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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Kid is a freshman in Chemical Engineering. Told by admin to be happy with a C in engineering courses. Says it is hard. Seems happy.[/quote]

If you don't mind, I am a humanities major with engineering-type kids. From what I hear, a lot of courses are not only difficult but are graded differently than humanities.

For example, a lot of students will have 40s, 50s, 60s as their grade during the term and then at the end a curve is applied. Has anyone else heard of this, and if so, what is the point? I understand the weed out courses, but shouldn't the goal be to teach students in a way that they master concepts instead of survive them?

Thanks for helping someone with no engineering experience.[/quote]

Premed and Econ and many other courses at rigorous colleges are like this, not just engineering. The point is to challenge the kids with hugely difficult application qs beyond what is taught. Then the average grade(which could be 40% correct) is curved to a B at most T20s /ivies. Cs are reserved for the well below average. 
Not so different from some of the APs, such as AP physics, where a “5” is achieved by getting around 70% correct yet only 5-10% of kids get that score. At the uber elite schools, most kids are very intelligent so the top25-30% may get an A, even though that could correspond to 65% correct. 
This is how stem classes have been curved at elites since back in my day, though the average then was set to a b-/C+ not a B. Grades are inflated now but the tests are still very challenging. [/quote]

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