<p>Well, my S just got his 1st term grades. He is so far doing better in college (engineering) than he did in his highly competitive HS. He hasn't spoken much about his courses, but I think his being healthy & able to attend all his classes for college has really helped him (in HS, he had frequent & prolonged absences due to chronic health issues that we feared would continue to plague him). Kids from his HS tend to do very well at the U he's attending & many are majoring in engineering with him. Don't have info about any curve they have but will ask him when he's next in a talkative mood. :)</p>
<p>It's easy to get an A in a class. All you need to do is show up to class, participate, take decent notes, read your book, and study WITH OTHER PEOPLE. If you have more than one head working together you will think things out from different viewpoints and own the material better!</p>
<p>I really do think there is substantial variabililty in grading--different Us, different schools/departments within Us, lower division/weeder classes vs. upper division/grad classes, etc.</p>
<p>I agree that attending class, participating, taking notes, studying with others, ATTENDING OFFICE HOURS, all help students do as well as possible in school.</p>
<p>I figure as long as our kids with merit aid keep their grades high enough to keep their scholarships, they're on the right track anyway. :)</p>
<p>My S has joked that if he wanted to switch majors to IR or Communications, he could get a degree in about 2.5 years with the 32 credits he entered his U with, but he still wants to get his degree in engineering, which will take the full 4 years.</p>
<p>wheatthin, great find!!! I have been to that site eleventy dozen times and I never thought of looking at that faculty academic advising tab.</p>
<p>Here is a new twist on grading which our son mentioned last nite. He attends Rensselaer which has a reputation for tough grading known far and wide as the "Tute Screw", but...</p>
<p>He has a cog sci professor who will regrade a major paper as many times and for as long as the student wishes to revise and resubmit it. He told his class that he has a accepted paper rewritten 5 years(!) after the fact and even attempted to change the final grade! He does this based on his desire for his students to never stop learning and thinking about the quandries he poses in his classes.</p>
<p>And of course the fact that he teaches such things as Anarchism and Democracy doesnt hurt either.</p>
<p>Anyone know about Penn State Engineering in this respect? My sister is freaking out over niece's low grades first semester freshman......</p>
<p>My daughter's comment throughout her first quarter was, "Nobody told the professors this was my 'sure bet' school." She went in knowing that her music scholarship required maintaining a 3.5 in her music classes and that two of the first quarter music classes effectively acted as "weeder" classes. After one quarter, she's in no danger of losing any of her scholarships (music or otherwise), but she said she worked harder than ever before...and had to learn to work smarter. No more procrastination (well, at least at school!), so she keeps two planners...one for coursework and one for performances/ECs. Despite the proximity of her dorm to her classes, she rarely goes there during the day...spends her "down time" in the student lounge in the music building or in a practice room. And she and her roommate have hosted many a study jam in their room, particularly when a theory test is looming. The "word on the street" is that fall quarter is the "easiest" quarter each year, but she's cautiously optimistic that her new-found discipline and time management skills will go a long way in carrying her through. They're going to need to...winter quarter she will have opera rehearsals 7-10pm Monday through Friday on top of her normal load!</p>
<p>mezzomom, your daughter is doing the one thing that I told our son is the most important habit to get into, starting the school day no later than 9am, leaving the dorm(now apartment), focusing on academics throughout the day and returning "home" no earlier than 5pm. If they take a typical 16 ch course load and pick up a quick bite for lunch, students will be able to get in more than 20 hours of study time before dinner each week. </p>
<p>I know that music majors have crazy class schedules which make time management even more important and the 20 hour goal impossible. But at least she is making the most efficient use of her time.</p>
<p>originaloog:</p>
<p>It's not always possible to maintain such a schedule! On three days a week, S has had one hour here, one hour there in a schedule that began at 10 am and did not let up until dinner time or even beyond. there was no sufficiently large chunk of time to really focus on homework. S had a weekly meeting with prof at 5pm. He had a section that began at 7pm on another day, and another at 8pm on still another day.
