How hard is engineering at your school?

<p>So yeah. I graduated this weekend. Interestingly, I got the first look at real data for my school on the distribution of grades between majors. Of 30 graduating EEs, only 1 had a cumulative GPA above 3.5. Of 28 graduating MEs, only 4 had a GPA above 3.5. How does this compare?</p>

<p>I went to UCDavis, and got a BS in ChemE. When I started there were about 40-50 people in my class. By my senior year there were about 20-25, of which about 10 were in my freshman classes. I think about 18 ChemEs graduated with me and the average gpa was 2.7.</p>

<p>My professor for fluid dynamics began the course by saying that 40% of us would get Ds or Fs in his class... he didn't lie. While this might seem like a assinine thing to say I am grateful for him and the challenges he gave me, and while I got an F in his class the first time the C and then B+ in the second portion of the class really made me into the engineer that I am today.</p>

<p>Your schools sounds pretty brutal. I remember hearing somewhere that 1/3 of engineering majors hat a 3.5 or higher in my graduating class at UC Berkeley. Which sounds really odd, because according to my friend in EECS, the average GPA there is 2.9 and they're the largest engineering major...</p>

<p>^ I don't think that's true, although upper division classes here do tend to be graded more leniently.</p>

<p>Hard to say, I go to a big engineering school. I know many students with excellent gpa's, but there's a lot of room for people with bad gpa's that I may not know of. I would guess that the average gpa here is around a 3.1-3.2.</p>

<p>Yeah, 33% having 3.5 or higher doesn't seem right...
Normally 4.0 and 3.5's are for the top 15%.</p>

<p>2.7-2.8 seems to about right for an average gpa.</p>

<p>Cal Poly's EE department requires the average GPA in a lower-division EE course to be 2.5 +/- 0.2.. so what seems "low" is not surprising at all.</p>

<p>I just found out EXACT gpas for all fields in our school.</p>

<p>I don't know it on top of my head, but it went something like:
Comp S ~ 3.0
Nuclear E ~ 2.9-3.0
Chem E ~ 2.9-3.0
Industrial E ~ 3.3 or 3.5
Mechanical E ~ 3.1
BME ~ 3.4ish</p>

<p>So overall, avg GPA for engineering is ~3.0-3.1.</p>

<p>PolyScie was somethign liek 3.6.... some were 3.7-3.8!
Engineering had by far one of the lowest avg gpa.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Your schools sounds pretty brutal. I remember hearing somewhere that 1/3 of engineering majors hat a 3.5 or higher in my graduating class at UC Berkeley. Which sounds really odd, because according to my friend in EECS, the average GPA there is 2.9 and they're the largest engineering major...

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That doesn't sound so unreasonable. In every CS/EE class I have taken (only lower divs) the average has been a B to B+. And we have to take quite a few humanities classes, which are almost guaranteed A's...</p>

<p>Perhaps upper div classes are graded harder</p>

<p>No, if anything, upper div graded easier. I was mech E, so maybe this was different for EE, but I think upper divs are generally easier without the added burden of trying to weed people out.</p>

<p>Congrats, Mr. Payne!</p>

<p>at university of maryland, college park...</p>

<p>if you are average in a class and do all your hw, chances are you will get a B-.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Congrats, Mr. Payne!

[/quote]
Thanks. It's good to be done.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Comp S ~ 3.0
Nuclear E ~ 2.9-3.0
Chem E ~ 2.9-3.0
Industrial E ~ 3.3 or 3.5
Mechanical E ~ 3.1
BME ~ 3.4ish

[/quote]
What school is this?</p>

<p>
[quote]
Your schools sounds pretty brutal. I remember hearing somewhere that 1/3 of engineering majors hat a 3.5 or higher in my graduating class at UC Berkeley. Which sounds really odd, because according to my friend in EECS, the average GPA there is 2.9 and they're the largest engineering major..

[/quote]
</p>

<p>One possible explanation is that those students who do performed poorly in engineering are the ones who tend to drop out of engineering (or flunk out entirely), and hence never graduate from engineering at all. </p>

<p>It's like looking only at the survivors of a war and concluding that nobody died in the fighting.</p>

<p>totally agree with sakky.</p>

<p>i know a lot of people, myself included, have above a 3.50 cumulative because the people who got C's and D's already dropped out.</p>

<p>To be honest, I think my school is pretty easy, especially for such a reputable university in Canada. However, I've been told that the ChemE classes are not exactly the cream of the crop at my school. Given how little effort I put in, I'm reaping a lot of rewards. I don't think I deserve the grades I get given my study habits.</p>

<p>
[quote]
To be honest, I think my school is pretty easy, especially for such a reputable university in Canada. However, I've been told that the ChemE classes are not exactly the cream of the crop at my school. Given how little effort I put in, I'm reaping a lot of rewards. I don't think I deserve the grades I get given my study habits.

[/quote]
Wouldn't that depend on how smart you are relative to the other students?</p>

<p>omg @ low engineering grades</p>

<p>I used to be intersted in engineering but realized that since I had subpar/really crappy science/math skills and that I need a 3.7-4.0 GPA in college to get into a T14 Law School, I eventually decided to abandon Engineering in favor of political science :)</p>