bad undergrad Umich IOE GPA, jobs, grad school, opportunities, screwed for life? tips

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Michigan
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<p>if you have a bad IOE GPA at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor (below 3.0) are you screwed and is there any hope you can get into their graduate IOE program if you do well in your later semesters, esp in 400 level and any 500 level classes? If you prove yourself worthy later on and do better later on, is that any good even if your overall gpa sucks because of a horrible start? </p>

<p>What is a bad ioe gpa? I know IOE at Umich is tops and doing well here can get you a lot of places, but what about doing poorly? Are you screwed, or can you still find a decent job or go to a graduate school? As in Umich grad school or similar or are you doomed to having to go to a horrible grad school or no grad school?</p>

<p>What if you do bad at Umich IOE then do 2 years at another school for a 2nd undergrad degree and get a good GPA there, do you still have a future, or are you screwed?</p>

<p>And I won't lie, I had a bad start. I transferred in as a .5 sophomore, or 1.5 years after undergrad elsewhere where I had a 3.0 GPA, so do I still have a shot if I have 2 years left and I have a C average from 20 units of courses?</p>

<p>And what's the policy on retaking courses? My advisor says I can't retake courses in which I get a "C" but I can retake courses with a C-, but what about non engineering courses? Thanks. </p>

<p>any tips on how to succeed in ioe?</p>

<p>also, I work part time and I am low on money but don't get enough financial aid and I commute from home which is a 40 minute drive 1 way so I spend 1.5 hours on the road daily but sometimes I'll have an all nighter in the library where I crash in the library and sleep a little bit on a library couceh since I can't stand a 1 hr commute when I'm cramming.</p>

<p>any tips? I really wanna succeed and I know I have a great chance to do so given the fact that Umich's IOE is such a stellar program.</p>

<p>also, I have some personal issues going on in my life, any tips on how to succeed, or should I transfer out to a less prestigious school such as UM Dearborn? </p>

<p>is UM Dearbor's Industrial Engineering any good or decent? What about Ohio State for Industrial Engineering? Thanks.</p>

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<p>I don’t think those exist</p>

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<p>??
what do you mean those don’t exist? i need some serious help, tips, or advice!</p>

4

<p>Hi engineer20. Try posting your questions and concerns here:</p>

<p>[Engineering</a> Majors - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/]Engineering”>Engineering Majors - College Confidential Forums)</p>

<p>Best of luck to you!</p>

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<p>Okay, so you just transferred in winter 2013, right? You’ve had 1 semester?</p>

<p>Now you know what to expect in terms of rigor, so recalibrate your effort a little to match what’s required, and you should be able to pull up your GPA to some degree over the next two years. Retake classes if it makes sense, but given the financial issue, it may not be the best use of your money.</p>

<p>With respect to personal issues, it would be a shame to waste such a nice opportunity over what is surely temporary. Why not look into what counseling services are available to students to get some help with your transition and the things you feel are a barrier to your success. There are always obstacles…the trick is to learn to manage them, often one step at a time, with your focus on the next immediate step. </p>

<p>So, for example, if you focus on resolving your environmental issues and getting the best possible marks you can instead of worrying whether or not you’ll get a job with your low gpa, more of your energy is put into the positive, immediate issue, which in turn, eventually corrects the LONGER term issue :wink: See what I mean?</p>

<p>If your parents aren’t likely to support your ability to live on campus (financially or emotionally), it’s propbably not worth going into debt for…you can make anything work.</p>

<p>But with the cost of gas, insurance, parking and maintenance, maybe selling your car, getting more part time hours, and bunking up with someone in a cheap room might serve your TRUE goal better (which is doing well and getting the degree). A car is a fiscal liability young students don’t really need in Ann Arbor, IMHO.</p>

<p>Good luck, and please seek out some on-campus counseling to get someone in your court to give you perspective on the decisions you face!</p>

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<p>I got like many C’s and you can only retake if you get a C- or lower</p>

<p>so unfair :(</p>

<p>I can’t retake!</p>

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<p>the car is old ,it’s paid off and insurance is cheap
’
i drive a toyota, 140k miles, still running strong, good on gas, so it’s among the cheapest decent cars you can drive, no mechanical problems except I got a few flat tires</p>

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<p>"if you have a bad IOE GPA at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor (below 3.0) are you screwed and is there any hope you can get into their graduate IOE program if you do well in your later semesters, esp in 400 level and any 500 level classes? If you prove yourself worthy later on and do better later on, is that any good even if your overall gpa sucks because of a horrible start? "</p>

<p>If you had a sub-3.0 gpa in IOE, you are not good at school, why do you want to go to more school? It makes no sense. But I suppose you can. What makes you think you can do better in higher level classes if you can’t do well in easier classes though? I am not being a dick here, but this is something you need to think about, before you start banking on the idea that you will do better in later classes so you will be fine.</p>

<p>What is a bad ioe gpa? I know IOE at Umich is tops and doing well here can get you a lot of places, but what about doing poorly? Are you screwed, or can you still find a decent job or go to a graduate school? As in Umich grad school or similar or are you doomed to having to go to a horrible grad school or no grad school?</p>

