CNN: "Why would-be engineers end up as English majors"

[cosmicfish]

<p>Sorry, I’ve been gone for a while, but let me dive back in…</p>

<p>

But like I said, no matter how severe of a mistake that may be, should he really have to pay for that for the rest of his life? He was merely 17 years old - still not a legal adult - when he embarked upon that difficult coursework. Most minors who are convicted of petty crimes will have their cases remanded to juvenile court where the records of the proceedings will be sealed and the conviction will be wiped from his record after a few years of clean living. Similarly, a personal bankruptcy, as a matter of Federal law, will be wiped from your credit record after a 7-year period. Moving violations will be eliminated from your driving record after a certain waiting period. But failing grades remain on your academic record for life.

My academic record has a ton of F’s from when I flunked out. I received good offers from every company where I interviewed, and received funded PhD program offers from 4 out of 5 schools to which I applied. According to you, that simply cannot happen? No matter what your situation, you can supplant old failure with new success. Fail out of an engineering program, and there are plenty of options for you, including going back into and completing an engineering program.</p>

<p>

But that final 5% of admittees surely represents a large chunk of students who are likely to perform poorly.

I admit that I find it quite funny that you are apparently very forgiving to supposed adults who do poorly in one specific college but are willing to immediately condemn not-yet-adults based on their performance. Someone who gets a C- average in high school should not even be given a chance, but someone who gets a C- average in an engineering program should be immediately and completely forgiven? </p>

<p>FWIW, I graduated in the bottom 50% of my high school, and in the top 5% of my college. My high school Valedictorian dropped out of my same school after only a couple of years.</p>

<p>

For example, if more talented and creative people are drawn to study engineering, more innovation and entrepreneurship will be spurred, hence increasing the overall demand (and hence salaries) of engineers.

Your argument then hinges on the idea that these failing/failed engineering students are the ones that are going to contribute the most to society and their profession. What makes you think that someone unable to either complete the program or save themselves from complete failure prior to flunking out is then going to go out and somehow apply their astonishing creativeness and talent in a productive way?</p>

<p>From my experience (both as a working engineer and as a failed engineering student) the very qualities that will make a student fail out of an engineering program are the same qualities that make it highly unlikely that they will be able to function as an engineer. My turnaround occurred when I accepted that I had not done everything I could, made changes in myself, and went at it with seriousness and passion, and that took time - I didn’t flunk out on Monday and start churning out components on Friday.</p>