Engineering: Rigor, Grading, and GPAs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This post is mostly intended for parents of current E School students or parents of HS students planning to go to E School.

Many Engineering schools do not have (much) grade inflation. Most E Schools grade each course on a curve. Often grades are curved to a 3.1 or 3.0 median grade, which means a fair number of students in a class will get a B- or C+.

Even those with lower GPAs will be able to get a good job after graduating with an engineering degree.

Parents ought not freak out if their E School kid does not have a top GPA. Parents should be supportive of all their college students, and a struggling E School student might need more support than some others.

All ABET accredited E Schools will have similar coursework with similar rigor. Very top schools like MIT/CalTech do not bother with ABET, but obviously they also are rigorous. Afternoons often will be spent in graded labs.

All this rigor means the E School college experience often has both less free time and less flexible time than students in Arts & Letters will have. E School is a hard slog for virtually any student with Feynman being the exception who proved the rule. When I was in E School, I only took off Friday night and Saturday night (and Sunday morning for church). Otherwise, it was mostly eat, sleep, or academics.

Students planning to apply to E School should try to take rigorous math, physics, and chemistry classes in HS. Calculus is essential, but getting an A in Calc AB is probably better than a C in Calc BC. Students with no calculus likely will struggle if they even are admitted.

What about AP computer science for a prospective mechanical engineering major? Trying to figure out if my son should take this as a senior.

I would strongly recommend it. In both of my DCs engineering programs, they use python and have other coding requirements

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This post is mostly intended for parents of current E School students or parents of HS students planning to go to E School.

Many Engineering schools do not have (much) grade inflation. Most E Schools grade each course on a curve. Often grades are curved to a 3.1 or 3.0 median grade, which means a fair number of students in a class will get a B- or C+.

Even those with lower GPAs will be able to get a good job after graduating with an engineering degree.

Parents ought not freak out if their E School kid does not have a top GPA. Parents should be supportive of all their college students, and a struggling E School student might need more support than some others.

All ABET accredited E Schools will have similar coursework with similar rigor. Very top schools like MIT/CalTech do not bother with ABET, but obviously they also are rigorous. Afternoons often will be spent in graded labs.

All this rigor means the E School college experience often has both less free time and less flexible time than students in Arts & Letters will have. E School is a hard slog for virtually any student with Feynman being the exception who proved the rule. When I was in E School, I only took off Friday night and Saturday night (and Sunday morning for church). Otherwise, it was mostly eat, sleep, or academics.

Students planning to apply to E School should try to take rigorous math, physics, and chemistry classes in HS. Calculus is essential, but getting an A in Calc AB is probably better than a C in Calc BC. Students with no calculus likely will struggle if they even are admitted.

How is curving not grade inflation??

[Anonymous]

Feynman tried engineering but quit. He's not an exception that proves anything about engineering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This post is mostly intended for parents of current E School students or parents of HS students planning to go to E School.

Many Engineering schools do not have (much) grade inflation. Most E Schools grade each course on a curve. Often grades are curved to a 3.1 or 3.0 median grade, which means a fair number of students in a class will get a B- or C+.

Even those with lower GPAs will be able to get a good job after graduating with an engineering degree.

Parents ought not freak out if their E School kid does not have a top GPA. Parents should be supportive of all their college students, and a struggling E School student might need more support than some others.

All ABET accredited E Schools will have similar coursework with similar rigor. Very top schools like MIT/CalTech do not bother with ABET, but obviously they also are rigorous. Afternoons often will be spent in graded labs.

All this rigor means the E School college experience often has both less free time and less flexible time than students in Arts & Letters will have. E School is a hard slog for virtually any student with Feynman being the exception who proved the rule. When I was in E School, I only took off Friday night and Saturday night (and Sunday morning for church). Otherwise, it was mostly eat, sleep, or academics.

