<p>Which engineering schools tend to have cutthroat competition, and which ones have a more cooperative environment?</p>
<p>From another thread:</p>
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MIT is totally non-competitive environment, with students working in teams on p-sets or projects. As a matter of school policy, there are no curved grading in classes and no grades first semester.
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<p>This sounds great, but given MIT's acceptance rate, it's prudent to find more schools with a similar culture.</p>
<p>MIT is the only school i’ve heard of that does this type of stuff the first semester. I hear it’s because of the high suicide rate.</p>
<p>I think you’re going to find that most of the top ranked engineering schools are competitive with curved grading. This philosophy might carry deep into the tier 1 engineering schools.</p>
<p>HMC is pass-fail first semester.</p>
<p>I don’t know why everyone thinks colleges are cutthroat.</p>
<p>Almost every school I’ve visited has dispelled that myth. People help each other out everywhere.</p>
<p>The only ones I’ve heard bad things about are Berkeley and Johns Hopkins, but that’s only anecdotal.</p>
<p>I attend a college that curves every class, but it doesn’t stop people from being decent human beings and helping each other out. If a curve causes you to sabotage other classmates, you have big problems.</p>
<p>Caltech does pass-fail first quarter, and I think shadow grades second quarter (only for undergrads, sadly).</p>
<p>And I agree, curves never stopped me from helping out my classmates, and it never stopped them from help me out.</p>
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<p>I don’t *ever *remember anybody saying their engineering school was competitive. Competitiveness has more to do with the personality of the individual student than the school or courses.</p>
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<p>That’s been my experience as well.</p>
<p>I want to be clear in that when i stated “competitive” i didn’t mean in terms of students not being helpful and such to one another. I meant from a grading stand point in that you compete against other students for grades. So there is no defined grading scale. Teacher hands out A’s B’s etc as a percentage.</p>
<p>Olin also has pass/no record first semester. </p>
<p>and oh do I miss it.</p>
<p>It’s going to be very difficult to have a non-competitive course like that. The professor will either have to be VERY experienced or the tests will have to be of the plug-and-chug variety.</p>
<p>I grade on a competitive curve, and the reason is this: when I write a test, I shoot for a 70 average grade on the test, with the average score being a low B. This gives me some flexibility. If the questions are more difficult than I anticipated, the students score in the 60’s. They’re upset, but it’s not a big deal because the curve corrects for the low average. If the test is too easy, the students score in the 80’s, and I don’t have to curve.</p>
<p>The alternative is to do this: give a test, check the score. If the average of the first test was too low, make the second test easier. If the average was too high, make the second test harder. I don’t like that method.</p>
<p>To be able to say “this is exactly what a student should know, and how well he should know it to be an excellent student” is a very difficult thing and takes decades of experience (or a plug-and-chug test). When you ask students to reach for an insight, it’s difficult to judge how readily they’ll make the connection. If I tried to grade on a set scale right now (with my less than decades of experience), I’m liable to have an end-of-semester average GPA in the 1’s or almost 4. In fact, my undergrad classes right now would both finish below 2.0 on a 90/80/70/60 scale.</p>
<p>people may help each other out, but its because they are cheating. At least at My U students were given 2 classes where they worked on group projects. Everything else was individual work. Professors would become incredibly made when students worked together. </p>
<p>Some of my classes were curved. Some were curved to only help students and some were curved to both help some and hurt others. Such as in my Programming languages class, the tests were incredibly hard, the class as a whole complained. The professor then gave each and every student the option to be included in the curve. The majority did, choose this option. Then the final was easy and those who got a 85 on it got a F, and the final was 40% of the class.</p>
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<p>That’s the exact opposite of my experiences. Virtually all my upper level courses were group project oriented. I think only 2 upper level courses didn’t have any group work. My professors encouraged us to work together. In fact, most of the time we worked together in the lounge, which is in the hallway where all the professors walk by to get to their offices.</p>
<p>This is probably the better way to develop students since it fosters teamwork, something you will need when you get into the “real world.”</p>
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<p>A certain school in Palo Alto immediately comes to mind. Not only is the environment cooperative, but the grading is also relaxed, at least by engineering standards. It is practically impossible to actually flunk out of that school.</p>
<p>Engineering is hard in general…but if you want a non-cutthroat school, look at Rose-Hulman very supportive by students, prof, and administration.</p>
<p>There are expections that individual students, their parents, peer students, and the school has. Students and Parents must understand what are realistic dreams and just dreams.
Being in the top % in your HS means nothing when you get to your school, where you find that everyone is as smart and often smarter than you. </p>
<p>The “cutthroating” is because someone’s expectations are not being achieved.</p>
<p>***? engineering classes that are not curved?!?!</p>
<p>the average score in my engineering exams were 50%</p>
<p>this means that everybody failed.</p>