<p>Hello. I will be attending GT this fall and majoring in electrical engineering. I have read many reviews on the course load and how hard it is to get good grades here. Please let me know the run down on how hard the classes are. I will be taking the typical freshman classes and I want to know how hard it will be to get at least a 3.0.</p>
<p>According to GT admission blog, 60+% students keep their Hope Scholarship ==> at least 60% of in state students got 3.0 or higher after year one.</p>
<p>If you worry about GPA and/or keep Hope Scholarship, take easier loaded first year. In general, Calculus II, Calculus III, Physic 1, Physics II, CS 1, CS 2 are considered difficult courses. So just make sure don’t take too many those courses. Another way to booster Hope GPA is take some courses at local community courses at GPC to booster Hope GPA. Of course, those courses don’t count as Ga Tech GPA, but those grades count as Hope GPA.</p>
<p>Also, search Ga Tech web site. It lists the grade distribution for each courses.</p>
<p>I think it’s not that hard - I kept a 4.0 for two semesters (after that still doing well, just a B here and there). The classes are a lot of work, but the super-hard classes like Calc II, Physics, etc. always have a nice curve :)</p>
<p>So basically if you’re fairly smart and put in the work / manage your time, it’s really easy to keep above a 3.0</p>
<p>maea - how much time did u put up for academics per day or per week to keep 4.0? and in general what did u to be prepared (im horrible at that kinda stuff and need to leanr know-hows lol) </p>
<p>also do u have some good survivial tips (lol i know) for those super-hard weed out classes?</p>
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<p>Per day? Goodness it varied a lot. I ended up spending about … I’d say 15 hours per week studying/doing homework (mostly homework). More if there was a big test like a midterm.</p>
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<p>Hmm… for weed-out classes, most of those are intro classes, so you have TAs. If you start to fall behind, go to a TA’s office hours and ask for help and explanations. Also professors will often post old tests online (on T-Square, our online grade/assignment service thing, or on their website). TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THESE OLD TESTS; they are super-useful in figuring out the types of questions that will show up on the tests. Also obviously manage your time well, don’t drink too much (a good rule is never drink on a school night), blah blah blah.</p>
<p>This is a random question, but what do you think about chemistry (general (as in 1310, not 1311) and organic) at GT? Is that considered a weedout? I’m just curious because I’ve seen some 1310 exams from some friends, and they seem somewhat tough, but ours seem a bit harder (requires more conceptual thinking and extrapolation. The free response questions can get really rough due to tricky wording and the general scope of the task). The only thing I recognize that may make it harder is the all-multiple choice format which provides no opportunity for partial credit. I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t think it was too hard because I hear that the physics/calc. based classes tend to be weedouts over there, while biology and chem. are killers here. Just curious, cause at one point I thought of going to GT, and everyone seems to believe that everything is harder over there. I felt compelled to ask this to someone doing well at GT about it.</p>
<p>Oh, just in case you don’t know (despite me posting here a lot), I go to Emory. In interact with a lot people who go to or are associated with both in some way, but I never thought to actually ask a GT student about the academic experience over there. I just follow the crowd and assume it must be much harder, even though our average GPAs w/in the sciences may be comparable (we basically have GERs and some humanities to keep our overall GPAs up).</p>
<p>GP had an insightful comparison in a thread a while back, but I want to hear the opinion of a current student. I always wanted to know what I would have gotten myself into if I went to Tech now-a-days lol.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say I’m qualified to answer that question… I didn’t take chemistry at Tech (my major, CS, requires essentially Physics and one other science of our choice, for which I chose Earth Science).</p>
<p>I have taken honors Chem 1310 and Biology 1510. My assessment is that the science classes are rigorous, but not overly so. Honors labs are insane, but the tests are not to too bad since they are not multiple choice (so there is an opportunity for partial credit). Curves also tend to be very generous.</p>
<p>I would not consider Chem 1310 or Bio 1510 to be weed out courses, but I also didn’t think Calc II was a weed out course. I have found all my math/science courses to be challenging, but fair and curved well. Perhaps I have just been lucky…</p>
