<p>My son didn’t contrive think this one up – the ‘sack’. He says it stands for “silent asian curve killer.” Made me laugh out loud. He would have liked to title himself the ‘silent underage curve killer’ because he is the HS’r in the class, but the abbreviated form wasn’t to his liking.</p>
<p>I am in a similar position regarding my son in an engineering program at a top school. the competition is intense. the worry if he will even pass this first year is killing me, so i can sympathise. says he likes the subjects but has problems getting passing grades in his exams- quizzes and homeworks are fine. :(</p>
<p>I will echo “does he like engineering or does he just think it’s a good field for jobs?” </p>
<p>I went through a brief period where I considered engineering because “they’re always in demand!” and “they make a lot of money!” Then I looked at the coursework of engineering several programs and came to my senses. It’s a great field for people who enjoy that sort of thing, but it’s not for me and I don’t think it’s for most people either.</p>
<p>If he’s just doing it because it’s a major that leads to a job, he should reconsider; there are plenty of other majors that lead to jobs (both “practical” majors that focus on one type of work and “broader” majors that could lead many directions.)</p>
<p>I would encourage him to look at what his strengths are (the humanities) and go from there. Best of luck!!</p>
<p>About the tests, the earplugs and sitting near the front of the class sound like a good idea. Has he tried talking to the teacher? Maybe he can take the test an hour earlier than the rest of the class or something? Just a thought . . . Maybe the teacher will say no, but you’ll never know until you ask.</p>
<p>not that familiar with engineering, but know it is always a very rigorous program. but, do not think you should change majors because of one tough class. maybe he can keep plugging away and get through it. and even if he does flunk it, can he re-take the class in summer school at a local community college?</p>
<p>he should go see some peer advisors and/or tudors at the school. he should also consult with the teacher about the test issue. he may have text anxiety. he could also go to the school’s disability office and talk to them about his test issues. Maybe the teacher or disability services can allow him to take the test in another room, that would elminate some distraction and/or anxiety for him. </p>
<p>I would hope the teacher and school would have many resources to help him - he just needs to seek them out and try different things.</p>
<p>good luck…but, I know there are many kids who flunk a class (or two or more) and still graduate!!! it may not be the end of the world!</p>
<p>Our HS community has struggled with a rash of kids who went to elite schools and flunked out. Part of the problem is that we are a backwater, and ‘excellent’ student here is not the tops in a uber-selective, rigorous program. The next problem is grade inflation. Kids simply look much better on paper than they actually are.</p>
<p>I think one of the few practical ways to deal with this is for students to take AP tests, either in conjunction with an AP class in HS, or self-study. If they cannot score ‘5’ in math and physics, it is unclear, and likely doubtful, that matriculating into a high caliber science school is going to end well. Scoring '5’s is no guarantee of success, but it is an indicator of adequate talent. Whether the student has the ambition, drive, interest, dedication, and intangible skills also required to survive and flourish at Mudd or a similar school is not known from a transcript or standardized test.</p>
<p>I discouraged my son from applying to Cal-Tech because I didn’t think he had enough ambition or interest, not for lack of stats. I have my fingers crossed that he will find a subject he is motivated to pursue and excel in at our local flagship, and sail off to grad school when the time arrives.</p>
<p>I remember at parent orientation at UC Davis when a physics professor giving a talk about classroom life said, “The worst thing to see is a student getting D’s in his/her selected major classes”. You should be successful in your major classes. Of course we all will run into the occasional class where things just don’t work for whatever reason, but theoretically a student should graduate from college profiecient in whatever they majored in.</p>
<p>I think they say students change their major 2 or 3 times in college? That’s okay- that is the great thing about college—trying stuff out ----finding out what turns you on and what doesn’t. Maybe this is just a bump in the road for you engineering son…or maybe this is a sign he should go for door #2. Success is a bumpy road.</p>
<p>Eric, I don’t think elite schools admit kids who can’t do the work… even if their preparation doesn’t put them at the tippy top of the admitted class. I think kids often DON’T do the work-- or are working inefficiently, or have poor time management skills, or don’t understand that college isn’t HS on steroids.</p>
<p>My son (MIT) discovered that just when you finally get to cut class without your parents finding out, you can no longer cut class. Oh well!</p>
<p>Blossom, I think ALL schools do their best to gauge whether they think the students they admit will “succeed” in the field(s) in which they’re admitted but it’s really a guess, since college and HS are really quite different, as we all know. Some kids really need more structure (or whatever) than they get at college. Elite colleges have more applicants to choose among, but like all other schools, all they can do is their best guess.</p>
<p>Why the student doesn’t do well at an elite college or any school is due to a whole range of factors. Arguably, many kids who aren’t admitted to colleges COULD also “do the work” but are never given the opportunity to show it. Who can say that sometimes kids who CAN’T do the work aren’t also admitted at elite schools/programs & elsewhere? Odds are that it happens sometimes, given the volume of students & schools involved.</p>
<p>Anyway, all of this is rather academic & doesn’t help the OP’s issues.</p>
<p>It’s better for him to drop the class and try to make up the credits later than to fail the class altogether, so yes, he should drop it. </p>
