<p>Wait, isn't a curve a good thing?</p>
<p>
[quote]
The difference between private and public for engineering is pretty large in terms of workload.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I wasn't aware that a clear dichotomy existed between public and private. For example, while certainly the engineering program at a public school like Cal is pretty darn hard, I would not say that the engineering programs at private schools like, say, MIT or Caltech are easier. In fact, the opposite is probably true.</p>
<p>I am speaking in generalities, obviously.</p>
<p>What other private schools can you name that has harder curriculum than Cal?</p>
<p>
[quote]
What other private schools can you name that has harder curriculum than Cal?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think MIT and Caltech are already good-enough examples.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think MIT and Caltech are already good-enough examples.
[/quote]
Normalized for undergraduate student quality - I think publics are harder than privates. Of course there is a tremendous amount of variation, but on average, I'd say it to be true.</p>
<p>I hope MIT and CalTech aren't too much harder than Cal...if they are I fear for the students' sanity =P.</p>
<p>Engineering's rough, but you knew that coming into it. Man up, get your degree, and start making some moolah.</p>
<p>Re: public vs private difficulty</p>
<p>I have no doubt that public universities have a wider variation in student abilities, preparation and background than do private colleges. But how different can the class material be? The curriculum is standardized (ABET) and I would think that thermodynamics or circuits or w/e would contain pretty much the same material no matter where you go. Am I wrong? Also, is there any statistic that graduates of private schools pass the FE and PE exams at a greater rate than graduates of public schools?</p>
<p>I suspect that schools like MIT and CalTech build classes of all superstars, but I doubt that they learn vastly different material than everybody else.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I have no doubt that public universities have a wider variation in student abilities, preparation and background than do private colleges. But how different can the class material be? The curriculum is standardized (ABET) and I would think that thermodynamics or circuits or w/e would contain pretty much the same material no matter where you go. Am I wrong? Also, is there any statistic that graduates of private schools pass the FE and PE exams at a greater rate than graduates of public schools?</p>
<p>I suspect that schools like MIT and CalTech build classes of all superstars, but I doubt that they learn vastly different material than everybody else.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It's not the material that is different from school to school. Rather, it's how much of the material you have to know that is different, and more specifically, where the grade curve is set. Like it or not, most engineering coursework in most schools is graded on curves which means that your grade determined by how well you do relative to others in your class. Going to a school with better students actually hurts you (all else equal) simply because it is harder to outperform those better students. In other words, a certain level of knowledge of, say, thermodynamics might earn you an A in one particular school (because you know more than anybody else in that class at that school), but might actually earn you an F at some other school (because everybody else knows more than you).</p>
<p>Let me give you 2 examples that illustrate the point. I know a guy who scored about an 85% or so on one particular exam. You would think that that's pretty good, right? After all, he proved that he knew most of the material on the exam. But actually, no, it was a terrible score. Why? Because the average score was a 95. That meant, according to the curve, he earned at best a D, and possibly an F. It didn't matter that he knew most of the material of the exam. All that mattered is that he knew less than the average student in that class. </p>
<p>Here's another story. I know another guy who scored a 30% on an exam...and celebrated. Why? Because the average score was a 25%. Hence, his 30% translated into an A- or A. He freely admitted that he knew almost nothing and was completely lost on the exam. But that didn't matter, because while he knew almost nothing, at least he knew more than the average student in that class (who knew even less than he did).</p>
<p>See, when you become an engineering student, you quickly learn that, for grading purposes, it doesn't really matter how much you know, on an absolute level. All that matters is how much you know relative to how much everybody else knows. You can understand most of the material for a particular class... and still fail anyway. You can understand very little of the material of another class...and still get an A. It's your relative standing that counts. This is quite a sea change from typical high school grading where the only thing that matters is how much you know, and where everybody really can get an A. Not so in most engineering programs. The grade curve is set up such that some people HAVE to get bad grades. Even if the worst students in a course happen to know a lot, that doesn't matter, because whoever is in last place will get a terrible grade, no matter how much that person actually knows. That person might actually be better than the students at some other school, but that doesn't matter. What matters is your relative standing at your school.</p>
<p>Now, of course, it should be said that some schools use different letter-grade distributions on their curves. For example, coming in last place at one particular school and hence getting a "terrible grade" might entail only getting a C-, whereas getting a 'terrible grade' at another school might truly mean an F. {Stanford is a rather famous example of the former.} In other words, some schools use less harsh curves than others. </p>
<p>But the salient point is that grading from school to school is highly arbitrary and is not highly associated with the absolute level of knowledge that you have. For example, somebody who flunks out of MIT, Caltech, or Berkeley might have actually done perfectly fine and successfully graduated if he had just gone to an easier school. The level of knowledge that this person would have would be the same in either case, but the difference is what how that level of knowledge gets translated into a letter grade at his particular school. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Also, is there any statistic that graduates of private schools pass the FE and PE exams at a greater rate than graduates of public schools?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, the problem with this statistic is the sample selection bias it entails. Only a small minority of all engineering students out there will ever take the FE and PE exam. For example, generally only CivE's will take those exams. Those in other disciplines - EE, CS, ME, ChemE, BioE, etc. - rarely do. Furthermore, even those who pursue CivE degrees often times do not care about the FE/PE exam. It depends on whether you want to work in the civil engineering industry or not. Of the CivE graduates from schools like MIT, Caltech, Berkeley, etc., many of them will never work in that industry. Many will instead pursue PhD's and become researchers/academics/professors. You don't need to become PE to become a highly successful engineering academic. Furthermore, a lot of those CivE students from schools like MIT< Caltech, Berkeley, etc. will never work in engineering at all. As I have stated on other threads, a lot of engineering students at MIT (and presumably also at Caltech and Berkeley) have no intention of ever working as engineers, instead preferring more lucrative jobs in strategy consulting or investment banking. Just because you earn an engineering degree doesn't mean that you have to work in engineering. </p>
<p>Hence, if you look at those who take the FE exams, you are looking at a peculiar group of people who are not representative of the populations at large. An MIT engineering student who takes the FE exam is clearly not representative of all MIT engineering students.</p>
<p>Thanks for your detailed explanation sakky!</p>
<p>sakky is right on target. just study hard and make sure you stay above the curve</p>
<p>On a minimum, I study 23 hours a day straight,no break, no socializing.
