a whole lot of bright young things out in the intro classes. It's really, really hard and the TAs aren't very helpful if you're lost. My kid says it's a bit easier inthe upper level classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is majoring in Civil Engineering. As a freshman, he got a D in Organic Chemistry. I was freaking out, but his advisor said D was passing. It’s a prerequisite for Materials Science, Junior year. I’m prepared to hire a tutor when the time comes to fill in the gaps. He has a GPA lower than 3.0 right now as a sophomore but is getting interviews for summer internships after submitting applications. So I’m not worried.

"D for done" was an oft repeated mantra when I was in engineering school. It's not good and lots of people would retake the class, but it happened

[Anonymous]

There’s a ton of engineering jobs with Fed contractors, body shops for the various agencies as well as the big five DoD contractors. They aren’t looking for the A student from MIT, esp at their wages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son is majoring in Civil Engineering. As a freshman, he got a D in Organic Chemistry. I was freaking out, but his advisor said D was passing. It’s a prerequisite for Materials Science, Junior year. I’m prepared to hire a tutor when the time comes to fill in the gaps. He has a GPA lower than 3.0 right now as a sophomore but is getting interviews for summer internships after submitting applications. So I’m not worried.

"D for done" was an oft repeated mantra when I was in engineering school. It's not good and lots of people would retake the class, but it happened

Well OP posted a C-, seems about the same. Maybe her DS should look at something less quantitative

[Anonymous]

My freshman engineering major took a chemistry exam today that was “really hard”. Said the average last year for this test was a 55 😳. Seems calm about the whole thing. Engineering is hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those are wash out courses , the ones after that are much easier

This. If you are getting Cs in your starter classes in Engineering you are doing fine. If they intended for you to wash out, you would have failed. This is nearly universal in engineering. It gets better after you go through this ring of fire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ivy league schools have grade deflation?

Huh?

No deflation, but less inflation. Princeton is known for having the lowest GPA of the Ivys, followed by Cornell. And it would be unsurprising for engineering to have the lowest GPA of the different majors.

But Ivy schools have grade inflation compared to most public schools. The average GPA at Harvard is > 3.7. Some of this I'm sure is due to the quality of the students compared to most schools.

https://features.thecrimson.com/2020/senior-survey/academics/

Data from the 2020 class; the most common UG GPA (rounded to 1 decimal place) is a 3.9. 24% of the student body has that. 73% have a 3.7 or above.

Senior year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My freshman engineering major took a chemistry exam today that was “really hard”. Said the average last year for this test was a 55 😳. Seems calm about the whole thing. Engineering is hard.

55(%) says nothing about letter grade. Colleges don't use the silly HS % to letter scale

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The kid is on an upward trajectory and wants to keep going. I would let him be the pilot (pun intended) of his own life. I admire his perseverance.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So do kids with 2.5 GPAs really get jobs and internships in 2023 (i.e. now and not 10 or 20
yrs ago) It seems really challenging (my kids are currently at the internship phase) and it seems really hard, even with great grades (one of mine has great grades, one does not).

It depends on the school and their contacts.

Yes, I have a sample of 1, of a kid with less than a 3.0 that was able to land a job this summer after graduating in May. DS majored in physics, learned how to code, and was able to land a good paying job as an entry level software engineer. His job search was tougher than that of his older brother who had the same major but a much higher GPA, and the starting pay for the kid with less than a 3.0 was lower, but it can be done. DS#2 was going to have less than a 3.0 whether he majored in physics or any other subject -- some kids are just not dedicated students.

That's a great and pays well but it's not the licensed engineering profession that's programmers making up titles for themselves. You can do that from high school with an week boot camp if you are clever enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

55(%) says nothing about letter grade. Colleges don't use the silly HS % to letter scale

Grades weren't the point of this comment. The point is that the average student in the class only got 55% correct on the test. Engineering courses are challenging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[img]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS is a sophomore at an elite Ivy, and he is majoring in engineering field.

We live far from DC in a small town in VA, having moved here so I could SAH, the high school seemed well enough, but didn’t have any AP courses or such, and only about a 1/3 of kids go to college (most go to Old Dominion, JMU, etc).

I was talking to DS about declaring his major, and he got a B- in chem, C+ in calc, and C- in physics first semester, and then B+ in chem, A- multivar calc, and C+ in physics second semester. His best grade was an A- in a civil liberties course.

He claims he doesn’t care about grades, he is committed to engineering and even wants to go grad school!

I know the Ivy name might help, and maybe they have some grade deflation, but I think most people would take these kind of grades as a sign to switch to a humanities major, esp with the grade in Civil Liberties. This semester he seems on track for Bs and Cs still.

Will he be employable with these kind of grades? I assume grad school won’t accept him, so just care if he can lead to work. Did anyone stick it out in a hard major even with bad grades?

He will never make it thru engineering program if he is struggling with those intro courses.

- engineer

What does “never make it” mean — they will kick or flunk him out, or he’ll graduate with a C- grade in every engineering course, but still graduate.

Nope, you need a 2.0 in eng courses to get your degree at most reputable schools. C- would be a 1.7. And many limit the number of C-'s you can get and not have to retake

UMD-CP LEP Engineering requires C- in gateway courses.
CS moved up to B- this year due to extreme demand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

If OP's kid is at MIT, that is one thing - quite another at a state school.

A lot of kids struggle in their first year at MIT. The level of rigor is intense and many kids who are used to getting all As in high school find it significantly harder to get high grades at MIT. But most will dig in, work harder, acquire better study skills and start pulling up their marks with grit and focus. There's a lot of growth that comes from that.

If OP's son has the grit and determination to become a stronger student, it's still a very doable to become a better engineering student if he also has aptitude for the material. If he's lacking in either of those (determination or aptitude), it may not work out. But I don't think it's wise to encourage a kid to quit at this point if he's determined to pursue it. They grow up a LOT when life throws them curveballs and they figure out how to navigate them; or equally so, give it all they've got and decide for themselves that it isn't the right path.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Congrats on raising a kid that is willing to grind and not afraid of a challenge. He will be fine.

AMEN!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

55(%) says nothing about letter grade. Colleges don't use the silly HS % to letter scale

Grades weren't the point of this comment. The point is that the average student in the class only got 55% correct on the test. Engineering courses are challenging.

Engineering courses have specific points for answers. An English class can have an average essay that is half as good as a perfect essay, but they don't use an item point system for grading.