<p>Schaden, you smell of ■■■■■.</p>
<p>The worst thing that ever happened to me at Tech was when my 3057 partner was supposed to turn in a paper but decided he would rather drop out. I should not have been so trusting but figured by that level I could trust my partners to be responsible people. In the end the paper was graded because his going crazy and dropping out before checking into a mental ward was viewed by the head of ME and an unpredictable event that the rest of the group shouldn’t be held responsible for. As for the guy that dropped out, he was about to lose his precious 4.0 and had to repeal the semester so he checked himself into a mental ward so he could start the semester over again, it sucks but people do it. I had to write 2 ME 3057 papers and take a Machine design, statistics, and engineering Econ midterm in one week. For that week I had 2 panic attacks and cried for about 2 hrs. before pulling myself together and getting to work. I didn’t sleep or eat because the adrenaline over flow, I couldn’t stop shaking to sleep and digestion had shut down. But I got through it, I had a chance to look deep inside myself and see what I was made of, I am a better person for it, and while I will always hate that guy, and Federove for wanting to flunk me, I am in a way glad it happened it changed who I am for the better and gave me perspective now that I am out in the professional world</p>
<p>You should also keep in mind that Tech is a research school so you are not the number one priority. Professors at Tech view undergrads as a distraction from their research, you will have to make your self at that school, no one is going to hold your hand. My fluids professor slept on the plane between in two research labs, one at tech and one in Ohiho, he never missed a lecture and graded exams and was always there for his office hours. The professors are just as stressed and sleep deprived as you so don’t go wining to them. I once found a professor napping on the floor during one of his office hours, I woke him up while searching for a pulse. The trick to managing the stress is finding good roommates, because then it feels like you have a social life while you are studying, eating, and hanging out in the common room.</p>
<p>Really!? that’s intense. Profs. go out of their way for us to some degree (somehow it still ends up being kind of hard. The more they help you, the more they expect I guess). That would never happen here (OK, except for my Inorganic prof., Craig Hill, constantly canceling classes to speak at conferences). I wouldn’t attribute that to being a research school. That’s just crazy. That’s the type of stuff that would be sufficient to turn me off from Tech, not course difficulty. Glad I’m here.
But I’ll agree on friends/roommates aiding in stress reduction. Really important.</p>
<p>My professor was not happy about being woken up at first until he realized I thought he was dead, then he was happy I didn’t just leave him there. The profs. were there for us, we just weren’t their number one priority, but I hear going to Tech as a Grad is a whole different story, at the Grad level your are a research assistant and get more one on one time and such, or by that level you are just used to it.</p>
<p>My DD just finished her freshman year at Tech. She is ChemE (or whatever it is there). This is her experience so far. </p>
<p>Rigor: She has a 4.0, does 10 hrs of work-study/wk, sleeps 8 hrs every night, (has NEVER done an all-nighter), has exempted most of her final exams (some just aren’t allowed), and is wondering when this college thing is supposed to get hard. (She acknowledges that she is the exception and most other students do at least one all-nighter a week, fail some tests, get some C’s and B’s.) I guess IB was a good preparation in high school.</p>
<p>Ratio: She is a good-looking slender girl with long brown/red hair, yet she is and has been without a boyfriend all year. She is shy, not to be confused with TBS. She also does not drink and has no desire to be around drunkenness, which cuts down on party opportunities. She is not complaining though. She thinks she’s having a great college experience and was just saying today that she’d like to be a campus tourguide.</p>
<p>It’s true that the campus empties on the weekends, except for football days. (She does homework on Sundays). Football is big and is her favorite part of campus life. She is also from OOS and is receiving a very nice scholarship/aid package.</p>
<p>Congratulations on your daughter’s success. Wow,that’s impressive! 10 hours is low (the average even at privates for example is like 14). Those intro. courses must not challenge her at all. Normally people with lots of AP/IB credit and experience study much more than that for science courses here, so I can’t imagine pulling that amount off at Tech and getting a 4.0. I am also surprised about the fact that she exempted out of finals. Every intro. level science course here seems to use the final to crash grades, so they wouldn’t allow exemption, even for top students. Like 1 math section allows it. What courses did she take out of curiosity?</p>
<p>Hmm…I thought 10 hrs/wk of work-study was standard-ish, but what do I know? None of her friends at school do work-study at all, but it’s a requirement of her particular scholarship. So far she’s taken Calc I and II, Chem II, Biological Principles, Eng I and II, Organic Chem I, Computing for Engineers, maybe something else (not sure though). She doesn’t have to take any physics based on her AP/IB scores. She wishes she could have said the same for her English classes. Give her science classes any day.</p>
<p>After re-reading my post, I realized it may be taken the wrong way by some. Yes, I’m proud of her, but it’s not meant to brag or gloat. I just wanted to point out that not everyone has the same experiences and blanket statements about Tech could be completely wrong to the individual. Heck, she was scared to go to Tech after reading all of the negative postings about how hard it is there. It really had her thinking twice about attending. But all that angst was for naught in her case.</p>
<p>I remember when they removed the North Ave gates. They did so for good reasons (to make it feel less like a fortress cut off from the rest of the school), but crime made that infeasible. It is now back to being a fortress, which I guess is kind of cool if you want to play castle or secret agent.</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>At best, I’ll grant that the intentions were good but immature. I remember walking to the “edge” of East Campus and literally seeing nothing but darkness beyond the street lights between Smith and North Ave.</p>
<p>Would you rather have a “fortress cut off from the rest of the school” or an apartment complex that just screams, “rob me”?</p>
<p>No, you’re fine. It really is impressive. I notice the chem. They must let students exempt out of general chemistry (there is only one as opposed to 2 here) there. I also forgot that both sequences of each major course are offered each semester there. That makes me jealous. I wish it was like that here. Your daughter did an amazing job with that course load!</p>
<p>I would like to know about the learning environment at tech. Are they committed to teaching? How open are they? How reasonable are the grading system at tech? Cut throat? Bellshaped? Are there lots of TAs?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>At a research institution, the primary focus is of course research, as it should be, but no professor enters academia without being committed to teaching. Whether students perceive them as effective is an entirely different question.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In the College of Management, they are generally very accessible. I have heard that applied and natural science professors are more elusive, if only because they have to write grants with much greater frequency than b-school profs and have to manage labs for their research.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Real</a> Data](<a href=“http://www.irp.gatech.edu/apps/Grades/Grades_by_Dept.cfm?TRM=201002&mode_display=percent&id=000000]Real”>http://www.irp.gatech.edu/apps/Grades/Grades_by_Dept.cfm?TRM=201002&mode_display=percent&id=000000)</p>
<p>Even in engineering, most grades are As or Bs. Naturally, students who earned Cs, Ds, or Fs complain the loudest, even though they’re in the minority. To be fair, students who made Bs can complain pretty loudly as well for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons.</p>
<p>So how reasonable is it? I wasn’t an engineer, but if most grades are As or Bs, I’d say it’s reasonable, though by no means a walk in the park.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In Management, no. In math and CS, yes. So it depends on the department.</p>
<p>very hard to get straight As.
very hard to get 3.5 or above if you are not smart and don’t work hard
very hard not to retakes course if you are not smart and don’t study.</p>
<p>Average gpa for freshmen of engineering is around 2.8;
the one for seniors are a little above 3, if my memory works correctly.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is true. Only thirty-seven students in the graduating Spring 2010 class had 4.0’s.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, of course if one is not smart and doesn’t work hard, one should hardly expect to get 3.5 or higher. If one isn’t smart, one has to compensate for it by working harder than, say, a smarter student.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Same as above. If you aren’t smart and you don’t study, good luck getting out.</p>
<p>I always see guys who don’t study, to my surprise.
sigh…</p>
<p>I graduated from GT in 2000. I was a party child… the only time we left campus in a car was to go bar hopping. No one really ever went home on my freshman hall. None of my roommates ever went home during my sophomore/junior/senior years when I was living in the apt-style dorms. I grew up in Alpharetta and only went home for Christmas!!! </p>
<p>You have to find your own niche in college. The great thing about Tech is that it is full of really smart people. Being a nerd isn’t an issue; you are ALL smart, and being smart is respected.</p>
<p>If you want to party, you will have plenty of opportunity, especially with the Greek system.
If you don’t want to drink or do drugs, but still have fun, you will have plenty of opportunity through the multitude of student orgs and yes, even in the greek system.
If you want to sit in your room and pout that the campus is deserted, yeah, you can do that too - but it’ll only be your own ignorance holding you back from what the campus offers.</p>
<p>I did CS at GT and have my dream job. It is so worth it!!!</p>