The other 1 hour is preserved for sleeping.</p>
<p>Some of the posts in this thread are totally ridiculous. I don't understand how engineering work (classes+hw+studying) can take more than 8 hours on a normal day. I agree that if you're working that much then you're probably not fit for engineering.</p>
<p>I have about a 2.9 GPA at a very hard engineering school. The workload is definitely manageable. But, I'm pretty sure that if I felt like the workload was getting out of control I would transfer, change majors, or both. Why would someone put themselves through a dozen hours of work a day? If you're working all the time it means you don't have a social life. If you don't have much of a social life in college and turn yourself into a robot, no company is going to want to hire you. Stress, sleep deprivation, etc are also all very bad for your physical and psychological health.</p>
<p>College isn't nearly just about GPA. It's about how much you learn, how much fun you have, and how you develop intellectually and socially.</p>
<p>Are we in the premed forum or something??? Come on.</p>
<p>Yeah some of these posts are ridiculous, but a lot of the core engineering courses in EE and CprE demand waaaaay too much work. Electronics labs at my school are only scheduled for 2 hours, but they can take up to 6.</p>
<p>My schedule is a 10-4 of engineering courses with an hour for lunch, 5-6:30 of non engineering courses, and then i almost always have at least 2-3 hours of homework a day after that and some project work to do. Group projects tend to suck up the most time IMO; I'm in three of them plus a lab.</p>
<p>As for weekends, the EE instructors at my school have a tendency to give long assigments...</p>
<p>My point is that it is very difficult for many EE students to have a major social life. </p>
<p>"Why would someone put themselves through a dozen hours of work a day?"</p>
<p>Because it's challenging, engaging, and has many very comfortable and flexible job opportunities.</p>
<p>Some people love doing it. Heck, I actually tended to have a lot more fun hanging out with my friends while doing problems sets than at parties since we were a lot more at ease and we knew it was only good friends there.</p>
<p>I also tended to have certain days where I'd just wake up, work all day, and then go to bed. That way I could blow off a night or two of doing work so I could get out and do something fun.</p>
<p>I graduated from Michigan Engineering a few years back with a 3.1 GPA, slightly below Cum Laude designation. I don't recall pulling more than 4-5 all nighters total in my 4 years of college, but I really hated all nighters and if I had to do one, most of the time I would just throw my arms up and say "Whatever!, it's not worth it", most of the time doing an all nighter for an exam, is worse than not studying at all, i found. </p>
<p>Not sure about the 8 hours total thing, I distinctively remembered having about 6 hours of class on average a day, then about 5 hours of regular homework on a weekday. On a weekend, I study/do homework for about 8 hours on average each day. Maybe if you are really good at basic sciences, in your first two years you can get away with studying 2 hours a night. Even then I remembered the recommended hours for Organic Chemistry alone was about 2 hours a night. But I don't think it's possible in the higher courses in engineering, there's plenty of group work/reports/presentations all the time. </p>
<p>Overall, the number of hours I just described I think is about average at Michigan Engineering, if you know how to work the system, you can get away with less hours, but not by much. </p>
<p>I haven't really found anyone that's a genius, that can just get good grades without studying, I don't think you can do that in engineering. One of my best friends had a 3.89 GPA with a double major in engineering, and I know he came from a top prep school, 1480 SAT(this was a few years back, when college admissions isn't as competitive), National Merit Scholar, and he worked his ass off to get that GPA.</p>
<p>How many units were you taking in a semester ?</p>
<p>from what I've seen from my time in the computer lab:</p>
<p>civils: they work hard, but are always out of there before dinner, and dont seem to have many complaints</p>
<p>mechanicals: insane labs (30+ pages) and a lot of homework, material isnt too bad. they complain a lot</p>
<p>electrical: missing in action. I'd assume they have so much work, they choose a more isolated locale</p>
<p>industrial: occasionally step in to print some powerpoint slides then leave</p>
<p>biomed: similar to mechanical, they seem to be less hateful though</p>
<p>I do between 3-10 hours of a homework a day during the weekdays, and study a couple hours before each test. Nothing too crazy, and no work on the weekends. 3 hours of class a day</p>
<p>I think it's like any major, depends on the Instructor you have. Chemistry 1 is SUPPOSED to be a fairly easy class but it was the hardest class of college for me so far. Just because the instructor made it that way. Where as Calc 3 for me was a breeze because of a great instructor.</p>
<p>Though i would be prepared to do more work than your average major. If you think you can go to class and cram before a test your going to be in for a shock!</p>
<p>michdur07, I made the mistake of taking 17 credits each term for the first two years, but believe me, when I say, the average of 15 credits I took in the last two years were no joke. </p>
<p>And I don't think the amount of credits is a good indication of the amount of work required for the class. I took an intro physics lab in my sophomore year, that was only 1 credit, but probably took 15-18 hours outside of the 3 hour lab time. I've also taken some engineering seminar type of classes that was 3 credits, yet probably took me 3 hours a week outside of class. use Pickaprof, I wish we had that when I was in college.</p>