<p>I'm trying to prepare myself for my college career and to do so, I'd like to see how successful other engineering majors were with their classes. Please only answer if you are an engineering major or graduated with a degree in engineering. </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>1) How many years of college/university have you completed?</p>
<p>2) What was your GPA at the end of year 1?</p>
<p>3) Year 2?</p>
<p>4) Year 3?</p>
<p>5) Year 4? </p>
<p>6) If applicable, Year 5?</p>
<p>1) In my 4th year
2) Like a 3.8
3) Like a 3.7
4) Like a 3.6
5) Idk yet, but probably between a 3.5 and a 3.6
6) N/A</p>
<p>I co-op’d the Winter semester of my Jr year, so before that I was kind of ahead of the normal course load. (Jr classes as a soph, stuff like that; nothing too crazy though). </p>
<p>I also came in with AP credit for some of the real weed out GPA killer courses like Calc 1, 2, and physics EM, so that helped me get an early boost in GPA.</p>
<p>Every school is different though. Even within the school different engineering majors will have different average GPAs.</p>
<p>This is unlikely to serve the purpose you want because of a little problem called response bias - people who did well are much more likely to respond.
In general: GPAs are a bit lower than most in engineering, and the classes are a notch above most other majors in difficulty.</p>
<p>What’s the point of this thread? Knowing how other people did doesn’t help make you any better.</p>
<p>I don’t have any actual data just my observations. </p>
<p>Career success and GPA don’t seem to have a big correlation. You need to have a minimum GPA just to get past some companies minimum GPA requirements (usually around 3.0) and somewhat higher (say 3.3 or so) to demonstrate to the hiring manager that you have actually understood enough of the material to be a functioning engineer.</p>
<p>So why no correlation?</p>
<p>Again, just my opinion: Most of the problems you solve in college are contrived to teach a certain principle. It is those problems (homework, quizzes and tests) that one derives most of their GPA from. That senior project is a little more like what a working engineer will do, but still usually somewhat less involved than real world engineering. What really matters is how well you understand the principles and concepts that those contrived problems are trying to teach you. And then, how well you can fit that knowledge into an understanding of the real world. After all, the real world is never as simple as those college problems. You also have to deal with schedules and budgets. You have to be able to work as a team to solve most problems.</p>
<p>You first few years in engineering is more like an apprenticeship as you learn in more depth your chosen field. So, while some may appear to be on their way to becoming good engineers right out of college, I would say that one can not truely judge how good an engineer one will become until you’ve spent 4 or 5 years on the job.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what you hope to learn from a few samples of random people on a forum. There is no shortage of research of grades with portions of the student body. For example, the study at <a href=“http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/grades_4.0.pdf[/url]”>http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/grades_4.0.pdf</a> mentions average GPA by year at Duke. For “non-black students” (they only list results separated by race), the average GPAs were as follows:</p>
<p>1st year – 3.1
2nd year – 3.22
3rd year – 3.36
4th year – 3.46</p>
<p>I expect the average GPA goes up since lower GPA students are more likely to drop out of the major than higher GPA students. The variables they found with the largest contribution to dropping out of the major were as follows, from high to low. Variables with a + increased chance of dropping out as increased. Variables with a - decreased chance of dropping out as increased.</p>
<ol>
<li>Being female (+)</li>
<li>HS curriculum (-)</li>
<li>HS achievement (-)</li>
<li>Application essay (-)</li>
<li>Application LOR (-)</li>
<li>Being an URM (+)</li>
<li>SAT score (-)</li>
<li>Being Asian (-)</li>
<li>Application desirable personal qualities (+)</li>
</ol>
<p>Interesting, I was thinking somewhat about this today. I have been an ‘A’ student throughout undergrad (gpa ~3.9 for first 3 years), but it seems that it may be tougher to pull out the same kinds of grades in senior year. There is nobody left in my engineering classes who is not intelligent and motivated. </p>
<p>Also, it is difficult to have the same kind of enthusiasm for tackling challenging problems in my Gas Dynamics class as the students who are going into Aerodynamics as their field, or going hardcore on a Product Design project as the students who are going into Design. Personally, I’m going into materials, so I aced that class. </p>
<p>Maybe a question could be… does it look extremely bad to drop grades senior year? I’ve heard for grad schools, you should try to keep grades above a B, but how would a few B’s look senior year if your transcript shows primarily A’s for the first six semesters?</p>
<p>1) 4 yrs, BSME (plus a few grad courses later when working_ )
2) 3.9 after 1 year
5) 3.6 at graduation </p>
<p>I attribute my initial high GPA to AP Physics credit. That allowed me to skip the “freshman flunk” physic 1 & 2 courses. Many of my friends had GPAs that increased when they adjusted to college rigor and then later got to take upperclassman electives that interested them more.</p>
<p>1) How many years of college/university have you completed?
2 (Civ E)
2) What was your GPA at the end of year 1?
3.90
3) Year 2?
3.90</p>
<p>It started at a 3.92, dropped to a high 3.89_ from what the system is telling me (it is veeeery slowly dropping as the semesters go by). My transcript says my cum. GPA is a 3.90. </p>
<p>If you did all the homework, went to all the classes, went to office hours, and had a study group, you were ahead of most of your classmates freshman year from my experience. My high GPA is also from a pretty good high school that prepared me well and AP credits.</p>
<p>How successful you are is probably better determined by how many co-ops/interships you get and how active you are in ECs while still maintaining a 3.0+</p>
<p>After all, the final goal is to get a job</p>