<p>I am currently a Junior in Mechanical Engineering. I have taken all my pre-reqs and all my math classes except for Numerical Analysis. I am currently taking Engineering Statistics, Programming, Thermo II, Fluids, Material Science, and a Liberal Study. I seem to be doing fine, although Fluids is a bit tough (it is my professors first year of teaching as well which doesn't help). I have a 3.0 GPA. I have never had more than one C a semester. The rest have all been A's and B's and my highest semester GPA was a 3.5 so far. I have been on track to graduate in four years since the beginning and I currently have a year and a half left after this semester. </p>
<p>I have been reading on the internet about how hard it is to get a job unless you have a 3.5+ GPA. It seems the more I read on the internet the more I get discouraged. It just seems pointless to put as much time and work I put into this degree if I am just going to have a piece of paper that is worthless because my GPA isn't high enough. I guess I am just not sure what to do. Sometimes I feel like I'm not smart enough and I am just wasting time on a piece of paper that won't get me anywhere unless I am top of my class. I have been interested in engineering since I was a little kid and I knew from a young age I would do engineering. The interest level is there, but why spend the time if companies won't hire someone without a 3.5+ GPA?</p>
<p>I'm not sure what else to say...hopefully someone has some sort of advice.</p>
<p>In all seriousness though, a 3.0 is still considered respectable, and adequate for most engineering jobs. There are some positions that may require a higher GPA, but a 3.0 is more typical.</p>
<p>Don’t be discouraged - a 3.0 is a good GPA for engineering.</p>
<p>I would say a 3.5+ would be for the most competitive jobs, but with a 3.0 you should absolutely be able to get a degree unless you have some horrendous personality issues that simultaneously manifest during the interview. </p>
<p>Don’t believe everything you read on the internet. People get jobs with a 3.0. You’re almost done, suck it up and keep pushing through.</p>
<p>Some biiig companies (such as Apple or Google or Microsoft) have so many applicants that they can afford to have high GPA cutoffs (such as 3.5). A 3.5+ gets you a better chance of not getting thrown into a recycling bin… at the biiiig, “everybody and their mothers know about these company” companies. </p>
<p>Greater than a 3.2 should still get you a foot in the door at large companies too.</p>
<p>3.0 seems to be the hard cut off point for a spectacular GPA. Lower than that and applying for jobs gets harder, but plenty of people have gotten jobs with 2.8’s. They probably also have spectacular resumes from team projects and such.</p>
<p>Honestly, it would be better for you to start spending time on extracurriculars if you haven’t already. Proven success in team projects is amazing for resumes and shows companies what you can offer them.</p>
<p>I was apart of one of the ASME Projects during Freshmen year…I plan on joining SAE before my capstone for various reasons. With this being said, I do A LOT of other things outside of engineering and enjoy a life outside of engineering. In many ways I am a lot different than your typical engineering student. Some engineering students don’t leave the engineering building…it is all they know and all they do. That is great and of course it looks great on a resume! With that being said, that is not me. I enjoy a balance of engineering and other activities I enjoy from motocross, fishing, hunting, snowboarding, and many more. I am very social and personable. Don’t mistake this as slacking off in engineering though, I put a lot of hard work into engineering, but also enjoy the above activities on the weekends as well.</p>
<p>If you have a bad gpa just make it up with great social skills during your interviews, once you do an internship or co-op and they like your work, gpa won’t be a problem.</p>
<p>I was a manager at a large aerospace company (now retired) and we had a cutoff of 3.0 for new hires. I was always more interested in what classes the applicant had and their grades in the classes that were applicable to job I was offering. I would recalculate the applicant’s GPA for the relevant classes and their overall engineering GPA (grades in courses like music didn’t interest me at all). I would have many applicants for the available positions so I usually was looking for kind of “hook”. Did they have project work or an internship in the area they would be working.</p>
<p>I would call up the applicants that passed the first screen and get feel of who they were like. Engineering projects tend to involve large groups of people working together so I was very concerned that the applicant had good people skills. I even rejected a 4.0 applicant once who could not stop talking about himself and would have been “heck” to work with.</p>
<p>The 3.5 cutoff you may have heard about could have been the cutoff for summer internships at large companies. It was about that level at my old company. Just got so many applicants for not a lot of internships that we could require such a GPA.</p>