Questions for current GT students! (Or former)

<ol>
<li>How do you like GT itself and the surrounding city?</li>
<li>Is it necessary to have a car? Is the bus system (MARTA?) convenient?</li>
<li>Did you attend any special events for prospective freshman, such as Preview Day, Connect With Tech, Freshman Information Session, or Engineering Information Session?</li>
<li>How tough are the academics, tons of all nighters needed and stuff?</li>
<li>Where do people usually live after freshman year?</li>
<li>Is it easy to get a co-op?</li>
<li>How safe do you feel walking around at night?</li>
<li>How about in broad daylight?</li>
<li>Hows the dorm food?</li>
<li>Why did you choose GT over the other schools you got accepted to?
Is there anything else you think I should know? Thanks!</li>
</ol>

<p>1) I love georgia Tech. Its the perfect mix between a city school and a school with a real campus. Plenty of trees but always stuff to do on the weekends.
2) You really don’t need a car. Marta is very close and easy to you.
3)I didn’t attend anything.
4)Georgia Tech is hard. Not “high school AP class” hard. Actual hard. If you keep up with your work, I see no need for an all nighter. Well, I havent needed one yet.
5) on campus apartments.
6)i dont have a lot of experience with it. I assume if you have a good GPA it is not that hard.
7)I feel perfectly safe walking on campus at night. Not so much the city.
8) I would feel safe walking anywhere in broad daylight.
9)It could be better…
10) GT has a top 5 engineering program and is widely respected.</p>

<ol>
<li>Nice.</li>
<li>No and yes. you will rarely have to use marta if you stay in the downtown/midtown area. each of the stops in the downtown/midtown area are maybe a 5 min. walk apart from each other. </li>
<li>no.</li>
<li>depends on the combination of classes and the teacher you get. some classes require a lot of work and pairing them with other similar classes will do you no good. with some teachers you don’t have to do much studying to get a B, but with others, you have to work hard to get the same grade.</li>
<li>dorms, on campus apartments, or off campus apartments.</li>
<li>depends on your major,the company, and the work you put in looking for one. computer science and mech.e. are always in demand, so there are usually lots of co-op postings. the better the company, the harder it is to get a position.</li>
<li>safe. </li>
<li>safe.</li>
<li>both dining halls are bad. after your first year you can sign up for a voluntary meal plan that is cheaper and cook some of your food.</li>
<li>good engineering school.</li>
</ol>

<p>^
shhhhhhhhh…your not supposed to tell them the food is bad.</p>

<p>hah thanks guys! in what way is the food bad?</p>

<p>and another question, are a lot of the classes on a set curve? like 40% of class will get C, 30% B, 20% A, 10% will not pass or something like that?</p>

<p>^no. But most of the time it is around that…
normally I would say 15% As, 25% Bs, and more like 20-25% Ds and Fs…</p>

<ol>
<li>I have been extremely happy at Tech. It was not originally my first choice, but in retrospect I think I would not have been as happy elsewhere.</li>
<li>Having a car your freshman year would be frustrating and expensive. There are not many places to park and my friends who had them did not use them often.</li>
<li>I did not. They are mostly aimed at people who are undecided, but I have heard people speak very highly of these programs.</li>
<li>Time management is KEY. Many students who attend Tech have awful time management skills, thus necessitating all-nighters in the library to learn massive amounts of course material before the final. Go to class. Do the homework. Study. Provided you do these things, you will have no problem getting an A or a B in your first few semesters.</li>
<li>Most sophomores live on campus in the North Ave Apartments, ULC, or 8th Street Apartments, or similar locations. After that, many students find themselves doing co-ops or internships, and many look towards the flexibility of off campus housing.</li>
<li>As it was said earlier, that really depends. I am not co-oping, but many of my friends do. They did not mention it being particularly difficult to find one. Some argue that co-ops are easier to get than internships. They cite that in a conventional internship, the company spends a majority of the time training you, and about when you are ready to actually begin doing productive work, your six months is up and you move on to another company.</li>
<li>Yes. On campus, you are extremely safe, day or night. There is very little violent crime on campus because of the high police presence. Venturing off campus or to the extreme northern outskirts at night alone is a poor choice. Atlanta is a tough city. Use good judgement and you will be extremely safe.</li>
<li>Woodruff dining, located on West Campus is the preferred dining hall of the two because there is a greater variety in meal options. The other, Brittain, is much older and smaller. The food tends to be of equal quality at both. There tends to be a lot of red meat and a bit too much salt in the cooking, but I would give the food a 3.5/5. They are opening a brand new dining hall next year on North Avenue that appears to be promising.</li>
<li>Tech is a great place to go to school. You can make your experience whatever you want it to be; if you want to do the fraternity thing, you can, but it is by no means essential to having friends and having fun. There are many religious organizations and athletics, in addition to more “techy” sorts of clubs. Ultimately, your experience at nearly any college is whatever you want to make it, and depends a great deal on your attitude.</li>
<li>In college, professors have an interest in spreading the grades of their classes out in order to gauge the abilities of their students. They want to push you and test your limits. The grading is, in my opinion, ultimately fair. If you are curious about grade distributions, take a look at this: [SGA</a> Course Critique | Search Course Critique](<a href=“http://www.sga.gatech.edu/critique/Search.php]SGA”>http://www.sga.gatech.edu/critique/Search.php)
Do a search for a few of the following common freshman first semester classes:
MATH 1501
MATH 1502
ENGL 1101
ENGL 1102
CS 1371
CHEM 1310
HPS 1040</li>
</ol>