<p>But the bigger problem here is why is he failing engineering, and the answer might be that engineering is not for him. He’s smart obviously, but he doesn’t have the academic preparation to really make it especially if the major is super competitive. Remember that the material will only get harder and the competition more intense from here on out. With lots of coaching, there’s a chance he could still do it, so if you’re willing to pay for it and he’s willing to endure it, the most feasible thing would be for him to spend summer signed up for a LOT of summer courses at a local university/community college in all ofo the areas he feels like he’s lacking. Math, physics, whatever. Just to improve his basic skills. If there are basic skill math/science courses he can take during term time as well, that will help here too. He’s clearly making the effort to get help, but help is not going to be enough if his skill set is lacking. </p>
<p>The second, somewhat less painful option, would be to re-consider majors. There are a lot of “practical” majors that might play more into his strengths and his prep. Business, economics, law, finance/accounting (accountants always in demand), or maybe a different area of the sciences such as geology or if he’s at all interested in climate issues something like conservation biology or ecology might be right up his creek (or any practical science that focuses on human impact on the natural world).</p>
<p>Blossom,</p>
<p>Maths and physics have intellectual requirements in certain applications that until they are encountered, a student will simply not know if they are capable. My sister-in-law was a strong HS science student in a European ‘A’ level curriculum, but she found early on she could not perform theoretical maths at the university, and changed majors.</p>
<p>It happens, and it is not rare.</p>
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<p>Yup. .</p>
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<p>Many schools in the west are non-competitive which means they are open to anyone who has graduated from high school and met a few basic requirements. They don’t attempt to determine if the student will suceed but provide them an opportunity to do so.</p>
<p>I’m not sure of the options, but I would be very curious if the professor(s) could help with some analysis of what the student is doing (or not doing) on exams:
- not getting to some of the problems to even attempt them?
- no idea how to approach a problem?
- right approach, but stupid errors?
- misses key assumptions or facts provided in the problem?
- solves the wrong problem? (solving for time instead of distance,…)
- fails to answer all of multi-part problems, but gets the parts he does answer right?
- Math skills/knowledge inadequate for the course? (I spent most of physics being two weeks ahead of where I was in calculus, which made physics excessively difficult.)</p>
<p>These are things I’d rather get the professor’s assessment of, rather than the student’s.</p>
<p>
A math ACT of 30 is a whole lot different than a 36, while the 650 Math II just makes me wonder why the kid is at Mudd in the first place.</p>
<p>Is this an affirmative action catastrophe ?</p>
<p>I’d missed that the student was at Harvey Mudd. 650 in Math II is a very, very low score for HM, isn’t it? As EricLG suggests, this might be a student who is poorly qualified at Mudd given their population.</p>
<p>I missed that as well–both the 650 and the 30 ACT math are on the low end for engineering and Mudd is known to be a VERY competitive Math/Science/Engineering school. Sounds like a very bad place if you don’t have an extremely solid background.</p>
<p>My guess (and just a guess) is that Mudd’s math/science/engineering classes expect kids to have very strong math proficiency even with calculus, and that the classes may be heavily theoretical and proof based, rather than practical, applications based. Great for the right student, but death for others.</p>
<p>Good example of “be careful what you wish for” when student hope for enormous reaches.</p>
<p>BCM’s posts lead me to think she is poor, which may have allowed her son full ride need based scholarships. In a spot or irony, this may have contributed to her son choosing a school out of his academic reach. It seems reasonable to think that parents who are footing the bill will be a bit more honest in pre-matriculation appraisal whether the school is a good fit, and the risk of dropping out.</p>
<p>BCM: I sympathize with your kid, but your attitude is just miserable and there is no way it is helping. HM clearly has a plethora of tutoring services, and an engaged and caring student body and faculty. Your son will be encouraged to avail himself of it all, – just like any other kid. However, no special dispensation will be given him because you are his mother, his allowance, skin color, religion, political views, or any other irrelevant excuse you generate.</p>
<p>The whiny conservative sending a kid to school on the public dime is SO off-putting.</p>
<p>Eric,</p>
<p>In the engineering world, I’m not sure there are “easy” and “hard” schools. I went to an open enrollment western state university, and found my program to be extremely hard. I think I whined as much as my friend from my high school whined about her “extremely” hard program at Caltech.</p>
<p>I doubt this is a case of somebody who got a chance at admission at a school they weren’t prepared for as it is a fact of life that many who try engineering end up choosing a different major before graduation.</p>
<p>You may be right bigtrees, but I am skeptical. Certainly open enrollment does not by itself tell you how rigorous the program is going to be. Georgia Tech has a national rep of being pretty easy to gain acceptance into, while anything but to do well in.</p>
<p>Conversely, our local open enrollment flagship has difficulty placing graduates into the local industrial-military complex because of a poor reputation of graduates. I have heard personally from one engineering department head say that he as a matter of course will not higher local graduates based on prior experience. And the last anecdote, which is probably the most telling: our kid’s HS is stuffed to the brim with engineer parents, and I cannot think of a one who recommends our flagship to their aspiring engineer kids, even though tuition is practically free to all.</p>