I know I posted this a couple of times over the year but now I’m getting to a point where I am so indecisive. I have absolutely no idea what to do. I am just so lost. I can’t believe how lost I am. I have a 2.56 GPA and this semester, I really tried…and I really tried…and I really really tried…but ended up with a 2.75
I’m a petroleum engineering student with 90 credits now. I have only 40 to go. My sister told me to invest in looking to get a job this summer to get exposure in my field. That’s great. I already wanted to do that. ID FU*KING LOVE TO. I’d do an UNPAID INTERNSHIP. I don’t care. i’d work in alaska wit harsh conditions. I really dont care. any inernship. Idc. But with my low gpa, lets get serious, NO ONE would bother looking at my resume with ZERO skills.
Can you folks give me suggestions? I’m considering dropping out and joining the military because it’s useless going to college if I can’t get a job afterwards…you know?
To be perfectly honest, if you truly do the best that you can and you just can’t get a good result, maybe petroleum engineering isn’t really a good major for you. I usually recommend that people stick to what they started, but it sounds like you have 2 years left. It might be a good idea to switch into something else.
Do you really want to work terrible jobs and work unpaid jobs? I can tell you right now that that’s not going to just be some rite of passage; if you accept those conditions, then it’s going to be the norm for your working years. And if you’re at the bottom of the talent pool, like you would be with a GPA well under 3.0, you won’t really have a chance for much better.
I wouldn’t recommend joining the military in your case. The most successful people who take that route are those who planned to go there from the start, and generally they are part of an ROTC program while they go to school.
As for what major to switch into, I have a few questions for you: Do you like the technical work of engineering? Is there a specific subset of your engineering classes, or even your classes in general, that you do well in? And why did you pick petroleum engineering in the first place?
@NeoDymium I like the technical work of engineering. I also LIKE my classes in thermodynamics and statics. I like them, but I did not do well in them, but I enjoy working the problems. I did not do excellent in anything but history. I like history. I picked petroleum because it had a high salary and I speak Farsi and French fluently so i wanted to use those as an advantage when I would work overseas.
I think it’s too late to switch because of my low gpa. It’s useless I feel. The farthest I can go is in between a 2.5-2.9 or something so I’m in a real rut.
I recommend you look into a trade school, or a suitable program in the military that teaches you a trade. You are right to feel that your GPA will keep you down, and in your case I would say that it sounds like you’re not too good a fit for programs that require a university degree (I would argue that most students in almost any given public university don’t really belong there). There are good, well-paying technical fields that require knowledge of a trade but that don’t require a degree.
But be warned: schools are expensive and the military is a very substantial life commitment. Either way, you’d better be sure that it’s a good option for you.
It is not clear why you are failing, but if your GPA is still this low at this point then something definitely needs to change. Are you amenable to being a history major? If you are doing well there then you want to consider switching to that field - it is often better to be in the top half of a poorly-paid field than it is to be in the bottom rungs of a well-paid field!
Failing that, you at least need to take a break from your current program. The military certainly seems like it would be an option - with your language skills you would be in demand for certain jobs, and with your college credits you would enlist with more advanced rank (E-3 to E-4 depending on the service). As Neodymium notes, however, that is a huge commitment - if you are not sure, it would be better to spend a semester evaluating options, or just jump into a trade school.
Remember, the goal here is to find YOU the best career for YOU, and if PetE just isn’t working for you forcing it won’t make it fit. Seriously consider all your options, there is something good for you out there.
If you only have 40 more credits…I’d finish and continue to put forth maximum effort to raise your GPA. Worse case scenario? You are a college grad with a BS in engineering and a rather low GPA. So what? You’ll still be more employable than a ton of other college grads and Pet Engineering is in demand. Somebody will eventually hire you. Don’t give up.
I agree with @aglages, there are plenty of engineering graduates with GPAs below 3.0 and they DO get jobs. As a Professor at Illinois Institute of Technology I see this kind of student all the time. There isn’t much grade inflation in engineering and not everyone is an “A” student with a 3.6 GPA. Maybe you just aren’t that good at taking tests but you might be just fine when you get to work in the field. You have about 3 semesters of courses left and you can still raise your GPA a bit. I would recommend sticking it out and not getting depressed.
As for finding a summer internship, it is a bit late to start looking now. You really needed to start in February. Take a bit of time now to see if there is a co-op opportunity for you and as a backup see if you can volunteer in the research laboratory of a faculty member over the summer. This will give you some experience that you can use to find an internship next summer (if it takes you 3 more semesters to graduate).
“A” students make the best professors of dentistry.
“B” students make the best dentists.
“C” students make the most money.
Frankly, I think that what he said is close to the truth. And I think it is also reasonably true about engineers.
“C” students can be very successful engineers. Hang in there.
Does your college offer co-ops? You might explore that option. You sound like a “hands on” kind of guy.
You might also see if you can transfer to a less demanding engineering displine. Petroleum engineering is extremely difficult, largely because it is a sub-discipline of chemical engineering which is generally regarded as the most difficult engineering program. Consider materials engineering, which is a growing field, or environmental engineering. Maybe even industrial engineering, which is a good path into management.
@cosmicfish “it is often better to be in the top half of a poorly-paid field than it is to be in the bottom rungs of a well-paid field!” hmm, thats true, thanks for your input
@xraymancs thanks so much. useful info. Ill try looking for jobs at the research laboratory.
@NROTCgrad I am more of a hands on type of guy. I think it;s unfair that they base your “testing skills” when in reality, you probably wont be using any of it when actually working. I dont know about transferring to another degree since I have so many credits and such a low gpa. Itll be hard to start over again
Actually, “hands on” work is generally decently rare in engineering (from what I’ve seen and heard). After all, we’re the brains and designers of the product, not the brawn or typically the technicians of the product. If you like hands on work, why not get into engineering technology?
I realized that I forgot something I meant to include - if you are genuinely intent on PetE (something that is not clear from your posts), then see if you can take a semester off to figure out what is going wrong and make some changes. I know you tried working hard this semester, but it is not always about working harder so much as it is about working smarter. You are in rough shape for PetE, but you have time to turn things around IF you can make some real improvements, and it might make sense for you to figure out what those improvements need to be before taking any more classes.
And while that may make things tough(er) with student aid and such, realize that it will be much tougher to make a big career shift once you have that degree in hand - most aid programs disappear once you graduate.
Absolutely, but the farther you get below 3.0 the harder things get, especially if you don’t have something else working in your favor. OP is in that region where job offers get pretty rare, especially for any kind of job that has a decent salary and prospects of improvement, and it does not sound like he has much that’s going to offset that GPA and get him interviews. I am not trying to be pessimistic, just trying to say that depending on his interests and talents, he might want to explore other options that suit him better and therefore be both more satisfying AND more lucrative!
I was a technician for years before I became an engineer. As a technician, it’s almost all hands-on, as an engineer it varies a bit but most engineers (in my experience) spend less than 10% of their time hands-on. A technology degree might not be a bad shift.
Many organizations hire engineering graduates for non-engineering jobs – GOOD JOBS!
Case in point… the US Navy wants most of its officers to have engineering degrees. However, almost none of those officers will do even one hour of engineering work. The navy wants engineers because engineers understand technology, and the Navy’s ships are floating technology platforms. Many private companies do the same thing. For example, some companies want their sales reps to have engineering degrees because they are selling to engineers.
Studying engineering is very different than working as an engineer.
For one thing, much of the work is done by computers – not just with computers, but by computers. In my one and only electrical engineering course, one day the professor asked how many of the students thought that they would actually perform “circuit analysis” once they became employed. A huge number of hands went up. He then explained that they were wrong, because computers did that work. This is becoming more true every day.