<ol>
<li>I love GT itself. The campus is a great size and it isn’t too difficult to walk around and find your classes. Tech Square and other surrounding areas provide a close source of food and other necessities. The city is nice sometimes. I don’t really feel like I am in the city unless I am walking to piedmont park or the marta station.</li>
<li>I never use MARTA. My brother at Emory picks me up and takes me home or my parents do. Most of the time I either harass someone with a car or walk depending on the distance. I really wish I had my car but it isn’t necessary.</li>
<li>I attended connect with tech which I found to be mostly boring but informative and I met a lot of people. I also did a few tours over the summer before my senior year in high school.</li>
<li>I believe the academics are really tough. I went to a prestigious college prep school and that doesn’t even really compare. I’m the kind of person who has never even gotten a B in a class before even though I have taken numerous AP courses and I received a C this first semester. I think though with proper studying a time management it is not impossible. Plus, it is very dependent on your major and your teachers. I have only ever pulled two full all nighters, however I have stayed up until 4 or 5 am on at least 3 nights a week.<br></li>
<li>Most people live in the dorms but it is pretty 50/50 on East or West campus.</li>
<li>It takes proper work. You have to schedule the proper meetings and attend different info sessions, as well as build a resume. If you follow all the steps though and are relatively competitive in terms of your skills and grades then you should be fine. Most people I know haven’t had too difficult a time getting one.</li>
<li>As a female student I try not to walk home alone later then 11:30 alone. If I do this it is usually only from a close location and I always have people knowing where I am going and when I should be arriving. If it is later then this or I am intoxicated in the slightest I ALWAYS call a stingerette or have a guy walk me home. It is much safer.</li>
<li>I feel perfectly safe walking around campus in broad daylight.</li>
<li>Britain and Woody’s are both fine. Britain has better breakfast but Woody’s is better overall.</li>
<li>Strong academics. It was one of the only colleges I was considering with the exact major I wanted. I also received the HOPE scholarship. </li>
</ol>

<p>I suggest joining a sorority or a fraternity. I am a big proponent of it.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Tech students like to exaggerated about the difficulty of the school. The average grades awarded at Tech in undergraduate classes are 37.8% A, 34% B, 19% C, 5.7% D, 3.5% F.</p>

<p>^ For my classes those were the grade distributions. I had Geronimo and Jarrio.</p>

<p>from SGA course Critique
Jarrio
Summer 2010
As
19%
Bs
11%
Cs
25%
Ds and Fs
32%
GPA 2.00</p>

<p>Geronimo
As
15%
Bs
21%
Cs
34%
Ds and Fs
23%</p>

<p>average GPA 2.17</p>

<p>Thanks guys!</p>

<p>It seems like the humanitites classes have a higher percentage f the class getting A or B in. Why is that? And the summer classes seem to have a lower percentage of A and B. Is that because everything is crammed into a short period of time?</p>

<p>Average undergraduate grades at Tech (A/B/C)</p>

<p>Overall --------37.8/34.0/19.0
Architecture —61.7/28.8/7.0
Computing -----37.1/31.4/20.0
Engineering ----37.2/35.0/20.2
Ivan Allen ------39.2/38.5/16.3
Management —30.4/34.8/23.6
Sciences -------32.7/30.7/21.8</p>

<p>So it’s really only the Architecture college that’s heavily biased and that’s only because the Marching Band “classes” are taught there e.g. MUSIC 1008 (marching band) has 99% A’s.</p>

<p>However, there are the occasional classes, such as Calc 2 and Physics 2, that have low GPA’s. But those are not “normal” as ilyssa claimed.</p>

