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<p>Did he? Then let’s talk about an actual example, rather than just merely relying upon hypotheticals.</p>
<p>I know an engineering student who had a terrible first semester - earning 2 F’s and 2 D’s, for an overall GPA of, literally, 0.5. Granted, the rules do instead state that you must have a cumulative GPA of below a 2.0 for 2 consecutive semesters before dismissal. However, given his state, that would have meant obtaining a whopping 3.5 GPA in his 2nd semester in order to raise his cumulative GPA to a 2.0. This he was not able to accomplish, having earned “only” a 3.0 (which is quite respectable) in his second semester for a cumulative GPA of 1.75. Hence, he was expelled because his cum GPA was below a 2.0 for 2 consecutive semesters.</p>
<p>Consider carefully what his story entails. All you basically need is one terrible first semester to find yourself stuck within a quagmire. He didn’t know what engineering was when he entered school - heck, few incoming freshmen do. Nevertheless, the first semester of engineering proved to be far too difficult for him, and hence he was thrown out of college completely despite the modest recovery during his second semester. Last I heard, he was working as a security guard at a supermarket, because that’s the best job he could get with no college degree. </p>
<p>Which raises the question: can’t a guy have a bad first semester? Let’s face it - plenty of college students adjust poorly in their first semester away from home. This is particularly true when confronted with exotic and recondite coursework such as engineering that few high school students have ever encountered before. But no, at Berkeley (and likely many other schools as well), engineering students are not allowed to have a bad first semester.</p>
<p>Yet ironically, MIT - certainly no milquetoast of a school - does allow its students to have a bad first semester. MIT - as a matter of policy - grades all courses within the freshman first semester via a P/NR policy where failing grades are not recorded on the external transcript and are not counted in terms of determining probation/expulsion. Surely I am not the only one who finds it paradoxically that MIT - arguably the most famous and rigorous engineering school in the country - grants mercy to students who suffer from a bad first semester, yet other schools refuse to do the same. </p>
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<p>So let’s continue with my example. That guy didn’t continually try and fail. He basically only tried and failed once - having had one bad semester. But one bad semester is all it took. You say that students who try and fail ought to address the problem at hand. Indeed, he did; his second semester was actually moderately successful, having earned straight B’s. But that wasn’t good enough, because he had that one bad semester, from which he couldn’t recover. </p>
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<p>Again, consider my example carefully. He made not a series of mistakes, but rather one mistake. He had one bad semester; indeed his performance in his second semester was quite respectable. But he was dismissed anyway, as one bad semester is all it took to render his situation mostly unrecoverable. </p>
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<p>Actually, no, not really. That’s why on other threads, I coined the term the ‘engineering major trap’, to delineate the system where, if you perform poorly in engineering, the other majors (which are usually located in another of the university’s constituent college such as the College of Letters & Science), won’t permit you to switch in. </p>
<p>Again, let’s take the example above. Once he had that 0.5 GPA, no other major wanted to take him, because his cum GPA were so poor. They didn’t care that that was because engineering coursework was difficult or because he happened to have suffered from a bad first semester. All they saw was that he had a low cum GPA. He was therefore ‘trapped’ in the engineering major with no escape. </p>
<p>The deep irony is that if he had performed well in engineering, he could have easily switched to another major…but obviously if he was doing well, he would have no reason to switch in the first place. It is those students who are performing poorly and therefore desperately need to switch out of engineering the most who are precisely the ones who are trapped and forced to stay. Little surprise that these students often times find themselves expelled entirely. </p>
<p>Now, granted, I agree that he probably should have switched majors during that first semester when he knew that his engineering coursework was not going well, although even that would have presented serious logistical difficulties (as he would have had to swap his entire set of courses during the middle of the semester). </p>
<p>But what can I say - he thought he could pull it out at the end. He was wrong. He made a mistake. But is that really so terrible? Like I said, can’t a guy have a bad first semester? Apparently, they can only if they go to MIT. </p>
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<p>Frankly, I’m becoming appalled at the attitude that is being expressed in this thread. It seems to me that you’re not willing to lay even a tiny iota of blame upon the school itself, but would rather place the entirety of the blame upon the student. </p>
<p>I don’t deny that the student should shoulder some of the blame. But the school chose to admit him, and so the school should assume some blame as well. Both sides are to blame for the mess. </p>
<p>And, if anything, the bulk of the blame should be directed to the school. After all, most students (usually) choose an undergraduate program only once in their life. In contrast the school admits/rejects boatloads of people every year. Hence, the school has presumably built a wealth of experience and wisdom in knowing who to admit and reject. Why should the school admit somebody who is going to perform poorly? {As to how a school would know who will perform poorly, the school can re-examine its dataset of prior students to determine which admissions attributes are correlated with poor performance, and then admit fewer applicants in the future who possess those attributes.}</p>
<p>I also think the larger and more interesting question is: why should different majors at the same school exhibit such widely varying grading policies? Specifically, why should creampuff majors exist at all? </p>
<p>Consider the words of Stuart Rojstaczer, former engineering professor at Duke:</p>
<p>*Unlike most colleges and universities, Duke’s undergraduate engineering school has a separate admissions office. Every year it has to oversubscribe its admissions because many students will leave the engineering school and transfer into arts and sciences after a year, typically majoring in the social sciences. When you ask students why they make this move, they often say it’s because of the workload and grading.</p>
<p>There is also significant attrition across college campuses when it comes to potential biology majors, typically those who initially wanted to go into medical fields. Again, the driver for this attrition is workload and grading.</p>
<p>There are those who argue that this attrition is a good thing, and I would agree to some extent. We don’t want mediocrity in the design of our bridges and machines, or in a hospital operating room. But some of this attrition is undoubtedly unnecessary.</p>
<p>I don’t want to dwell on Duke, but many of those who move out of engineering have the talent to excel. In conversations with them, I have heard a common story about seeing people in dorms partying away and wondering, “Why not me?”</p>
<p>That’s what I mean by unnecessary (and harmful) attrition. I don’t believe that the sciences and engineering should demand less of their students. Rather, the social sciences and humanities need to demand more.*</p>
<p>[Grade</a> Inflation: Your Questions Answered - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/grade-inflation-your-questions-answered/]Grade”>Grade Inflation: Your Questions Answered - The New York Times)</p>