Hello,
I am a senior Physics student at UC Berkeley and wanted to ask about my chances of getting into graduate school for electrical engineering. I don’t have a particularly good GPA (3.4 Berkeley, 3.8 Community College, 3.7 Culm.), but I have 6 Mo. Research experience at JPL, and 18 Mo at Berkeley in Plasma Physics, which may extend into 2 years (depending whether or not I am able to get a job for the fall). I am majoring in Physics, and have taken a number of Electrical Engineering courses and will be earning a minor in Energy Engineering (which is like electrical and renewables put together). I plan to work for somewhere around 2 to 3 years after I graduate, after which time I am interested in going back to graduate school (I am thinking a Ph.D. but it is two years in the future).
Basically, I am really concerned because last time I talked about graduate school with my advisor he effectively told me that I wouldn’t be able to graduate school (“Graduate school isn’t for everyone”). I don’t have my heart set on going to an Ivy League grad school, but would like to go to somewhere moderately nice. I am concerned about my chances of getting into graduate school because I eventually want to get a job doing R&D in EE and most of the jobs I have seen require a Ph.D.
Also, if it is of help, one of the reasons for my low GPA is that since I am a transfer student, I have only taken something like 40 units. Last year during my finals week, a family member was graduating so I made specially arrangements with the teacher to take the test early. I didn’t have as much time to study, forgot to put a vital equation on my cheat sheet and bombed the final. I got a C, but it dropped my GPA by almost 0.2 points. (To further add insult to injury, I was actually fairly good in that class, better than the majority of the class, but I digress)
Thank you very much in advance,