Reply to Engineering: Rigor, Grading, and GPAs

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Engineering: Rigor, Grading, and GPAs"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.

[b]All ABET accredited E Schools will have similar coursework with similar rigor. [/b]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. [/quote]

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. [/quote]
Agreed. I had one at Cornell and one at a school you've never heard of. Both Engineering and courses were quite different.  I will say both are well employed after graduation.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics