<p>Hi, I just graduated from an Ivy League with a sub 3.0gpa in Foreign Language. The reason for it is that I went through a really rough semester where I struggled with depression, then in my final semester I picked it back up and finished with a 3.0 and I'm definitely not happy with myself. I was told by my advisor that no good graduate school would accept me with such a low GPA - but to be honest, I don't want to go to the best school necessarily at this point, but a decent one. My father argues that my advisor is wrong if I receive a high GRE score.</p>
<p>Well, I've realized that I have other academic interests that lie in EE instead of continuing toward grad school in the field which I originally earned my B.A. in. I'm an out-of-state student and would like attend a school in California like SJSU or CalPoly. I had professors at my uni telling me that graduating from an Ivy League would open a lot of doors for me, but now I'm worried due to a few glaring low grades on my final transcript. </p>
<p>How feasible is my current goal (I'm looking at applying to a number of these schools for Fall of 2014, but don't know if I'd be wasting my time/the time of these schools)? Does anyone have extra advice other than doing extremely well on my GREs and my professor recommendations as a supplement?</p>
<p>Ugh, sorry. I realize I accidentally mashed two different things togehter without checking my post properly. Replace the final question with SAT/ACT and recs as a supplement.</p>
<p>What is the underlying motivation for switching to EE?
You don’t have to get a BS, you could take catchup courses both at a CC and your eventual grad school and get the masters. I used to tutor a guy in calculus who had his undergrad in theology and was going this route.
Catchup courses being (this covers about half)
-calc I, II, III
-diffeq
-linear algebra
-Physics I, II, III
-electric circuits
-digital logic design
-discrete signals
-programming in C
-digital circuits & systems</p>
<p>Thanks for your response, that was actually very helpful. I can pick up my grades at a CC then pursue a masters or whatever else. Just a side comment - from what I’ve researched, the minimum requirement for a lot of prominent jobs in this field is a bachelor’s. Is it true that you don’t necessarily need a masters or a PhD unless you’re planning on having a career in academia?</p>
<p>The underlying motivation: I’ve always been interested in technology and electronics (my father worked at a computing center and taught statistics, and I would have fun sitting at his office when I was little just messing around with the old computers). Also, I want to broaden my horizons by cultivating my other knowledge abilities. It could be that SE or CS is the answer, too. EE just captures my interest the most from the reading material I’ve looked into.</p>
<p>A masters in engineering can equal an initial offer salary bump and a credential toward senior engineering roles down the road. It’s also a matter of practicality as some colleges won’t allow students to earn a second bachelor’s degree, but you’ll have to find each school’s policy.</p>
<p>A master’s would probably add at least a year onto your studies, and it is a different flavor than a strictly BS coursework. A good friend of mine got his first degree in biology and graduated with a 2.7 from a Texas flagship. He realized he wanted to get into.engineering, so he went to a solid cc engineering transfer program and knocked out all the engineering prereqs for MechE and transferred to GWU SEAS with a 3.7 (@ new school) and a nice 20k scholarship.</p>