<p>Yeah, bio, chem, and physics are usually not curved up at Emory (one section would have to have a significantly lower average than the rest). Sometimes intro. biology does have the notorious downcurve though. Normally, if one section’s average is a good bit higher than the rest, they take border line grades and curve it down to the next level (if you have like an 83-83.5, for example, you’d get a B- instead of a B). As for bio and chem. lab, they are intense. Often they are significantly more work than the lectures. Bio 142 lab, for example, involved one module that had us mutating (torturing lol) Zebrafish to explore developmental genetics (you would essentially have to figure out which pathways were interrupted by each mutagen). It involved this stupid write-up, a big presentation (like every module), and an exam, which was tough in my year. This the normal procedure for each module. That module was extremely tedious though. It was tougher than the one first semester where we had to design our own research project. So obviously, we at Tech and Emory students are having great times in our science classes lol. Oh, and I have a friend here that agrees with you about calc. II (she took Tech Calc. 2 and 3 as a senior in highschool and got As!). She claims that she thinks she would do better in intro classes at Tech because of the curves (she’s apparently doing worse here). I thought she was crazy lol.</p>
<p>Would you suggest using AP credit to get out of Chem 1310 (or Calc I and Physics 2211, for that matter)? Or, in general how would you suggest using AP credit to get out of classes?</p>
<p>I would take all the credit you can get, with one caveat. If you made a 3 in BC Calc, or a 4 in AB Calc (especially if it was your junior year and you did not take calculus your senior year) then you may want to retake Calc I.</p>
<p>bernie2012: The professor for the distance calculus class your friend took is insanely easy. I guess they want to encourage those students to come to Tech…). That is not representative of most Calc II/III classes, and I am not surprised she got an A in both. We also have some professors who curve down, or who make it very difficult to get an A, but not to hard to get a B. Some make both A’s and B’s difficult. For example, one Calc professor required a 90 for and A, 80 for a B, and 35 for a C…</p>
<p>What’s distance calculus? I know nothing about how that works. She’s from Atlanta, she actually took it on Tech’s campus, if that’s what you mean. She joint-enrolled or something. I thought she took the same level class with everyone else at Tech. Did they separate the joint-enrolled or something? Also attaining 80 is difficult in weedout classes at Tech? Are the calc. classes only based on exams? If so, I can understand that. Yeah, again, no intro. weedouts, but orgo. adjust the scale or curve here.</p>
<p>Tech offers Calculus II/III to high school students and they take Prof. Morley, who typically gives out ~60% A’s and gives practive exams nearly identical to the real exams…</p>
<p>Attaining 80 could be difficult depending on the professor/class. My Calc II class was 80% exams/final and 20% homework.</p>
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<p>Agreed in full.</p>
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<p>Then it wasn’t through the distance program, she just joint-enrolled. The distance learning Calc II/Calc III is relatively new (only ~5 years old) and only available to certain counties (when I took it 4 years ago it was only available to two counties).</p>
<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>Given the fact you’re all discussing how hard could Gatech be for undergrad, Can you tell me how hard are grad classes so I don’t have to post a message which will basically cover the same topic? I will be attending Georgia tech in fall for a M.S.E.C.E more specifically in wireless comm and networking + DSP design. Are grad courses hard?, what would you recommend? how much time do you have to employ to do very well (I need to maintain a 3.0 average as well, Fulbright Scholarship)</p>
<p>Thanks for the info!</p>
<p>Getting a 3.0 isn’t hard to do by any means. People usually fall short of this their first year here because they neglect to go to class and study for the proper amount of time. It’s really not a whole lot of work, you just gotta do it and stay on top of it. </p>
<p>As far as grad classes go, I can only speak for Chem/Bio, but it isn’t hard to maintain a 3.0 for grad students. I haven’t met many grads who get C’s.</p>
<p>When I came to gt I thought it was gonna be incredibly difficult, au contraire, it was actually easier than high school.
I think a major difference between those who do well in their freshman year and those who dont, is the level of difficulty of their High School classes. Bottom line if you have taken the right AP and IB classes, and you actually learnt something in those classes, you should do well.</p>