<p>^really those are not normal class GPAs? yayyyyy.it seemed that way since i took them both at the same time. I got As in both of them so at least i know I wont have to be as stressed lol.</p>

<p>Banjo: Does management grade on a curve like our B-School? Seems to have the fewest A-grades given (I think we can give more A-grades, including A- though), but at most 20% must be given C+ or lower, so y’alls looks a lot like ours. Can’t compare engineering because we don’t have it. It seems like we give less As for sciences, but way more Bs(we believe in the gentleman’s B-/B. Hell I just got one in physical biology, but that class was really hard so I know I partially deserve it).<br>
Our B-school is still inflated with the curve, but less inflated than what it would be without. It’s funny when my friend tells me of one of his grades being curved down to A- when he gets a 97 on an exam, I love it! lol </p>

<p>Grade BBA Core BBA Elective
A 15% – 20% 15% - 25%
A- 15% – 20% 15% - 25%
Not to exceed 35% 40%
B+ 15% – 20% 15% – 25%
B 15% – 20% 15% – 25%
B- 10% - 15% 10% - 15%
Not to exceed 45% 50%
C+ or below 20% 10%</p>

<p>Seems like Geronimo and Jarrio have a typical amount of As given for a natural/hard science course at any tough school, but it’s the C/D/F grades that are lop-sided. Seems as if one is an A or C or lower. Not much of the gentleman’s Bs in those sections. Are they good teachers, that just happen to be tough?</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>No, I don’t think it’s the curve. Grades at GT (and most schools, really) increase in level. So freshman courses tend to have the lowest GPAs and senior courses the highest. This occurs because students improve from their first to last year, both in time management and learning habits, and because students are less concerned with extra-curricular issues (freshman have to deal with living on their own for the first time, etc). Management tends to have more lower level courses than the engineering programs because it’s a broader degree than, say, electrical engineering (which has a relatively narrow focus). So as a chemical engineer, your sophomore level courses are mostly taken in the Chemistry or Math department, but as a management major, your sophomore level courses are mostly taken in the College of Management.</p>

<p>The other issue is - how should I put this - Management is a degree of last resort for some students. If they come to Tech and can’t pass classes, one of the things that people tend to do before transferring or dropping out is transfer to management. These students tend to lower the program GPA before they drop out / transfer out. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>It’s a number of factors. First, they teach freshman who are trying to adapt from high school to college. This is not an easy thing to do. Second, they teach very large lecture classes and teach without feedback. So they move at one speed and if you cannot grasp the material at that speed, you’re left in the dust (as opposed to a small class where the professor receives student feedback and can speed up or slow down the lectures). Third, they teach a wide range of majors. So the Math majors re-taking the class (the ones that aced Calc BC but chose not to use the credit) tend to set the “A” standard while the students being exposed to the material for the first time inherently lag. There are other issues involved, but those are the big 3.</p>

<p>I think the first two tie in together in the sense that teaching freshmen in smaller classes is normally beneficial. Sitting in my friend’s lectures at Tech, I saw what you are trying to say. Seems less problematic here b/c there are lots of gen. chem, physics, and bio profs. who are only lecture track (they tend to be more “interactive” if you will while still moving at a quick pace), and the classes are like half the size (except gen. chem which can have up to 125 students per section, mainly due to the increased enrollment). All of that crap costs money though. So glad I don’t pay it (nor my parents). Here, seems that freshman year will be strong for many science majors while sophomore year is hard. Many for example take physics and orgo. at the same time. These require two different modes of studying, and managing both can be tough. Plus some orgo. sections are so tough that study-time will not correlate well with a grade. It can take some getting used to the fact that merely studying hard won’t help. One has to find an efficient method of studying for orgo. And normally it is a shock after they got anywhere between B+ and A by simply working hard in gen. chem (I’ve seen many of my friends come in expecting it only to be as bad as gen. chem. They didn’t do well unfortunately). Many Emory students just tend to perform weak in physics. I don’t know why. B-School (normally a first choice here), one has to apply after pre-reqs (econ., b-calc., etc.) in the college, so most don’t start till 2nd semester sophomore year or beginning of junior year. A few do not even get in. A weeded out science major is not likely to get in since the average student matriculating has about a 3.5 college GPA. Most econ. courses are easy, but some probably take intermediate level, and get beaten up, or they take their science requirement and get beaten up there. That’s probably the only reason that average isn’t like a 3.7. Perhaps the freshmen English courses, which can have very tough graders too.</p>