I flunked out of college as an engineering major, with every engineering class being graded on a true curve (read: some proportion of students were guaranteed to fail any given assignment, no matter how they scored).
I am told that they don’t do that there anymore.
I totally agree… it is definitely major specific but also kid specific, class specific too.
Comp Sci is absolutely one of the worst. We have friends with kids at many different schools that are seriously struggling and/or have been weeded out with comp sci.
I understand a weed out process might be necessary under some circumstances. But as hard as it is to get into top schools, I guess I did not understand how much certain schools will do to weed out a certain amount of kids from certain majors.
No… probably not anymore. That would mess up their graduation statistics!
I can’t know exactly what is happening at every school but I do think that Comp Sci is one of those ‘hot’ majors where many kids are told to go into it for job prospects and then it turns out that the kid has no aptitude for programming. If a kid can’t code to a high enough level then they’ll be ‘weeded out’.
We’re experiencing this a bit with S24. He is taking AP Comp Sci A this year, with basically no background in programming. He is very smart and generally learns things quickly, loves logic & strategy games. We all (including him!) thought it would be a good fit, but he really doesn’t like it and is struggling to keep up. I’m glad he found out now, though, before we encouraged him to pursue it in college!
S23, on the other hand, took a programming course for the first time last summer and seems to be a natural at it, but only enjoys it as a means to an end. He is willing to write code to do something interesting he wants done, but doesn’t enjoy coding just for the fun or challenge of the work.
I’m reading a lot about “weeding out” students fro programs and I’m just curious what people mean by “weeding out” and why it is done. Having a certain GPA in the major to continue in the program? Usually faculty do not do this, since more students = more faculty + resources. But I can see in a highly prestigious program that students attend the university specifically to join a program may do this to protect their resources (lower quality perception = less students = less resources). Anyway, curious what people mean by it!
I think there are too many kids who join the hot major - and hot usually ties to income. And many kids are not able, ready, or have the math skills needed.
I don’t know if it’s as much as weeding out as it is - many kids attempt to join a field where they don’t have the skillsets. Some of it is preparation, some is the professors (my son had to WD two classes but got As the next semester - part of it might have been earlier exposure but both times he had bad profs). I personally don’t think a school says - let me flunk them for that purpose alone. Maybe I’m naive.
Studies show between 40% and 60% of engineers don’t make it. I know (maybe on another thread or this) that a few said - schools are not looking to weed out anymore. My son at Bama says it’s 100% still there and a friend at UTK confirms the same. He jokes, the b-school is loaded with engineers who can’t make it. But he says it’s the inability or lack of desire to do the work vs. weeding out. In fact, he says it’s not rigorous enough in that they don’t get enough exposure to many of the tools listed across job requirements of different companies.
But I think kids today chase these jobs - like CS - because they hear of insane salaries and job stability. I mean, you know a MechE is going to find something, an accountant is going to find something, a programmer will find something.
Will a sociology major or poli sci major? Far less likely.
So kids chase these roles that they don’t have aptitude or interest in - and they get stuck. Most can “finagle” a history or poli sci paper - because there’s typically not a right answer but an interpretation of an answer. Math, etc. - is black/white - and lots of engineering and CS is math.
My son is the example who said - I want to study engineering because they make money and I see how much it costs to live - and I want to prepare myself to be ready. He went through four phases of major interest but the second to last was atmospheric sciences. And watching him the last 3.5 years, we always wished he’d pursue that.
He’s had 5 offers, the worst being $75K base and the other four easily clearing $80K. And he’s at a lesser school rank wise, etc. One offer at $85K was in a high cost of living area but the rest likely not (rotation programs - they don’t tell you where you’ll be). My daughter is an International Studies and Poli Sci double - I hope she has his success - and we’re two years away - but we can barely find any internships for her to apply to - and I’m guessing (hopefully incorrectly) that she’s not going to have remotely close to his job success. But there’s no way she could ability wise or desire wise major in something else. If it weren’t these two majors, there’s not another even two at her school of which she has interest.
My neighbor works for the IRS and told me they are hiring auditors in the high 60s - out of college. So I think kids are gravitating to these “stable” fields.
I know others have said - there’s less weed out today and perhaps it’s true. More likely - if you’re at Michigan, Purdue, Ga Tech, etc. - these kids are brilliant to begin with and they’re less likely to be a part of this 40-60% (depending on the study) that drops out - but a Lamar or Slippery Rock will - because of the student profile vs. the required academics.
Just my thought.
So that young people find out early that a certain path is not for them, while there’s still time to change track.