Students planning to apply to E School should try to take rigorous math, physics, and chemistry classes in HS. Calculus is essential, but getting an A in Calc AB is probably better than a C in Calc BC. Students with no calculus likely will struggle if they even are admitted.

How is curving not grade inflation??

How do different word have different meanings??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS recently graduated along with four of his cousins, and here are the stats:

- DS: Computer Engineering degree from UVA; 3.8 GPA; two internships in sophomore and junior; is currently jobless and looking,

- Cousin #1: CS degree from Cornell; 3.5 GPA; one internship in junior year; is currently jobless and looking,

- Cousin #2: CS degree from Virginia Tech; 3.7 GPA; one internship in junior year; is currently jobless and looking,

- Cousin #3: CS degree from Northwestern; 3.3 GPA; one internship in junior year; is currently jobless and looking; (OOS tuition)

- Cousin #4: CS degree from University of Michigan; 3.5 GPA; one internship in junior year; is currently jobless and looking; (OOS tuition),

- Cousin #5: CS degree from George Mason; 3.9 GPA; one internship in sophomore year; is currently working for a healthcare provider that pays him 125k/year,

​Based on the small sample size above, it really does not matter where you go to school for Engineering or CS.

did DS and all cousins graduate from same year? what years did they graduate? interesting all did CS.

My DS did Computer Engineering while his cousins did CS.

All of them graduated in May 2024. The job market is currently very bad for tech, from what they told me. Many of my DS and cousin's friends are also looking for jobs. DS and his cousins also used university career services nine months prior to graduation without much success. FWIW, my DS is teaching old people pickleball for $70/hr, while he is looking for jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DS did Computer Engineering while his cousins did CS. (Stuff edited out here) FWIW, my DS is teaching old people pickleball for $70/hr, while he is looking for jobs.

Tell him to apply for a job at NIST in G'burg (in their IT Laboratory or Communications Laboratory) or at ARL in Adelphi, or NSWC at Carderock, or Mitre in McLean, or Aerospace in Chantilly, or NRL in DC (in their TEW or Information Technology divisions).

If the civil service organizations post any position publicly, they often are required to hire the least unqualified applicant. This often means they will not post an opening until they have at least one qualified applicant. Put another way, sending a resume with a polite one page cover letter to the HR folks at those civil service organizations is worthwhile, even if no opening is publicly posted.

If he knows Verilog/VHDL, which is huge shortage (especially for Altera or Xilinx FPGAs) be very sure that is clearly on the resume, along with the toolchain used (e.g., Synopsys, Mentor Graphics, or whatever). Experience with Unix and C programming also are in huge demand.

The ISPs along the Silver Line are nearly always looking for entry level Network Engineers.

All of those places are hiring computer engineers, though US citizenship is mandatory at nearly all (list it explicitly on the CV at the bottom) and the pending annual government shutdown (thanks to Congress) might briefly freeze hiring.

Pro-Tip: while a computer engineer is the GS series 854, most CompE degree holders also took enough EE or ECE hours to qualify as an Electronics Engineer, which is GS series 855. So look for both kinds of jobs.

If this weren't an anonymous job board and I had a resume, I am confident I know several people who would be interested enough to interview him. The jobs openings do exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This post is mostly intended for parents of current E School students or parents of HS students planning to go to E School.

Many Engineering schools do not have (much) grade inflation. Most E Schools grade each course on a curve. Often grades are curved to a 3.1 or 3.0 median grade, which means a fair number of students in a class will get a B- or C+.

Even those with lower GPAs will be able to get a good job after graduating with an engineering degree.

Parents ought not freak out if their E School kid does not have a top GPA. Parents should be supportive of all their college students, and a struggling E School student might need more support than some others.

All ABET accredited E Schools will have similar coursework with similar rigor. Very top schools like MIT/CalTech do not bother with ABET, but obviously they also are rigorous. Afternoons often will be spent in graded labs.

