Hi everyone,
I am currently trying to figure out a way to get a second Bachelor’s in mechanical engineering. I got my first Bachelor’s in Architecture but it was from another country. After working for many years in the field I decided I needed a change and I am really interested in pursing a degree in mechanical engineering. So here are the issues I am facing:
- I live in California, so most of the colleges don’t even accept second Bachelor’s
- The very few colleges that do accept, care about my GPA from my first bachelor’s and as you can all guess it wasn’t good, I am not sure about the exact GPA because we used different grading system but after searching I think it’s around 1.0.
I wanted to know if there is any way around it, I was thinking to take my lower division classes in community college then try to find if any college allows students to attend upper division classes but as an open course. I was hoping to try to gather the upper division classes even if I won’t be awarded an official degree from the college. I tried to find open courses but all I could find are online courses.
Any suggestions?
The grading system we have is 4.0 (the best) to 0 (failure)…getting a 1.0 average is just barely not failing any of your classes …in the US you would have been kicked out after the first year.
It woudl seem in California for the public schools they don’t have enough room for people trying to get a first bachelors.
but in some cases: UC Davis
Second-baccalaureate-degree applications will only be considered for admission in the College of Engineering if the applicant’s first degree was not in engineering, is transferring directly from a California community college, and if all the respective selection criteria and lower-division engineering major preparatory work is completed prior to transfer. See the check majors section for details.
How would you pay for this?
Start by having your academic records for your first bachelor degree evaluated by https://www.wes.org/ Pay for both the course-by-course evaluation as well as the document-by-document evaluation. That way you will have good information about your grades in specific classes, as well as your overall GPA. This will maximize the number of credits that will be accepted for transfer. You want that because it will reduce the number of classes that you have to take. But do remember that some places will require you to re-take some classes that they consider to be too old - for example, they often expect that you have forgotten a whole bunch of math and want you to start at a lower level.
You also should be talking with graduate programs. given your years of professional work experience, there may be a way to transition into the new field with only a minimum of undergrad courses and then a year or two of graduate credits.
thanks a lot for the replies.
The colleges that still accept second bachelor’s for engineering are UC Santa Cruz and CSULB. The university in Long beach won’t accept me unless I have at least 2.5 GPA in my 1st bachelor. There are classes that I am supposed to take in a community college, which will factor into the overall GPA but the problem is that they need me to take few classes only, so even if I got great grades in them, they wont raise my total GPA by much and they even won’t allow me to take extra classes to improve my scores! So my initial low GPA makes it pretty impossible to get accepted there.
As for UC Davis, they will stop accepting second bachelor applications starting Fall 2020 in the College of Engineering, so by the time I am done with the lower division classes, I won’t be able to apply there.
The only college left is UC Santa Cruz, I am still waiting for their response.
Regarding paying for college, I was just going to pay it myself especially when the first 2 years will be spent in community college to finish the lower division classes.
As for the graduate programs, mechanical engineering is really far from architecture, I will mainly skip general ed classes but that’s about it, all classes are going to be new to me and in order to get into a graduate school in ME, then I need to do a full bachelor in ME. But you are right, I plan to evaluate my degree to know exactly where I am standing.
According to this web site from a community college, some CSUs accept second bachelor’s degree students:
http://students.ivc.edu/transfercenter/Pages/bachelor.aspx
CMA, CSULB, and CSUN have mechanical engineering and accept second bachelor’s degree students.
For UCs, see this information:
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/transfer/helping-students/second-baccalaureate/index.html
Is money a problem? Why not look at privates?
What about a Master’s instead, for those who don’t have a BS in engineering?
http://www.bu.edu/eng/prospective-graduate/leap/
Google “masters in mechanical engineering without bachelors” for other ideas.
It is very difficult for me to believe that you graduated with your first degree with the equivalent of a US 1.0. Did you flat-out fail most of your classes and need to repeat them? Did you barely pass them when you repeated? If so, how on earth did you manage to get your degree (and presumably your professional license in your country) at all? Think that through.
This is why you need to have your records professionally evaluated before you do anything more. Contact WES today and start the process. What looks like a 1.0 to you might not be that low once the grades are evaluated. Also, since you are applying as a transfer, the worst grades might not matter at all depending on how the recieving institution evaluates replacement credits.
Many colleges have some sort of “evening” college or “extended learning” school that is for students who are older than the usual 18-22 &/or want to take classes at night or on the weekends. These programs generally take almost anybody who applies. Here’s an example:
https://www.cpie.csulb.edu/OpenUniversity/default.aspx
Here’s another:
https://extension.ucmerced.edu/courses