You do want those prospective Doctors, Engineers, Computer Scientists,… to struggle with or fail difficult “weed out” classes early - because (at least for certain professions), the terminal degree involves a progression into Grad Schools, where the acceptance rates are oftentimes “Ivy-isque” all-over again (even if you had already previously beaten the 15:1 odds to get into an Ivy the first time around).
So “good enough” is simply not good enough in those cases, and Professors don’t want students unnecessarily stuck in their higher-level classes in later semesters, clogging up resources that are meant to assist/mentor promising candidates.
@tsbna44 and @DigitalDad - I agree with much of that. For sure, students are led down certain paths due to social/parental expectation and/or money, and many times they either have no interest in the path or aren’t skilled at it. In such cases and for different reasons they’re not doing themselves any favors staying in the program. I see this all the time.
I was more interested in the faculty side. As a faculty member myself, I don’t see a lot of weeding out going on, and when I do it is because the program is known for its prestige and the faculty don’t want to lose it (in large part because lower prestige means less resources of varying kinds). When prestige isn’t an issue, there’s little institutional incentive to weed anyone out, since more students (even struggling ones) = more resources.
Academia has weird and often perverse incentive structures! IMO, anyway - although I’ve been a faculty member for a long time, my overall “n” is not large. 
Many will say that nursing majors get weeded out. The college I work for has many supports available for students. However, some students just truly struggle with the application part of nursing. It isnt just about liking anatomy and memorizing things.
The college I work for does not take more students than they can handle and the goal is that 100% move all the way through. I don’t know of a single instructor who even thinks about weeding out students. Truth is, some students just don’t pass and it has nothing to do with the class or the instructors.
This is more my experience as well - that faculty aren’t weeding anyone out intentionally, but students are weeding themselves out. Outside of maintaining prestige, faculty simply have no incentive institutionally to weed anyone out - quite the reverse. At least in my experience!
So true. I remember in nursing school there were several students who aced every class freshman and sophomore year because they were all the core courses, science they could memorize, etc. Once junior year rolled around and they had actual contact with patients and had to apply the knowledge to living humans, it was another story entirely. Many changed majors at that point when they realized they didn’t actually like the clinical aspect of nursing.
My D23 works as a low-level assistant in a hospital while in high school, and she quickly came to the conclusion while doing the job that a medical career was not for her. She said she thought that kids thinking of being doctors or nurses should all have to be assistants first early on, because it either affirms a career choice or kills it in its tracks.
Seemed like a wise observation coming from a 17 year old who watches too much Tik-Tok!
I agree very smart for them to try it and see how it feels.
I think many don’t have the math skills coming in that are needed. I stuck out electrical engineering years ago, but it was tough, and I did not have a scholarship on the line. I would have been beyond stressed if I had to worry about keeping a certain gpa.
Mine wanted to study CS, but after looking at the course progression, decided he just didn’t want that much more math, especially theoretical, or physics. He is my math kid, has an A in Calc BC, but decided he likes numbers and stats more than theory. And he’s a bit burnt out from high school. So he is going into IT with a Cyber minor, and will hopefully have more time to enjoy college than he would have as a CS major. The prospects might not be quite as good at the end, but I’m happy he chose the less stressful route. Still challenging, but not as draining. Hopefully. He has a full ride to maintain.
Yep, my season as a teenage candy striper killed any medical careers for me. Lol.
Well Comp sci is pretty easy because there’s a hard skill you have to be able to do. At my university you have to make a C or better in specific courses to take the next level. So C or better in Intro to programming classes to take data structures and then C or better to take architecture, etc. If you can’t do that then you need to be in a different major.
Also things have changed in Comp Sci in the last 10 years or so as far as the ability to gauge a students actual programming ability earlier. Due to rampant cheating and sites like Chegg students could skate past these early classes and schools didn’t recognize a students lack of ability until later. But now schools use software-based exams where students have to code in the exams that count much more in their final grade than in the past and they can’t fool that.
As an aside when I was an undergrad I was pre-med/Biology major until I volunteered at a blood drive. Made me realize I didn’t want to work in medicine.
Agree, I firmly believe any student interested in law should work as a paralegal for two years before law school. Seeing the non glamorous parts of a career up close is a true education.
In my D20s CS program, there’s a professor that tells the kids: “Don’t use Chegg for the exams. Seriously, I change my questions just enough that I will absolutely know if you use Chegg.” Then some kids will literally cut and paste from Chegg and get a zero. Every semester, without fail.
And my kid is in New Orleans. Hes a fan. Fingers crossed for the financials to work out.