Dropping out of engineering

[Anonymous]

if he can't keep a 3.0 or better, he will have trouble finding a good job. many employers have a minimum GPA for interviews.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was worried about my kid's grades at a top public and found a Reddit thread that eased my fears because it said the average male graduated with a 3.0 in computer engineering from the school, which they learned from their FOIA request.

The math curve has been a D+ and kids routinely flunk classes.

If this is real you should name the "top public".

What is the "math curve"? The median grade is a D+? Forced by policy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t be an idiot. Don’t discourage him from pursuing engineering

He wants to build airplanes — this isn’t Big Tech money, and will they let C students work on planes??

For engineering, he's fine. The coursework is very hard and many successful engineers flunk classes and have to repeat them. Taking them at the community college in order to avoid being flunked out was a common strategy when I was in engineering school. They will let C students work on planes. He just needs to graduate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was worried about my kid's grades at a top public and found a Reddit thread that eased my fears because it said the average male graduated with a 3.0 in computer engineering from the school, which they learned from their FOIA request.

The math curve has been a D+ and kids routinely flunk classes.

If this is real you should name the "top public".

What is the "math curve"? The median grade is a D+? Forced by policy?

I'm a different poster, but attended an engineering school that curved to a 2.6 GPA. Every class greater than 7 students had an enforced curve.

I know lots of kids who graduated with a sub-3.0 GPA who got good jobs. But some of the kids with lower GPAs as freshman ended up flunking out of engineering as sophomores because they were missing basic math skills. Others had the understanding, just not the GPA, and did okay or even improved as classes got harder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:if he can't keep a 3.0 or better, he will have trouble finding a good job. many employers have a minimum GPA for interviews.

Not in engineering. Many employers don't have a minimum GPA and understand that the course work is hard and the grades aren't inflated. Get a job there and then move on to more competitive jobs once you've got some experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those grades seem pretty bad to me but he should talk to his advisor and career office to see what they think. They’re the experts.

They’re not, though. He passed tough courses. No Ds or Fs. Only in liberal arts courses (which DCUM loves to pretend are just as hard as STEM courses) can you expect to cruise to an A.

Stay the course!

1000% he passed. Grades are fine. Do not switch major unless he doesn't like. The grades will trend upward after the weed-out classes --- and he likes the material.

[Anonymous]

Utterly insane that grades is determined by school not my performance, and that the standards are secret, and that employers said arbitrary cutoffs.

The grades are meaningless at that point.


And we can't say whether OP's kid is struggling or excelling, because we don't know the curve.

Are there whole schools where graduates can't get jobs or get into to grad school just because their school has a low curve??

[Anonymous]

GPA has been increasing 0.1/10years for decades, at least through 2013.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:if he can't keep a 3.0 or better, he will have trouble finding a good job. many employers have a minimum GPA for interviews.

Not in engineering. Many employers don't have a minimum GPA and understand that the course work is hard and the grades aren't inflated. Get a job there and then move on to more competitive jobs once you've got some experience.

This X 1000

He isn’t in finance, law or trying to get not med school. As long as he gets some internship or work experience before he graduates he’ll do great.

Think of it like this. A politician doesn’t need 90% of the vote , he only needs 51%.

[Anonymous]

This is a very interesting and informative thread.

My impression is that if a college thinks student in a particular major just isn’t going to make it, either informally and /or formally (probation or even dismissal). You obviously don’t want him to get dismissed (although people tend to get back in if they change majors) and even probation can be hard to recover from, but PP’s make a good case for sticking it out for at least another semester.

The best suggestion I can offer is to not keep trying for a different result with the same tools. If he’s got deficiencies he needs to remedy them via tutoring, independent study, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:GPA has been increasing 0.1/10years for decades, at least through 2013.

This really depends. Engineers are very into math and anti-grade inflation to it's very possible that engineering and math classes haven't seen the same bump.

[Anonymous]

Ivy league schools have grade deflation?

Huh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chemistry and Multivariable Calculus tend to be weed out classes. They are purposely designed to break engineering and pre-med students. He survived. Physics is also known to be difficult.

That's a pretty heavy course load for a freshman who's never taken any AP courses. He will have been way underprepared compared to his fellow students, who presumably had taken the usual 8-14 AP classes that most Ivy League students will have taken in high school, including Calculus BC, Multivariable, and Chemistry. And since these classes are graded on a curve, he did ok all things considered. In fact, I'd say if this is his first introduction to calculus, chemistry, and physics, he did outstanding.

If he's passionate about engineering, I would never in a million years tell him he needs to drop it and move on. The weakness is the rural high school. Not his intelligence or drive.

Absolutely! I know plenty of engineers from top schools who got many Ds. It’s a good thing you posted here first instead of dashing his dreams. He’s doing well!

[Anonymous]

I used to work in Biomed engineering. We would regularly hire kids with 2.5 and 2.7 GPAs. All our engineering hiring managers knew what par was as they went through the same tough stem classes. When I think about it a 3.6 would actually raise eyebrows about the rigor of the curriculum. When job searching most kids just don’t list their GPAs on their resumes which is fine. He will land a job. Don’t worry OP.

[Anonymous]

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.