<p>For this first semester in engineering, I took a fair course load (22 credits) and still managed over a 4.0 GPA, but so did a lot of my friends. I kept the studying to a little more than high school level (pulled an allnighter before every prelim and final, but about 7 hrs work/week otherwise). Even though the material will get harder in my sophmore and junior years...the course means will rise also, but so will the caliber of students. So the question is do most people experience a GPA drop, steady GPA, or a rising GPA? </p>
<p>And for all you people freaking out about the difficulty of Cornell, it really is quite exagerrated. I mean, the tests are designed (in engineering) so if you just memorize formulas etc you will get about 60% right, so if you just try to get a bit deeper understanding you should average aroung 85-90% and be set for an A/A+.</p>
<p>Freshmen Engineering courses are mundane, tedious, but relatively easy. Sophomore Engineering courses are mundane, tedious, and rather difficult.
Junior and Senior Engineering courses are more difficult then sophomore courses, but they are interesting and 'fun' (if you could call it that).</p>
<p>Most guys have a dip in their GPA first semester sophomore year. I do not know what it is, but for some reason it is seen across the board.</p>
<p>gomestar I know you've been there longer than us but I've never heard of a cap on how many credits you can take. I think for pre-enrollment you can't sign up for more than 5 courses but at Add/Drop you can add as much as you want...or at least thats what my advisor told me.</p>
<p>Anyway 1337hax0r, you must just hang out with a lot of really smart people or something...I should be close to a 4.0 with a class less than the work level you had (Math 192, CS 100M, Chem 211, FWS, no AEWs) but I don't know a single other person who is (at least in engineering or something like premed). Most are probably closer to 3.0. I mean just think about the median grades of these classes...Math 192, B-, CS100M, B+, Chem 211, B...that's a 3.0 median) I think a lot of it can be attributed to people just not working that hard though - eg Chem 211 was PACKED for the first week, literally had to get there 15 minutes early to get a seat downstairs. Byt the end of the first month I could show up at 12:15 for a 12:20 class and get a seat anywhere I wanted, haha. Some people dropped sure but I'd say a good percentage just never came to class.</p>
<p>And yeah, I'll bet it drops a bit first semester of next year once people who are "weeded out" of engineering are no longer in your classes...although after you get out of the big general classes (math 293/294, physics, ENGRDs) people say that upper-level classes tend to have higher means and whatnot since they aren't graded on a curve any more and if you are interested in the material you'll naturally study more/do better.</p>
<p>It's probably an ILR thing. I know of many engineers who take 20+ credits every semester (I'm taking 21 now and will be taking 21 again next semester). I believe there is a cap at 5 3+ credit classes before you need to petition, but you can take as many 1 credit classes as you wish.</p>