<p>It’s tedious as crap and I was glad to get that topic behind me.</p>
<p>Sometimes the size of the school’s placement services plays a role. I attended Michigan State as an undergrad and back then (late 80’s/early 90’s) Michigan State had one of the largest placement services of all universities.</p>
<p>SmilinJim, since your son likes where he is, and it is highly regarded, those are points in favor of him staying at the school in the civil engineering program. Even better if he likes civil engineering. People tend to do better (in life) doing what they like (even if not necessarily in school).</p>
<p>I graduated with a 2.7 from my undergraduate, which was also highly regarded. (Granted, this was about 25 years ago, and I had slightly better than a 3.0 from junior year on.)</p>
<p>Has your son spoken to any of his professors about his situation? Are there on-campus tutoring services he can go to? Old exams to practice? Other students in similar circumstances who he can study with? Also, what is his typical courseload? Is he taking classes that are graded to his strengths, or his weaknesses? (For example, does he get high scores on homework, but it carries little weight towards the final grade?)</p>
<p>bigtrees, what was the nature of that engineering position that you couldn’t find applicants for?</p>
<p>I often hear recruiters and employers complain they can’t find engineers to fill positions, but I often think it must be a ploy to get more work visas for foreign engineers or for colleges to increase the supply of engineers so pay levels can go down. BUT hard facts are hard to come by. I believe America graduates about 80,000 engineering BS’s per year. Can’t remember where I found that statistic. As I said, facts are hard to come by.</p>
<p>But if engineering positions are so hard to fill then why aren’t starting salaries climbing ever higher? Or is the growing cost of health benefits (which do not show up in starting salary statistics) hiding any growing demand?</p>
<p>Having recently done a lot of interviewing for software engineering positions, we got lots of resumes from US citizens, people with green cards, and people with visas. The latter two groups did not outperform the former group in terms of how well they did on the interviews.</p>
<p>Why? Did a lot of the foreigners say things like “I don’t have to work with Jews, do I?” or “You serve stinky tofu in the cafeteria, right?”</p>
<p>My nephew did a lot better on the upperclass CE major classes. They matched his interest more than the into eng. classes. Your son will get a job w/below a 3.0, so let him continue on. Good luck!</p>
<p>@TomServo, if your question was addressed to me, the people who had green cards and visas were not as qualified for the positions offered, based on their answers to questions about things that generally happen in the normal course of a day on those positions. Among other things, I ask people to find and fix bugs in open sourceware pertinent to IETF protocol implementations, to implement portions of a protocol or algorithm based on an IETF RFC, and to discuss the implications of certain design and architecture issues regarding IETF protocols. Some of these people had never even read these RFCs, let alone given some thought to how the protocols should be implemented.</p>
<p>He has spoken with his advisors and been making regular visits with his professors. I think part of the problem is he didn’t have the best physics background from HS he could have received. Also, just some normal self-discipline and time management issues in his freshman year hurt. I thought there would be more improvement as soph but the grades are still not what I expected from him. I believe that he has made the necessary adjustments in time commitment and organization.<br>
This is not my field, which is why I am seeking some feedback (and I appreciate the time all have taken) because my impression is that engineering majors is a different than others. The feedback re: improvement once moving onto the higher level courses is important to me. I am trying to assess whether it is reasonable to anticipate improvement (or at least maintaining) after struggling through the core. My experience as computer sci major was that the higher level classes were much more demanding, and much harder to deliver high grades.</p>
<p>Yes…it is the tedious work he struggles with his enthusiasm. He much prefers projects, labs, etc.</p>
<p>If it’s tedious work that’s bothering him things should get better as he moves up in classes. The upper level coursework tends to have more interesting problems, smaller classes, and better homeworks. Also, in my experience, professors tend to be more interested in teaching the classes since they’re more likely to be within their field of expertise.</p>