All this rigor means the E School college experience often has both less free time and less flexible time than students in Arts & Letters will have. E School is a hard slog for virtually any student with Feynman being the exception who proved the rule. When I was in E School, I only took off Friday night and Saturday night (and Sunday morning for church). Otherwise, it was mostly eat, sleep, or academics.

Students planning to apply to E School should try to take rigorous math, physics, and chemistry classes in HS. Calculus is essential, but getting an A in Calc AB is probably better than a C in Calc BC. Students with no calculus likely will struggle if they even are admitted.

Two engineers different schools and one family member whobhas taught at NC State and Cornell and others, has tenure at a different ivy. The rigor is no where near the same. Not close. At all. Top schools get the brightest students and the professors can and do move fast and expect more. The curriculum of one semester physics was covered in the first half a semester at the top school, similar situation with calculus pacing.

What was covered in the second half of the Cornell class that wasn't at NC State?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for this. My dd is considering engineering majors but I am in the natural sciences and engineering is totally foreign to me. I even find it strange that you have to apply to specific programs during the admissions process (e.g., jhu and bme). How are these kids supposed to know what field they want to be in as a teenager?

BTW, I'm thankful that E schools are resisting grade inflation. Our bridges need to stand, after all.

The vast majority of elite schools do not require applying to a specific major. Most but not all require applying to the engineering school but even then switching majors all around or switching out or into the E school is easy. No gpa-gate-keeping into majors. The hard part is getting in to these E schools. Jhu bme is the rate exception among T20 private E-programs

What universities which offer engineering admit dont admit by major? We have a child who doesn't know if he wants to study math or engineering, or even a science. We are looking for schools where he just obtains school admission then has option to change the major depending on how much he likes it. Is there a list out there?

Brown
Chicago
Northeastern's Explore Program
RIT's Explore Programs (there are several)
Lehigh
WPI
Rice
Holy Cross (3-2 program with Columbia)

There are a bunch more.

Most SLACs have 3-2 programs; Holy Cross isn't special here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This post is mostly intended for parents of current E School students or parents of HS students planning to go to E School.

Many Engineering schools do not have (much) grade inflation. Most E Schools grade each course on a curve. Often grades are curved to a 3.1 or 3.0 median grade, which means a fair number of students in a class will get a B- or C+.

Even those with lower GPAs will be able to get a good job after graduating with an engineering degree.

Parents ought not freak out if their E School kid does not have a top GPA. Parents should be supportive of all their college students, and a struggling E School student might need more support than some others.

All ABET accredited E Schools will have similar coursework with similar rigor. Very top schools like MIT/CalTech do not bother with ABET, but obviously they also are rigorous. Afternoons often will be spent in graded labs.

All this rigor means the E School college experience often has both less free time and less flexible time than students in Arts & Letters will have. E School is a hard slog for virtually any student with Feynman being the exception who proved the rule. When I was in E School, I only took off Friday night and Saturday night (and Sunday morning for church). Otherwise, it was mostly eat, sleep, or academics.

Students planning to apply to E School should try to take rigorous math, physics, and chemistry classes in HS. Calculus is essential, but getting an A in Calc AB is probably better than a C in Calc BC. Students with no calculus likely will struggle if they even are admitted.

Two engineers different schools and one family member whobhas taught at NC State and Cornell and others, has tenure at a different ivy. The rigor is no where near the same. Not close. At all. Top schools get the brightest students and the professors can and do move fast and expect more. The curriculum of one semester physics was covered in the first half a semester at the top school, similar situation with calculus pacing.

I think there is a difference, but maybe not as large as this statement.

I went to a lower ranked engineering school and, for calculus, we used the same text book, syllabus and practice tests as the department chair's mentor at MIT. It was similar for physics and chemistry, etc. The departments tried very hard to match the curriculum of top programs for all the core technical classes. The difference was that my lower ranked school curved to a 2.6 so it was very, very hard to have a good GPA. Often a 300 person class would only have a handful As given out. I also suspect that the liberal arts requirements were significantly easier than they would have been at a top school.