<p>The way I see it, when we recruit engineering kids, 3.7+ = good, 3.5+ = satisfactory, 3.3-3.5 = cut unless you have a great story/good affirmative hire (girl/URM), 3.3 under = cut regardless. So I guess below 3.3 = bad, but since IOE is slightly easier, I would put the cut off at 3.4.</p>

<p>What if you do bad at Umich IOE then do 2 years at another school for a 2nd undergrad degree and get a good GPA there, do you still have a future, or are you screwed?
Second undergrad never make sense financially. It’s just horrible ROI.</p>

<p>And I won’t lie, I had a bad start. I transferred in as a .5 sophomore, or 1.5 years after undergrad elsewhere where I had a 3.0 GPA, so do I still have a shot if I have 2 years left and I have a C average from 20 units of courses?</p>

<p>Depends on your future performances. I guess you will have about 80 credits at Michigan total, so if you have a 2.0 on 20 credits, and get straight As in your next 60 credits, your highest possible GPA would be 3.5 (I think, did it in my head so do you own calculation to check). That’s an OK GPA. However, I wouldn’t bank on the As in the future given how you’ve done so far in easy classes.</p>

<p>And what’s the policy on retaking courses? My advisor says I can’t retake courses in which I get a “C” but I can retake courses with a C-, but what about non engineering courses? Thanks.
Same deal. </p>

<p>“I got like many C’s and you can only retake if you get a C- or lower
so unfair
I can’t retake!”</p>

<p>No, it’s not unfair. Stop whining. Why should you be allowed to retake if you get Cs. Why can’t I retake my A-'s to try to get As? For one this is not even unfair. For two even if it is, life is unfair, accept it. Get a grip.</p>

<p>any tips on how to succeed in ioe?
Get a GPA, explore finance/strat consulting options when looking for job to fast track your peers in both earnings and moving up the ladder.</p>

<p>“also, I work part time and I am low on money but don’t get enough financial aid and I commute from home which is a 40 minute drive 1 way so I spend 1.5 hours on the road daily but sometimes I’ll have an all nighter in the library where I crash in the library and sleep a little bit on a library couceh since I can’t stand a 1 hr commute when I’m cramming.
any tips? I really wanna succeed and I know I have a great chance to do so given the fact that Umich’s IOE is such a stellar program.”</p>

<p>I see this as penny smart and pound foolish. Instead of scrapping by like that, you could have taken more loans and accomodate your study better (even though I am unsure of how much that can help, since my belief is that there’s a much higher correlation between school performance and IQ, than school performance and work ethics, but that’s a debate for another day). However, had you done better, you could have gotten a good internship sophomore summer. I made $12k after tax return my sophomore summer, that’s more than enough to improve your quality of life and study. But since you tried to save the couple grand from here and there, it somewhat contributed to you not doing well, and you don’t have that opportunity. The trade off is bad imo.</p>

<p>also, I have some personal issues going on in my life, any tips on how to succeed, or should I transfer out to a less prestigious school such as UM Dearborn?
This shows that some growing up needs to happen. Guess what, every one has “personal issues”. This is not middle school where you can skip schools if your parents call. In the real world, at least at most places I worked at, no one gives a shyt if you have “personal issues”, if you underpeform, you get shyt canned. So it’s better off if you get out of the mindset of blaming everything instead of taking personal responsibility.</p>

<p>I might be harsh, but I am the wake up call you desperately need.</p>

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<p>thanks @bearcats
but the personal issue is actually a health issue I do not want to talk about, so that is very real.
But besides that, what you’re saying is right. I want to go to grad school because of my parents.</p>

<p>Also, in high school I had a 3.9/4.0 a 34 ACT composite but only a 29 on reading and I was a National Merit Finalist. </p>

<p>How did I end up doing so poorly at Michigan? Maybe it’s the commute and the health / personal issues taking up too much time.</p>

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<p>and is UM Dearborn a viable option for grad school?</p>

<p>Or what if I were to go to Canada or France or the UK or some other country for graduate school? Are they more lenient than American high schools?</p>

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<ul>
<li>I meant American universities. sorry</li>
</ul>

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<p>Again… where Bearcats works isn’t exactly the norm. Most companies aren’t going to turn you away for not having at least a 3.5</p>

<p>Unless that’s just an IOE thug because they expect a higher GPA</p>

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<p>Ok first of all engineer20, I am sorry to hear about your situation.</p>

<p>But look on the bright side, college is not a race but a long distance marathon. Sometimes you do well in some courses but not so good in others. You just have to keep trying and putting the effort in and you will reap the awards. I myself did not have a great start to my college education but I soon recovered and did really well in my final 4 semesters and in my IOE courses.</p>

<p>When our final grades in IOE 461 (Six Sigma) were released, I did pretty well and got an A but the instructor (Patrick Hamilton) specifically told us that we shouldn’t lose sight of the bigger picture and that one grade in a course rarely affects your long term future. I thought that was a really true and good advice that he gave us.</p>

