<p>i guess we don’t have tech majors here so that explains why I never saw it on ecs</p>
<p>I completely disagree that 50% of jobs available to engineers are available to engineering tech. From what I have seen, it is a much smaller fraction than that. I’m not sure what industry you are referring to, but most companies that I have seen treat the degrees differently. This might hold true for certain very general, manufacturing positions or something like that but a tech will not be qualified to do something like design work or R&D.</p>
<p>Which is exactly what I said in my post. The more prestigious design/R&D jobs are not going to be available. However, I honestly don’t think that over 50% of engineering jobs are of those types. Recently, on a thread here, there was an analysis of actual engineering design jobs available to Berkeley grads and the numbers were dramatically less than you would think. If you think about it, any design/R&D job is going to go to the top students anyway - we’re talking top 25%-35%. So, right off the bat you can say that only about 25% of students end up in those positions right out of school.</p>
<p>Like I said, I pulled 50% off the top of my head. I haven’t done any statistical analysis here lol - my point is that there are a considerable amount of jobs available to engTech students. Plus, I think you’d be very surprised about the amount of knowledge tech students have. It’s more practical, and the main difference comes about from the theory taught in engineering. I would honestly hire the tech guys I know over the engineer guys I know most of the time – unless I’m designing something.</p>
<p>Obviously the school (Purdue) lists them as candidates for a good # of positions for engineering , I mean Purduefrank even posted a couple listings, </p>
<p>Granted, i’m still in disbelief that any employer out there would choose a 4.0 tech major over a 2.0+ engineering major…manufacturing or whatever…unless no engineers are applying to the position in question the tech major ain’t getting that job…that’s what I would think, seems I’m wrong though</p>
<p>Sorry. I wasn’t trying to start the old Eng.Tech vs. Engineering debate.</p>
<p>I work as a flight test engineer. Can’t get more prestigious than that!</p>
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<p>That, sir, is an opinion.</p>
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<p>weldon, I see your point clearly now. However, I am still in doubt as to what the best course of action for me is, at this point, as far as choice of University goes. I apologize for beginning to sound like a broken record, but my main concern happens to be 2 things (and the combination of those factors)</p>
<p>First, the challenge of those UPPER-DIV ENGINEERING courses, even though I’m fairly confident that the “level” of the Math/Science courses at my CC is not that much different from the Universities.</p>
<p>Second, (and the one that DISTURBS me the most) the terrifying CURVE<a href=“which%20we%20don’t%20have%20at%20CC”>/U</a> - Just how bad is this really??? …of course, this is of concern to me only at the top univeristies such as UCLA and Berkeley, where, I assume, most people are at an extremely high level, academically speaking. </p>
<p>So, I would imagine a large part of a class scoring in the 90s and 100. Let’s say, a good 40% of the class would get these scores. Where does that leave me, if I were to score a “measly” 84-ish % (see a sample HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO of percentage score averages below for a class of 33 students) - say, at UCLA or Berkeley</p>
<p>100, 100, 100, 98, 98, 97, 95, 95, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 92, 92, 91, 90</p>
<p>88, 87, 86, 86, 85, 84, 84, 84, 84, 83, 82, 80, 80, 78, 77, 74</p>
<p>Let’s say only 15% are allowed an A, the next 25% a B …and so on.</p>
<p>According to this: </p>
<p>5 students (or more specifically the ones who scored 100 and 98% are As)</p>
<p>the next 8 students (scores between 97% and 92%) get a B - and here comes an interesting dilemma. Which ones of the 92% get to have the B?? Do they pull names out of a hat?? The ones the teacher likes the most?? The shortest students?? The tallest ones??</p>
<p>So, under this scheme, with a score of 84%, I would end up with a “C” or worse!!! …actually even someone who got a 91% is a “C” !!!</p>
<p>So, in a nutshell, what I’m asking is, if I were to get accepted at UCLA or Berkeley, employment and grad school-wise what would be better:</p>
<p>Attend a school like California State University Long Beach and get an Engineering degree with a 3.5+ GPA </p>
<p>OR</p>
<p>Attend a school like UCLA or Berkeley, where (with great difficulty) I would be able to pull off a **3.0 GPA<a href=“maybe%20even%202.8%20-%202.9%20if%20things%20are%20really%20really%20really%20bad%20-%20see%20the%20scenario%20above”>/B</a></p>
<p>Go to Berkeley if you get in, UCLA next, then go from there.</p>
<p>If you’re this worried about it, I have a feeling you’ll do what it take to make the grades. Things are slightly over exaggerated here, you’ll be ok.</p>
<p>That makes me feel a little better now!! </p>
<p>While I was at it, I also went through some other posts on this board that gave detailed insight on how the curve works (even some had numbers specifically related to UCLA and Berkeley engineering). Whoa! …a number of those classes had a whopping 65%+ students getting a “B or better”. Whew!! does that or does that take a load off my chest!!</p>
<p>The curve is indeed scary at University of Washington (graduate school). Class average may be 40%, so they make that a 3.2!</p>
<p>victor- first, as I said, you need to back off a little bit and stop worrying about it so much. Note, I don’t mean stop working, or stop pushing yourself to achieve, just don’t worry so much, especially before you have anything to worry about.
As for the dreaded “curve” scenario, maybe I can’t speak with authority because I only went to the “37th best” engineering school in the country (according to a certain famous news organization) , which to many on CC (I’m not talking about this thread!) seems to mean my school was somehow suspect and I guess then my experience is suspect. Anyhow, where I went to school, if you got a 90+%, regardless of whether 50% of the class did the same, you just ain’t gonna get a C! And if you get a 75%, you ain’t gettin’ an F! If you are specifically worried about this “curve” issue, you should maybe consider what the MEAN GPA is at whatever schools you are considering. Where I went, for example,the mean GPA was about 2.8 or 2.9 when I was there; now it seems that grade inflation over the years has pushed that up to about a 3.1. I don’t know what it is at Berkeley but I’ll bet it’s closer to 3.0 than it is to 2.0, which as you can see does not mesh with your doomsday statistical scenario described above; it can’t! So I’ll end as I started- please don’t worry so much. In fact, I bet you’ll find (as I did) that curving was used much more to RAISE grades when test scores were low than to lower grades when everybody happened to do well.</p>
<p>All this confusion about grades leads directly to why I say - unless you’re planning on going to graduate school, don’t despair about a low GPA.</p>
<p>If people currently in college are this confused about grades, think about the poor employer. Is a student who graduated in 2003 from xx university with a 3.2 a better student than a 1995 graduate from yy university with a 3.6? It’s just about impossible to compare.</p>
<p>Good grades are important. But as an employer, I don’t think I’d put too much weight into grades.</p>
<p>what’s the lowest GPA i could get from a top engineering undergrad and still get into a good grad school? (with research and all that fun stuff, of course)</p>
<p>I am looking at going for a second bachelors. If I use my general education courses as transfer credit wont I be at a disadvantage to other applicants in which the gen ed class grades are factored into their gpa and since transfer credit gpa is not factored in? I guess I feel I will be at a severe disadvanatge because other engineering graduates that didnt have any transfer credit will have those gen ed course grades to boost their overall gpa whereas I wont have that.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>