<p>Our child just finished their first year of engineering at a major university, top 10 program with a poor academic record and the desire to change majors. Any thoughts on evaluating alternative schools, transfering with a poor academic record, etc?</p>
<p>How bad is the academic record? If he has a “D” or “F” gpa, I suggest that you stop paying for college, and insist that he prove himself by funding himself at a community college for a year or working for a year while supporting himself. </p>
<p>If his gpa is higher and he doesn’t like engineering, then let him pick a major that he likes. Most students change majors at least twice in college. </p>
<p>If he eventually wants to change majors, fine. Engineering is a tough major and isn’t for everyone including its not being for many smart people</p>
<p>Engineering is really tough and even at most top universities, engineers will have GPA’s under 3.0</p>
<p>I think you have to define failure in Engineering. I had a friend who’s son was a 4.0 in high school. He went to college and after one year had a 2.9 in engineering. Dad was sure the kid was goofing off and a failure. In fact anything above 3.0 is very solid in engineering. It is a grade shocker to many parents and students that is for sure.</p>
<p>I think the average GPA for engineers is a 2.7 and those are the top 50% that did not drop out early on.</p>
<p>If the kid’s at a ‘major university’ and wants to transfer out of engineering why can’t he/she just switch majors and stay at the same uni? Plenty of people do because as previous posters stated, engineering is a tough major and not for everyone. In many places they have a 35% or so attrition rate of students who switch out to another major. I agree on the point of GPA for engineers where the average at many top schools is below a 3.0 and that’s for the portion of the top students who were accepted who didn’t switch out.</p>
<p>Is he (or she?) is below 2.0 and on academic probation? If not then most options are still available. Just changing majors in the university is easy and as mentioned not uncommon. They should see their adviser. They may have to do extra time to make up classes if there were actual F’s or if a lot of credits don’t transfer to mew major. Some universities do not make you declare a major until end of sophomore year so they might be able to go undecided next year to explore options. They can go to the counseling center to get some career advising to help with the selection of major. </p>
<p>If on probation though, then transferring schools will be hard. They will have to do community college first to get credentials again. If on probation, other things besides major need to be discussed.</p>
<p>Years ago my kid brother and his roommate were both engineering majors. Both struggled brother’s gpa was about a 2.8 roommate about 2.4. The roommate dropped out of engineering went into finance and with half the work had gpa’s in the 3.6 to 4.0 range every semester.</p>
<p>My friend flunked calculus, retook it in summer school for an A, and eventually got her BS IE. If ‘poor’ is not all that bad, then maybe he should humble himself and stick with it. It’s hard work, and hard work is nothing to be ashamed of.</p>
<p>P529, I can sympathize with your son in that I too finished frosh year with a sub-2.0 gpa in engineering. at Ohio State The upside for me was that I continued in engineering soph year and soon found out that the academics became easier for me once I began coursework in my major, Civil Engineering. I went on to grad school at Cornell,earning my PhD and going on to a fulfilling career in academe.</p>
<p>If your son is considering a change in engineering because he is discouraged with his frosh year performance ,I would encourage him to give it one more semester assuming he has finished his intro engineering/math/physics/chem req’ts. If he continues recommend that he choose non-tech elective(s) which would fulfill a non-engineering major he is considering.</p>
<p>Good luck to y’all.</p>
<p>If he wants to get out of engineering, I think he should feel free to do that.</p>
<p>Unless he is on academic probation, he can probably do it more easily within the same university than by transferring to another university. It’s hard to do an external transfer if you have low grades.</p>
<p>My daughter knows ex-engineering students at her university who are now majoring in such subjects as music or film. And many years ago, my husband changed his major from electrical engineering to math. Engineering is not for everyone.</p>
<p>If your son is at a technical school that doesn’t offer much else besides engineering, a different strategy might be better. In that case, he might be better off leaving his present school, enrolling in a community college and taking the prerequisites for his new major, and eventually transferring to a four-year college that offers that major.</p>
<p>Since when do kids know their majors so assuredly that they don’t change majors? I agree that if the kid is attending a technical school for engineering it might not work, but to say to a kid you can only attend X school if you’re an engineer and if you like the humanities, you’re out of there is pretty … controlling. Seriously, what is it with parents who pick their kids majors and.or classes throughout college??? Advice is good, but planning and dictating their life’s choices is just creepy. Not saying that’s what is the case here, but it does seem more prevalent that people fully admit doing so on CC!</p>
<p>what does he want to change to? Or does he just know engineering it is not for him? Many schools will allow you to change your major - often you can come in undecided. Depending on his school and when they require a committment to a major (many by Jr year but some sooner), maybe he could try something else and still feel he would have an option to change if he “found” his major in the process. Sometimes that feeling of being trapped in a decision is enough to shut some of these kids down. My S will be attending an engineering college but I think there is something to be said for LAC’s and their lack of emphasis on a major until later in the college career.</p>
<p>^^ engineering is a fully packed curriculum even at a LAC, that does offer it although many don’t. You have four full years of study and have to declare early. It is the beauty and yet the drawback to engineering.</p>
<p>If you wait to declare and explore you will be there at least 5 years and maybe more to get an engineering degree. Thus the 3/2 programs that take 5 years. In these programs you often don’t get to sample what an engineering class is even like so you can’t decide if you like it or not early on.</p>