Engineering Majors and low GPAs

[Anonymous]

What about schools like caltech (or mit) where the gpas are notoriously low?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about schools like caltech (or mit) where the gpas are notoriously low?

50% of the students are in the bottom half of the class there, too. It is harder if you are one of those kids - internships and other opportunities always go to someone else.

If you are at one of those schools your GPA will be on the low side. At least there won't be liberal arts students around making your average look bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dear OP - I haven't read all of the above but I do know that you need a 4.0 on a weighted scale to get into engineering at Virginia Tech. DS toured there but got into Georgia Tech. First year courses are very tough. Your son should be really committed to this is you are going forward.

You clearly didn't read.

The kid had the necessary high school grades, but this first semester of COLLEGE was a shock to his system.

Good luck to OP sorting out what went wrong and how to keep your kid sufficiently humble to make next semester different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about schools like caltech (or mit) where the gpas are notoriously low?

The average GPA at MIT was a 3.39 in 2015; I'm sure it's only gone up since then. http://www.gradeinflation.com/MIT.html

[Anonymous]

FWIW, an admissions officer from MIT said that they want kids to "fail" in undergrad and if the student is able to sail through as a top student, the university hasn't done its job. She mentioned that most kids arrive having been the top in everything they've done previously and its important to come back from failure in fields like engineering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, an admissions officer from MIT said that they want kids to "fail" in undergrad and if the student is able to sail through as a top student, the university hasn't done its job. She mentioned that most kids arrive having been the top in everything they've done previously and its important to come back from failure in fields like engineering.

My son's top 25 engineering school (also one of the original ABET schools says that MIT has Pass/Fail for the first semester because those kids really can't cope with failure, having never experienced it before. (I should have such problems!)

[Anonymous]

I was an engineering major at first and had a low GPA. Later I decided the field wasn’t for me and switched majors to something completely different. To the poster that says it would hurt getting a job, it didn’t. No one in the real world cares about your GPA. I earned a degree and don’t remember what my final GPA ended up being, because it was so long ago and completely irrelevant in my life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, an admissions officer from MIT said that they want kids to "fail" in undergrad and if the student is able to sail through as a top student, the university hasn't done its job. She mentioned that most kids arrive having been the top in everything they've done previously and its important to come back from failure in fields like engineering.

Yes. Otherwise the Boeing engineers responsible for the internal clock failure of the Starliner won't be able to cope with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, an admissions officer from MIT said that they want kids to "fail" in undergrad and if the student is able to sail through as a top student, the university hasn't done its job. She mentioned that most kids arrive having been the top in everything they've done previously and its important to come back from failure in fields like engineering.

There’s a lot of ground between “failing” and “sail through.” You want kids to some where in the middle - struggle through.

[Anonymous]

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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.

What year is he? Goodluck getting a job with a 2.0-2.5. They’re going to assume he’s a liability — safely assume, I might add.

He is a first semester freshman! We have no idea where he will finish.

It only gets harder. I had a 3.3 GPA my first semester in engineering and slid to a 2.5 by the time I graduated.

That said, I got an engineering job immediately after graduation and now make $140k ten years later.

You were as bad as I was. LOL. Happy Holidays!

Me too. 2.3 gpa when graduated.

Own my own company now make over a million a year. Got a job right out of college as an engineer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just hired a recent graduate with 2.1 GPA from JMU with a degree in Engineering. I didn't care about his GPA. He has multiple AWS certifications that allow me to build my government clients higher rates. I can't say that about other high GPA graduates.

Yes, this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just hired a recent graduate with 2.1 GPA from JMU with a degree in Engineering. I didn't care about his GPA. He has multiple AWS certifications that allow me to build my government clients higher rates. I can't say that about other high GPA graduates.

Yes, this.

Lol. It's all about billing higher rates. Doesn't matter if he can do the job correctly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just hired a recent graduate with 2.1 GPA from JMU with a degree in Engineering. I didn't care about his GPA. He has multiple AWS certifications that allow me to build my government clients higher rates. I can't say that about other high GPA graduates.

Yes, this.

Lol. It's all about billing higher rates. Doesn't matter if he can do the job correctly.

Actually, those mediocre engineering students are often quite good at getting the job done. Being good at work and being good at class are correlated, but not the same thing. The key is finding the evidence that the kid has drive from other qualities besides the GPA, and this kid did.

To the Lol poster - you know so very little about the world.

[Anonymous]

Well, grades are trickling in and it looks like my kid isn’t pulling it off. Not sure what happens next.

I am I’ll with worry, anger, and yes, embarrassment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just hired a recent graduate with 2.1 GPA from JMU with a degree in Engineering. I didn't care about his GPA. He has multiple AWS certifications that allow me to build my government clients higher rates. I can't say that about other high GPA graduates.

Yes, this.

Lol. It's all about billing higher rates. Doesn't matter if he can do the job correctly.

Actually, those mediocre engineering students are often quite good at getting the job done. Being good at work and being good at class are correlated, but not the same thing. The key is finding the evidence that the kid has drive from other qualities besides the GPA, and this kid did.

To the Lol poster - you know so very little about the world.

No, I know that world very well. I know that defense/government contractors do not give a crap about how well someone can do their job as long as they can bill the government. When I worked for SAIC I had several people on my team with great "certifications" and credentials that produced absolutely nothing. When I tried to move them off I was told that as long as deadlines were being met (because the rest of the team took up the stack) I needed to keep them on the project and billing.

I do agree that GPA and capability to do the job are very imperfectly correlated, but a 2.1 is BAD.