<p>Regarding your academic situation, I would really recommend that you make some friends or acquaintances and try to do your homework and studying with them. Contrary to popular belief, studying with people REALLY helps (it definitely did for me) and may help you improve your performance. Try to get to know as many kids in the IOE department as you can (building your network).</p>

<p>For some of the quantitative courses like IOE 265, IOE 366 and IOE 315, I would recommend becoming a member of Chegg so that you have access to online homework solutions and solutions to questions from the book they use (Devore). It will really help you and aid your understanding of homework problems and practice exam problems.</p>

<p>Alpha Pi Mu also offers tutoring office hours for most of the undergraduate IOE courses so I would really recommend taking advantage of that and they may also help you do practice problems for exams and homework.</p>

<p>Although it is cliched, going to office hours of professors and GSI’s DOES really help and they may help you on homework, exam preparation and general understanding of content.</p>

<p>Make a habit of trying to review the material in your classes everyday and start your homework as soon as you can so that you won’t feel overburdened when exams and midterms are approaching</p>

<p>I would really recommend that you stay on campus even after your classes and only drive back home at night. That way, you can take advantage of the many resources at the College of Engineering and the IOE department.</p>

<p>Here is a list of ‘easy’ courses and electives that I took or heard about that you may also want to consider taking and boosting your gpa besides the required IOE classes.</p>

<p>IOE 460 (half term course that is offered in the first 7 weeks)
IOE 461 (easy but time consuming)
IOE 441 (really easy if you go to class and follow whats going on)
IOE 425 (again half term course and try to take it in the first 7 weeks)
IOE 440
IOE 466
Econ 401 (it has a reputation of being hard but in reality is is VERY easy)
Econ 101
Econ 102
NERS 211 (REALLY REALLY easy, definitely take it as a non IOE engineering elective)
PHIL 155 (easy but requires some reading to do)</p>

<p>Regarding your future plans, I reckon it is too early to worry about that. Focus on your classes and try to self-learn what area you like and what you dont like. Try to get an internship (not that hard if you have above a 3.0) and/or do some research with your professors and build relationships with them so that they will be able to write really good recommendations for you if you want to do grad school. It is also important to show leadership so try to join a club as a board member and do what you like to do. You might also discover that you don’t need grad school and enjoy working in industry.</p>

<p>If you put the effort in, you can definitely improve yourself in all aspects (well-rounded academically and being involved in campus groups and you other interests)</p>

<p>GOOD LUCK!!!</p>

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<p>Thanks @msb314</p>

<p>What about IOE 432?</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>I would not bet on that AT ALL :wink: Though many might be less rigorous than UMich :wink: Certain not ALL.</p>

<p>But just to backup Bearcats on this, though it may sound hard, “parents” are the WRONG reason to go to grad school.</p>

<p>The second point worth really chewing on is that in truth, people don’t care WHY you didn’t perform well…they will only ever look at your de facto performance.</p>

<p>If you are not in a condition/position to optimize the advantage given to you by your admission to UMich, you need to realize that no one at the end of the day will cut you much slack around that, so you may want to consider your alternate options.</p>

<p>However, msb314 gave you many excellent points to improve your performance – so if you’re committed to succeeding and overcoming your obstacles, follow the advice.</p>

16

<p>@vlad
did you read all the books/texts or not really? I heard some of my fellow IOE classmates don’t really read the books</p>

<p>Also, do you have any internships or did you have any and what are you up to this summer? what about jobs? any jobs or internships (mcdonald’s works, assembly line worker also works)</p>

<p>how hard is it to find a summer assembly line job?</p>

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<p>I’m an IOE student at Umich.</p>

<p>Here is some advice:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>GO TO OFFICE HOURS! GO TO OFFICE HOURS! GO TO OFFICE HOURS! Even if you understand the material you should still go. Instructors, GSIs, TAs, etc. will even give you answers to homework (but don’t beg for answers).</p></li>
<li><p>Get the easy points. If you go to office hours and work with friends, you should get almost all of the homework points. In classes with labs like 265, 366, and 310, you should get almost all of the points (in 265 and 366, they hold your hand through most labs).</p></li>
<li><p>Pay attention to homework problems and lecture examples because they are likely to show up on exams.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>The usefulness of the textbook depends on the class.</p>

<p>IOE 201: Some good examples and practice problems, need the book for formulas
IOE 202: I did not even get the book (it was an optional book)
IOE 265: Referred to the book from time to time and needed it for tables
IOE 366: Referred to the book from time to time and needed it for tables
IOE 310: The most useful textbook
IOE 316: Some good examples and practice problems </p>

<p>I cannot speak for the 202 textbook, but the textbooks are usually somewhat helpful. However, lecture slides are a lot more important.</p>

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<p>what’s the 310 text book called?
anybody selling their old textbooks?
Any place to buy or download etextbooks for a good price?</p>

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<p>How did you get into the National Honor society with a 3.7 weighted average? You must have about a 3.3 to 3.4 unweighted averaged (very low for UofM). From what I have seen, National Honor requires a 3.75 average unweighted (at least it did at my daughter’s school).</p>

20

<p>I can’t wait until Engineer20 is posting on here asking Vlad how to do his HW</p>