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<p>This maybe a very stupid question, but how harder are graduate-level courses than undergraduate courses? Like if someone got a B in an engineering class while in undergrad, how would he do in an equivalent class at grad school?</p>
<p>Ken, you clearly don’t know what you are talking about. Most full time MS students do research and write a thesis. 3.0 is also very low for most graduate programs. Like I said, just by looking at the number of graduate students, there is no way that anywhere close to 50 percent of graduating engineers go to graduate school. Show many any statistic from any engineering program that shows 50 percent of graduates going to grad school.</p>
<p>And yg7s7, graduate courses are more difficult than undergraduate courses. Profs expect you to understand all the basics and most graduate classes jump right into advanced material. There is no answer in terms of grades as every prof and school is different. Grades are not really an issue in graduate school because research is the main focus.</p>
<p>I don’t know what the norm is and I don’t know the statistics; I just know what my classmates and I did. All of the MS programs I applied to didn’t require any research at all. I just had to take 10 courses and I was done.</p>
<p>I don’t know why a full time MS student would not do any research. This would mean that they had to pay for everything out of pocket. From my experience, the norm for full time MS students is to TA and/or do research to get funding. This usually requires a thesis. There are programs that have non thesis options but this is usually for part-time students from what I have seen. I’m not trying to argue but I am telling you 50 percent of graduates going to graduate school would be very unlikely. Simply look at the number of graduate students compared to the number of graduating undergrads and it is evident that the percentage is much, much less than 50%.</p>
<p>Yes, I’m not saying everybody was funded. Many of the MS students I knew from my graduating class did pay out of pocket. Some of them were part-time students, some were full-time students.</p>
<p>yg7s7, </p>
<p>lowest grade in grad school class is usually a B…good right? not really because a B in grad school is considered like a C or below in undergrad…kind of different than in undergrad in this way.</p>
<p>Ken, </p>
<p>typically the small privates will have higher rates of people to graduation. perhaps you go to a school like this. The statistics are almost always on the school’s engineering site.</p>
<p>Ken, I’m not trying to pick on you but you have shown no stats or proof to back up your 50% number. Unless your school was extremely small and had a graduating class of 20, then I guess 10 might go to graduate school. Even at small privates, 50% seems very unlikely. </p>
<p>Cyclone, I must also say that most professors in graduate school follow the scale that a B- is probably the lowest grade but this is not always the case. A handful of profs did give Cs and C- in graduate classes. I don’t think GPA is as big of deal in grad school. People are generally more interested in your research. In grad school most GPAs are reasonably high not only because of the grading philosophy but because most students are very bright.</p>
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<p>I would have to agree mostly with this. I definitely think that professors in grad school are a lot more willing to work with you, but I think this stems from the fact that they know that everyone is there to learn and they aren’t just wasting their time while you give them the run around. The grades are probably somewhat artificially high, but the main reason they seem high is because not many grad classes grade on a curve, so you get when you actually earned, and most grad students are intelligent enough for A’s and B’s across the board.</p>
<p>One thing I haven’t heard mentioned on this thread so far is that it really is easier to get a job when you’re in school vs. after you’ve worked for a few years and then been downsized. Many companies will only hire new grads or very experienced seasoned engineers(20 years plus experience). The connections and resources a school has to get their grads jobs are pretty incredible, especially an engineering school in the top 50.</p>
<p>I always cringe when I here about some undergrad who got a job talking about how it wasn’t that hard to get a job and how they just can’t understand why these experienced engineers can’t get jobs. These companies like the new grads because they’re cheap, young, and less likely run up health insurance costs, so don’t discount these experienced engineers complaints just yet.</p>
<p>With all of that being said, thing seemed to have picked up in the last two months.</p>
<p>^^^
How about mechanical engineers that have just spent four years in the Air Force or Navy? Do you think it will be more difficult for them than the “new” grads?</p>
<p>Some employers absolutely LOVE military experience, so I would say that people with prior military experience will have an easier time than new grads.</p>
<p>Thanks! I’ll pass that opinion on…</p>
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<p>Maybe I am wrong about the “50% of our class going to graduate school”. We all stood up one day and told the class what our plans were for next year. And 40-50% said they were going to graduate school (including law). “Said” and “will” are probably different since this was done a few months ago when not all the offers were handed out. Out of those who declared going to graduate school, most intended to do the M.S degree, non-thesis option only. About 5 or so are aiming at a PhD.</p>
<p>I think some students said they were going to graduate school next year just to avoid embarrassment of saying “I don’t have an offer and I don’t know what I’m doing next year”. Of course they aren’t completely lying since a state school might have accepted them, but their goal is clearly to get a job in industry.</p>
<p>One thing to think about is what class this was in that everyone stood up and did this. If it is a harder elective sort of class, you would imagine that the more driven students would be in it, and they would be more likely to go for grad school. Half of that one class is entirely different than half of your entire graduating class.</p>
<p>Additionally, I wonder if these people all know the financial difficulties of doing a non-thesis M.S. degree without it being paid for by an employer. These degrees are primarily used for people whose company sends them to the school to get their degree, and they have become a real cash cow for many universities. It seems odd to me that someone would willingly pay full price to be a full-time student still and not write a thesis when they could instead be paid to go to school full-time just by writing a thesis.</p>
<p>If you ask me, the whole point of grad school is research. Why people want to do grad school without research is completely beyond me, but I guess that is a whole separate issue.</p>
<p>Well, I could see the benefit in getting the extra coursework. Still, I agree, graduate school should be about research.</p>
<p>Extra coursework is great, but you can pick up that same knowledge through on the job training to a certain extent. A large portion of the value of a graduate degree is the research… proving you can design and carry out a research project independently.</p>
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<p>Does it apply for people whose undergraduate degree was in engineering only? What about people who have degrees in science but want to get into engineering? Will the companies pay for them?</p>
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<p>Not all people who do the non-thesis option aren’t involved in research. I know a guy that got his non-thesis MS on the way to his PhD. His mentality for doing that route was that he would be able to do research freely without having to apply it to a thesis as thesis work is seldom applicable towards one’s dissertation. That may not be the best thinking, but that’s what he did.</p>
<p>I feel like that is somewhat of a phantom benefit, gstein. Doing things in that manner would definitely serve to extend the grace period between starting grad school and taking quals, but it isn’t really going to let you take a lot of dissertation data in advance in a lot of cases because you will simply be taking a lot of classes and still feeling your way around the lab. A Masters thesis is easier in that its scale is much smaller, so the quantity and quality of the research is scaled back, so it is a lot easier to juggle it with a heavy course load than dissertation research.</p>
<p>I would postulate that doing a non-thesis MS while doing lab work wouldn’t usually cut any time off of the total time to PhD, and that it would be no faster, maybe even slower than the direct-to-PhD route that is starting to become popular.</p>
<p>so direct PhD isn’t any faster route? It’s just better because your funded? I know some M.S. are funded but I’ve seen a lot of schools say they don’t fund M.S. or they hint unless your like Hercules or something.</p>