With all that, it's been frustrating selecting courses, as most of those he wants to take meet at the same time.</p>
<p>I think this is a question with no real answer. It depends on the student, the subject, and the professor--especially the professor. For example, I took a very writing intensive course this semester (three papers each worth 30% of the grade) and did very well because a) I was well-trained in writing coming in (something I attribute to my writing-intensive AP English and History classes in HS) and b) the professor liked my style of writing and my arguments. Part b) is key, I think, and it's why I'm so nervous about taking creative writing next semester despite the fact that I enjoy writing and my work has been generally well-received. Writing, even non-fiction writing, is incredibly subjective, and if you get a professor that just doesn't like your style, it's going to be a long, hard climb. It doesn't matter if the professor is the ONLY person in the world who doesn't like your style/argument; if they're grading you, their opinion means the world. Writing is talent, yes, but it's also luck.</p>
<p>I think part a) also matters, though much more so for freshmen. My freshman seminar for top scholarship winners (so we were all smart) did peer-reviewing, and it was obvious that we all had different levels of writing preparation (note that I didn't say "ability). I've been writing lit crit since 9th grade, so I have a lot of practice in doing so. Some of my classmates wrote well stylistically (I enjoyed reading their papers), but obviously had less training in how to write to the assignment in terms of tone, formality, etc. Similarly, in a class where we had to write argumentative papers drawing from several sources in order to support a common generalization, I had a leg up as I participated in an expository writing competition where we did something very similar (though we had to come up with our own sources as opposed to using materials from class) so I was no stranger to what was being asked... Some of my classmates were. With more training, I don't doubt that some of my classmates will become "better" writers than I with time and practice. It's not so much ability as it is training.</p>
<p>With objective classes like chemistry, physics, and math, it is the quality of the professor AND the student. Some lucky people (of which I am not one) just "get" things like physics or math like that without having to study, some can get it if they buckle down and study, and some can study until they go blind and just not get it. There's a lot of innate ability in that, I think.</p>
<p>On another topic, I would like to question to assertion that hard-grading professors/teachers are always better. While Ive had a number of tough teachers that I loved, I also think theres a certain amount of value in having a class where you can concentrate on whats being taught without constantly worrying about your grade. For example, I had the easy AP English teacher senior year where I basically got an A for showing up and doing the work. Results? 5 on the AP test, success in a statewide writing competition, good experiences so far with college writing, less stress senior year. Another example was abnormal psych this semester. Class had no tests, only quizzes and one paper at the end of the semester. No required outside reading if you came and listened to the lectures. It was an awesome class. It was entertaining, it was hilarious, I loved listening to the lectures, and as a result, I learned a ton. It stuck, not because we had 12-page essay tests but because it was taught brilliantly from experience, not from weeder-class academics. Easy A? Yeah. Useless class? Not a chance.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Anyone know about Penn State Engineering in this respect? My sister is freaking out over niece's low grades first semester freshman......
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Wildmom:
I don't know about Penn State but engineering courses in general tend to have much harsher grading resulting in lower GPAs and many more B/C (and lower) grades than in non-engineering courses. Engineering tends to start with 'weeder' courses as well. I think the important thing for your niece is to see how she's doing relative to the rest of the class. If she's near the bottom she might want to reconsider her major. If she's in the middle or higher, she probably shouldn't worry about the grade so much.</p>
<p>Um, at WUSTL, getting an A is extremely tough. </p>
<p>Getting a B is not too hard, but an A is hard.</p>
<p>vtoodler, with an average undergraduate gpa of about 3.39 it doesn't appear that A's are all that hard to get.</p>
<p>Student with good preparation, willing to work hard and chose their professor wisely, "A" shall be within their reach. Many students however has poor math or reading skill and some of them also also involve in too many other activities,they tend to get bad grades. Roughly half of students in my engineering class get either A or B.</p>
<p>"vtoodler, with an average undergraduate gpa of about 3.39 it doesn't appear that A's are all that hard to get."</p>
<p>just cuz the average undergrad gpa is a 3.39 doesn't mean that an A is easy. It just means that the students work hard. I said that getting an A is tough, but not impossible</p>
<p>Now I never have used a set schedule. If I feel the need to study, I'll study. If I feel I don't, I'll find something else. I also get to balance work and some activities in there (all but one of which are off campus).</p>
<p>I actually find I have way too much free time on the weekends. Thankfully I get to work every Saturday morning and I spend all of Sunday morning at church. That still gives me all Saturday and Sunday afternoon and night. Sometimes I use those slots for preparing study guides, other times I have nothing going on (I've been known to go to my workbench, play around on the computer, or if it's the spring/summer I'll call someone up and go to a baseball game with them--the tough time is the baseball offseason for me).</p>