Engineering Majors and low GPAs

[Anonymous]

One of my kid's classes had a 46% first time pass rate...that's right, more students flunked it than passed it the first time.

[Anonymous]

My brother went to Clemson, civil, and had a similar GPA. He had no problem finding a job and enrolling in a masters program. I would suggest getting Involved in as many engineering clubs as possible and really getting to know the profs. They have a lot of pull.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My brother went to Clemson, civil, and had a similar GPA. He had no problem finding a job and enrolling in a masters program. I would suggest getting Involved in as many engineering clubs as possible and really getting to know the profs. They have a lot of pull.

+1

[Anonymous]

Is 2.0 for his engineering classes or overall gpa? Overall 2.0 is hard to get because you need at least C to pass and electives are much easier to get Bs and above.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our son is pursing a mechanical engineering degree at Clemson. His GPA is terrible -- barely above 2.0. He says that this is not atypical for engineering majors and that their classes are much more rigorous and much more difficult to pass than those of non-engineering majors. We are quite concerned and are wondering if this is at all accurate.

My kid has a low GPA at his ranked 25 engineering school - not as low as that, but not too far above. If I were you, OP, I would poke around the "admission to the major" statistics on the "continuing student" portion of the website. Your kid is in the bottom half of the class for sure (which is fine - half the kids are) but whether his GPA is dangerously low or not would be school specific. I know that at my son's school your kid might have to choose a different major (MechE does have a cutoff based on GPA) but he'd still have many choices.

I also know that 15 percent of the kids in his second year math class were failed - those are SECOND YEARS!

So your kid is struggling, but your kid isn't a disaster. And he's right about non-engineering classes. My kid's worst grade so far in a non-engineering class is a B+.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of my kid's classes had a 46% first time pass rate...that's right, more students flunked it than passed it the first time.

So painful!!!

If any parents of future freshman are reading... take it slow!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He’s not misleading you, large state engineering programs are a full of lazy students dragging down averages. The part that’s under the rug is that given curved grades, these Cs are often well bellow 50% mastery.

50% as a median grade on an exam doesn't mean 50% mastery. Not even close.

I've taught STEM classes and I can pretty much write an exam to get any median grade I want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for posting this!

Another parent of an engineering major with a low GPA who has been quietly freaking out....

Seriously! This is the best thread ever.

I am a nervous wreck. My kid is struggling. Holding on, but not exactly thriving. What's more, the first two years of classes aren't even fun!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had to maintain a 3.0 to keep my scholarship. Most semesters I ended up with a 3.5 in EE. But ther was one very very bad semester sophomore year where I flunked a class and got another C. Happens.
I gave a great job managing an engineering team now.

My kid only needs about a 2.2 to keep her scholarship. Thank goodness she's in a polytech and the money isn't from a general fund that includes the English majors.

[Anonymous]

Our DC in first semester got a 2.8 GPA. Managed to pull it up to 3.6 by junior year. Also an ME major at a top engineering program. So it can be turned around. DC changed study habits and made sure attended every class after that. And went to office hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2.0 is really low. I am sorry but that is not good at all.

- mech engineer

+1

MechE

[Anonymous]

I work at a government research lab and all the resumes I’ve seen from places like Virginia Tech, UMD and Clemson list GPAs over 3.0. We wouldn’t even consider someone with below a 2.5. There are just too many more with higher stats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work at a government research lab and all the resumes I’ve seen from places like Virginia Tech, UMD and Clemson list GPAs over 3.0. We wouldn’t even consider someone with below a 2.5. There are just too many more with higher stats.

That sounds right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is 2.0 for his engineering classes or overall gpa? Overall 2.0 is hard to get because you need at least C to pass and electives are much easier to get Bs and above.

There are almost no electives the first two years of engineering.

My kid had two so far, and the second one gave him too many credits for the normal load.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work at a government research lab and all the resumes I’ve seen from places like Virginia Tech, UMD and Clemson list GPAs over 3.0. We wouldn’t even consider someone with below a 2.5. There are just too many more with higher stats.

That sounds right.

But that doesn’t mean the kid in question has no future. Clearly engineering is t coming easy to him, and research may not be his thing, but there are jobs for engineers in the bottom half of their classes.