Dropping out of engineering

[Anonymous]

[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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

Lowest GPA here means 3.5-3.75, not 2.7

https://projects.dailyprincetonian.com/senior-survey-2022/academics.html

[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.

Organic Chemistry is a pre req to MatSci, but there is very little overlap in content. He'll be fine. It's not a hard course.

By contrast, Calc is fundamental to every subsequent engineering course so a C or C- is not a good sign for future prospects.

--Organic chemist

[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.

Organic Chemistry is a pre req to MatSci, but there is very little overlap in content. He'll be fine. It's not a hard course.

By contrast, Calc is fundamental to every subsequent engineering course so a C or C- is not a good sign for future prospects.

--Organic chemist

An A- I the next semester is a good sign, though. Grades aren't very meaningful, as they don't predict retention or measure future knowledge.

-- got an A in organic chemistry, cut can't fry an egg

[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.

Organic Chemistry is a pre req to MatSci, but there is very little overlap in content. He'll be fine. It's not a hard course.

By contrast, Calc is fundamental to every subsequent engineering course so a C or C- is not a good sign for future prospects.

--Organic chemist

C in calculus is fine if they grade on a curve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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%.

This is simply not true. No one wants to hire an engineer who barely passes engineering courses. Having C-avg for engineering and/or intro courses is really bad. I suspect people like PPs are not engineers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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%.

This is simply not true. No one wants to hire an engineer who barely passes engineering courses. Having C-avg for engineering and/or intro courses is really bad. I suspect people like PPs are not engineers.

But the classes we are talking about are the intro classes. The actual engineering classes are mostly junior and senior year.
Like a PP, my lowest college grade was in Orgo, and I now work for a chemical company.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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

[Anonymous]

Congrats on raising a kid that is willing to grind and not afraid of a challenge. He will be fine. The C+ in physics is more impressive than an A- in civil liberties and most humanity courses. If it turns out he wants to be in law down the road he can always become a patent attorney.

[Anonymous]

DS graduated with a 2.6 GPA from VATech in Computer Engineering in 2021. He is currently working for Amazon Web Service (AWS) and making 160K.

[Anonymous]

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?

There’s outing horrible about switching to a prelaw track, but, as long as your son is passing courses and enjoying what he’s doing, he should keep going. Good grades are nice, but they’re not everything.