<p>I'm taking my first semester at an engineering college, and i've been surprised at how difficult the Calculus I for Engineers course has been. To put it in perspective, at my college, the average ACT score of admitted freshmen is 28-30, 30% were in the top 10% of their high school class, and 10% were valedictorians. Average high school GPA was a 3.6-3.8.</p>
<p>Moreover, roughly 80% of my class of 200 people took AP Calculus in high school. But I looked up our school's records, and during the last five years, Calculus I has had a fail rate of 27%, with only 13% of students in the class getting A's. </p>
<p>I'm amazed at how high the fail rate is (and how low the percentage of A's is.) Is this fairly standard as far as engineering colleges go, or does it sound like the course at my college is just designed to be particularly difficult with minimal grade curving?</p>
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but seriously, if you think calc I has a high failure rate, wait til calc II, and III.
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<p>I would think calc 3 will have lower failure rate than calc 2 or calc 1. Why is weeding out for calc 3 necessary when most of the incapable students are weeded out by calc 1 and 2?</p>
<p>well, i took AP calc in HS, got an A in class and a 4 on the test. Took calc II at community college and got an A. took calc III in 1st semester of freshman year. well it was a pretty big change. i struggled to maintain a B. half of my calc III class was freshmen.</p>
<p>80% took AP Calc but no one took or passed the test? that says something about the relatively high failure rate.</p>
<p>I hadn't thought about it that way. Maybe it's somewhat self selective then - those that passed the AP test would have credit for this class already and wouldn't be taking it in the first place. Personally I never had any sort of calculus prior, so maybe that's why it's been so difficult for me.</p>
<p>The difficulty was quite a surprise to me though. I know many people (as myself) who had all A's in high school and grade school, but who are now getting C's and lower in these classes. Myself.. i'm borderlining on all A's, but i've had to basically spend every free hour of the semester studying to do it. No social life to speak of, and i'll probably still end up with a B in Calculus 1.</p>
<p>I hope they are just trying to weed people out and that the higher classes are easier, or at least more fairly curved. (Actually, another theory we've had is they made it more difficult to permanently kick incoming freshmen out of their generously awarded scholarships from the school by lowering their GPA)</p>
<p>This ain't High School anymore. Its better to discover now that the requirements are now higher. Your story is similar to DS when he attended CMU. The first midterms in physics and calculus, practically everyone did poorly. The professors had supposedly over estimated the capability of the class. I think that this was done on purpose to identify those who really knew the stuff, mark those who where placed in the wrong class, give incentives those to work harder, and weed those who are borderline. </p>
<p>It gets harder. Then it gets easier. The first hills are always the hardest.</p>
<p>Perhaps the degree of difficulty at your school, makes your school a desirable school that recruiters can depend on getting quality hires?</p>
<p>Engineering is tough--in fact, we have been told by many that if you can graduate with a degree in engineering, you can do just about anything! Hang in there--and by the way, I think it is tough no matter where you attend school. It is just the nature of the curriculum; the rigidity of it. But, you will be ready to face the world if you survive and you will not be afraid of hard work!</p>
<p>Ahh, yes - physics. I will be taking engineering physics next semester. My college posts the current grades online, so I was able to take a look at how everyone in that class is doing now that they are over 3/4ths of the way through the semester.</p>
<p>This semester, there are roughly 400 students taking the intro physics course. At this moment, 3% of them have A's and the average grade is a 68%. Taking that class will be an 'adventure' for sure - especially for me, having never taken any sort of physics in high school.</p>
<p>I do hope that employers realize the difficulty level of this school though, assuming this is the way it will be all of the way through. I worry that they might simply compare GPA at my college to GPA at other colleges. We've had I believe 18 people out of around 3,000 graduate with a 4.0GPA in recent years. They have their names on a plaque in one of the buildings. A GPA of 3.5 here is probably considered pretty remarkable, but i'm not sure if employers will look at it that way. On the bright side, if the demand for engineers remains about as high in the future as it is now, the GPA issue might become a moot point.</p>
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We've had I believe 18 people out of around 3,000 graduate with a 4.0GPA in recent years. They have their names on a plaque in one of the buildings. A GPA of 3.5 here is probably considered pretty remarkable, but i'm not sure if employers will look at it that way.
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I'm not sure that's especially tough. I think my department had it's first 4.0 in over 6 years this past year.</p>
<p>Lol, that would be what my father calls grade inflation. Back in the days, when my father was a math major in Vietnam, the failing grades for most math courses were 90% (even though the admission rate for the math department of the University was lower than 10% back then).</p>
<p>My experience was that coursework got easier, but only because we grew more capable as time went on. I took a freshman class as a junior (due to changing to a different major - it was an engineering graphics class) and didn't think the class was all that bad, but the poor freshman in there looked like the were suffering. I remember thinking that I would probably have been struggling too if I were a freshman.</p>
<p>I'm not sure that's especially tough. I think my department had it's first 4.0 in over 6 years this past year.</p>
<p>I found out recently that the college is somewhat unique in the sense that it will allow grade transfers from other colleges. Some of those 4.0's might be partly due to that as well... Also, the 4.0's include the other majors, not just engineering.</p>
<p>My cousin went to a non-engineering college (that is close to being a community college) for 2 years before coming here, and I believe all of the credits that he was able to transfer over came with the grades as well. Such a system makes it tempting to go elsewhere for the first year or two, but i've decided i'm not going to do that.</p>
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Vietnam, the failing grades for most math courses were 90%
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<p>No offense, that means that they had some pretty terrible math courses. The more difficult questions on math exams in typical math major courses should be so difficult that almost no one, save for a few brilliant people, should solve.</p>
<p>It just sounds like the tests were very easy, so everyone did well.</p>
<p>Sorry, I meant the failing RATE. (: Usually, only THE most brilliant student could do all the problems on a final.</p>
<p>You have to remember that those who made it to the University are already top 3%. (one of every 37 kids score high enough to be admitted to the college of mathematics). So basically, it's top 10% of top 3% who pass, or .3% passing rate. Besides, Vietnamese math is way, way, way harder than any math done in the US, even during the 1st yrs of postsecondary education (I am not talking about graduate education of course)</p>