I went on to a prestigious PhD program, as did my husband from the same undergrad, and we both found we were well prepared to keep up with those coming from top schools, but we were also in the couple of kids with excellent GPAs.

I went to UIUC. There were basically different sequences in math. It all covered the same material, just at difference paces, but it was basically 5 classes worth of material. Most students passed out of the first class through AP or the placement test. Many passed out of the first two. Then it was up to you how fast you wanted to cover the rest of the material. You could take a 1 semester class that went through 3 classes worth of material in lightening speed. Or do it over 3 semesters. Or you didn't pass out of the first two classes in the sequence, you could do it in one semester, two or even three.

So the inner city or rural kid that never took Calc in high school could take a slower paced sequence and go to summer school to catch up to avoid doing 5 years. Or they could do it rapidly to catch up.

The kids that passed out on a the first two classes and then took an accelerated pace on the rest, could graduate early, take a semester off for an off-campus internship, study abroad (rare for engineering students at my school), or a co-op, do a major research project, or take very advanced graduate level classes their senior year. These were very ambitious kids. Many would go on to PhD programs at places like Purdue, Michigan, Georgia Tech, UIUC, Berkeley, Stanford and even MIT.

Anyways, that's how a really big school did things with people with varying levels of math skills. Even the easiest sequence for engineering wasn't easy, but if you were a grinder and dedicated, you could get through the math needed.

What's the name of the lightning speed math class?

[Anonymous]

*name/course code

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for this. My dd is considering engineering majors but I am in the natural sciences and engineering is totally foreign to me. I even find it strange that you have to apply to specific programs during the admissions process (e.g., jhu and bme). How are these kids supposed to know what field they want to be in as a teenager?

BTW, I'm thankful that E schools are resisting grade inflation. Our bridges need to stand, after all.

We encouraged DD to apply to JHU BME because you can always switch out of it if you decide it's not for you, but you can't switch into it if you decide that's what you're interested in

But what if she gets rejected from BME when she would have gotten accepted to JHU for any other major?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This post is mostly intended for parents of current E School students or parents of HS students planning to go to E School.

Many Engineering schools do not have (much) grade inflation. Most E Schools grade each course on a curve. Often grades are curved to a 3.1 or 3.0 median grade, which means a fair number of students in a class will get a B- or C+.

Even those with lower GPAs will be able to get a good job after graduating with an engineering degree.

Parents ought not freak out if their E School kid does not have a top GPA. Parents should be supportive of all their college students, and a struggling E School student might need more support than some others.

All ABET accredited E Schools will have similar coursework with similar rigor. Very top schools like MIT/CalTech do not bother with ABET, but obviously they also are rigorous. Afternoons often will be spent in graded labs.

All this rigor means the E School college experience often has both less free time and less flexible time than students in Arts & Letters will have. E School is a hard slog for virtually any student with Feynman being the exception who proved the rule. When I was in E School, I only took off Friday night and Saturday night (and Sunday morning for church). Otherwise, it was mostly eat, sleep, or academics.

Students planning to apply to E School should try to take rigorous math, physics, and chemistry classes in HS. Calculus is essential, but getting an A in Calc AB is probably better than a C in Calc BC. Students with no calculus likely will struggle if they even are admitted.

Two engineers different schools and one family member whobhas taught at NC State and Cornell and others, has tenure at a different ivy. The rigor is no where near the same. Not close. At all. Top schools get the brightest students and the professors can and do move fast and expect more. The curriculum of one semester physics was covered in the first half a semester at the top school, similar situation with calculus pacing.

lol no
I have an NC state graduate and MIT and Cornell .

My NC state graduates career has by far surpassed their siblings. His grades at undergrad were at 2.8.
Grad school he went skiing went to univ of Co Boulder his success is his own CTO age 34 he’s doing just fine .