2a) Furthermore, studying engineering is very abstract. Some schools (such as MIT) teach engineering so abstractly that students can hardly know what the practical application is. Their are tons of real world engineering jobs which require minimal abstract thinking, but are quite practical. This is what I meant by “hands on.” – not literal “hands” :-?
Yes, and many of those jobs are more forgiving of a lower GPA than engineering jobs are. They still have GPA requirements and technical expectations, however, and the closer you get to 2.5 GPA the less confidence they have in your ability to meet those expectations. These jobs often come with other requirements as well, like the ability to sell, something that most engineering grads can’t do even to other engineers.
Yes and no. It depends a lot on your actual job, I’ve had positions and tasks where it was just like doing an academic project and others where it was quite different. Computers may do more of the heavy lifting these days, but you are often in the position of having to write the code or equations the computers use, or having to interpret the results and check them for accuracy. You might be surprised how often there is no program to do what you need to do, or how often the program exists but they decide it is cheaper for you to just do the work by hand - some engineering software licenses can cost $50k each per year. And every program is subject to the GIGO effect - you have to know what to put into the program and how to identify when the results are meaningless.
It certainly can be, but that doesn’t mean it always is. The study of engineering runs the gamut from extremely practical to extremely theoretical, in parallel with the ranking of the department from low to high. Grads from top schools tend to have a great theoretical foundation but need a lot of training to develop practical skills, while grads from low-ranking schools are often ready to go “out of the box” but lack the theory needed to do much advanced work. My company handles this by hiring from a spread of schools, with students from the top departments going into the research and design departments while students from the low departments tend to go into fabrication and test, for example. So yes, those “minimal abstract thinking, but are quite practical” jobs exist in abundance and provide a comfortable life, but they can often be limiting to career aspirations.
While, I’ve never been able to find the exact number and am confident it’s only approximated and not tracked on a nationwide scale, the best and repeated number I have been able to locate is that the average GPA of engineering grads is 3.01-3.02.
For all those who excel at math, that means that half of all engineering students graduate with a sub 3.01 GPA.
And although I’m only an MBA and the parent of an engineering student and not in engineering myself, I’ll say that the argument that half of all engineering grads aren’t getting employment is completely absurd.
Before my son started school, we toured Georgia Tech. Our tour guide there admitted he had a low GPA of about 2.0, but had been offered and completed 2 co-ops during his schooling and already had a job offer upon graduation. There are most definitely companies that will hire students that can complete an engineering degree in spite of a low GPA.
If your GPA is too low, you won’t graduate. At my son’s school he must have a 2.0 or above in his major courses to earn his degree. If you are not able to meet the GPA requirements to earn your degree that is one thing, but if you are able to do well enough to get your degree, then odds are good you will be able to find a job.
You say “But with my low gpa, lets get serious, NO ONE would bother looking at my resume with ZERO skills.”. How do you know? Have you tried? The MOST valuable thing you can do is to gain internship or co-op experience. Take a chance and send out some resumes. If not, then build your resume in other ways. Participate in any engineering groups on your campus, work to obtain leadership roles, join your engineering branches professional organization…
My advice: go google ‘average GPA of engineering graduates’ and read some of what you find that is not on this site.
It’s not quite the same result in that a substantial portion of talented engineers choose to leave the field and that there are low GPA employed engineers (usually with some other advantage, like military experience or nepotism), but it does show that half of engineers don’t work in engineering jobs. But I wouldn’t say that it’s fair to just discount that specific tidbit of pessimism unless you have good reason to think it’s unwarranted.
If you do choose to stay in engineering after all is said and done, this is very good advice. Extracurricular activity is worse than research experience which is worse than an internship, but they are both infinitely better than doing nothing or working in a terrible job.
This OP is worried about getting any employment at all. Leading a comfortable life would appear to within his grasp and completely acceptable to him. Not everybody is trying to get to the top of their profession.