Calculus is calculus is calculus.

Do my other engineers have good jobs or careers yes but where their job trajectories better no.

While I’m not a fan of NC state for many reasons the engineering school is good so is the school of Textiles. The internship’s from no state were no better than the others l


Careers are about choices hard work and continuation of learning not whether you went to a better college.

PP was talking about the rigor of the class, not career outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for this. My dd is considering engineering majors but I am in the natural sciences and engineering is totally foreign to me. I even find it strange that you have to apply to specific programs during the admissions process (e.g., jhu and bme). How are these kids supposed to know what field they want to be in as a teenager?

BTW, I'm thankful that E schools are resisting grade inflation. Our bridges need to stand, after all.

The vast majority of elite schools do not require applying to a specific major. Most but not all require applying to the engineering school but even then switching majors all around or switching out or into the E school is easy. No gpa-gate-keeping into majors. The hard part is getting in to these E schools. Jhu bme is the rate exception among T20 private E-programs

What universities which offer engineering admit dont admit by major? We have a child who doesn't know if he wants to study math or engineering, or even a science. We are looking for schools where he just obtains school admission then has option to change the major depending on how much he likes it. Is there a list out there?

Brown
Chicago
Northeastern's Explore Program
RIT's Explore Programs (there are several)
Lehigh
WPI
Rice
Holy Cross (3-2 program with Columbia)

There are a bunch more.

Most SLACs have 3-2 programs; Holy Cross isn't special here

I'd be grateful if you could list SLACs with extraordinary engineering programs?

As far as I'm aware, there aren't any. I mean, compared to all the other programs.

Harvey Mudd? Cooper Union?

What am I missing?

Yes, Union. And Lehigh.

But at this price point, there are much better universities with better student experiences and outcomes.

Where's the SLAC with good engineering?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This post is mostly intended for parents of current E School students or parents of HS students planning to go to E School.

Many Engineering schools do not have (much) grade inflation. Most E Schools grade each course on a curve. Often grades are curved to a 3.1 or 3.0 median grade, which means a fair number of students in a class will get a B- or C+.

Even those with lower GPAs will be able to get a good job after graduating with an engineering degree.

Parents ought not freak out if their E School kid does not have a top GPA. Parents should be supportive of all their college students, and a struggling E School student might need more support than some others.

All ABET accredited E Schools will have similar coursework with similar rigor. Very top schools like MIT/CalTech do not bother with ABET, but obviously they also are rigorous. Afternoons often will be spent in graded labs.

All this rigor means the E School college experience often has both less free time and less flexible time than students in Arts & Letters will have. E School is a hard slog for virtually any student with Feynman being the exception who proved the rule. When I was in E School, I only took off Friday night and Saturday night (and Sunday morning for church). Otherwise, it was mostly eat, sleep, or academics.

Students planning to apply to E School should try to take rigorous math, physics, and chemistry classes in HS. Calculus is essential, but getting an A in Calc AB is probably better than a C in Calc BC. Students with no calculus likely will struggle if they even are admitted.

How is curving not grade inflation??

Ha! Oh goodness, engineering and pre-med and CS is going to be very exciting for your family

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:lol no
I have an NC state graduate and MIT and Cornell .

My NC state graduates career has by far surpassed their siblings. His grades at undergrad were at 2.8.
Grad school he went skiing went to univ of Co Boulder his success is his own CTO age 34 he’s doing just fine .

Calculus is calculus is calculus.

Do my other engineers have good jobs or careers yes but where their job trajectories better no.

While I’m not a fan of NC state for many reasons the engineering school is good so is the school of Textiles. The internship’s from no state were no better than the others l


Careers are about choices hard work and continuation of learning not whether you went to a better college.

PP was talking about the rigor of the class, not career outcomes.

I assume that people go to a better school (rigor of the class) because they want a better career outcomes, right?