<p>I am first year engineering student at Purdue and find that go out of the way to try to make you fail(not that I am anywhere near failing) for example on 20 point engr 195( Our intro engineering class) hw assignment you can lose up to 80 points, you can a negative score such that you would have been better off not doing it. There are so many more such examples, but does anyone has experience like at either Purdue or other top engineering programs or am I imagining things?</p>
<p>Take a step back from the ledge, my friend. They are not trying to screw you. It just isn’t like high school anymore.</p>
<p>Purdue has a reputation for “weeding out”.</p>
<p>Also, you’re missing some words here and there in your post, and even in the subject line. I don’t know if they take off points for that in Purdue assignments.</p>
<p>‘Purdue has a reputation for “weeding out”.’…</p>
<p>For those who are trying to find an engineering school that is right for them, I would like to re-emphasize something I have asked in here before- do you mind going to a school that’s prone to “weeding out”, or do you think you want one that helps you succeed once you’re in? I’m not going to say that one situation is better than another, but I think this consideration should be at least as important to prospective engineering students as the school’s supposed “prestige”. It is a question that really goes to the heart of your entire experience.</p>
<p>Freshman and sophomore year, you will have many courses where you will feel this way. Most professors are not trying to screw you over but lets be honest, there are many “weed out classes” that you will have to get through. I consider these to be calc II, chem II, physics I and II and the first several engineering courses in your major. These classes are designed so that a certain percentage of the class will not pass. These classes will separate the serious students from the ones that don’t belong in engineering (lets face it, many that start in engineering don’t belong in engineering). I’d say less than 50 percent of those that start in engineering will actually graduate. This will vary somewhat by school but seeing as how engineering is one of the toughest degrees to obtain, it’s not surprising that engineering class sizes will drop more than practically any other major from start to finish. It is my guess that some easier majors might increase in size due to people dropping out of the tougher majors.</p>
<p>Well that’s why there are business schools :p</p>
<p>Wow, I have to consider this before attending then…</p>
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<p>Not trying to pick a fight Weldon…I wonder if we’ve ever done that before…the above statement is a bit more simple than I would like it to be. Few universities don’t have weed out courses. Even if a school is going to be good at providing the resources students need to succeed, the courses mentioned here Calc II & III, Intro Physics, Intro Chem, and the intro Engineering courses are going to be graded harshly at almost any school you go to.</p>
<p>As for Purdue, it has a great engineering reputation, a very high acceptance rate, and a noticeably lower quality of students being admitted at the undergraduate level. It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise to see a high drop out rate in some of Purdue’s top undergrad programs. This doesn’t mean students aren’t getting the necessary resources needed to succeed.</p>
<p>I think jack just hit the nail on the head.</p>
<p>well, I don’t think we’re fighting, but maybe you’re missing my point a little bit. It is a fact that some schools accept lots of students, more than they can graduate, and then have mechanisms to “weed out” as necessary. It is not the inherent course difficulty I’m commenting about here, but the kind of environment that can result - “me against you”, and the fact that you’re going to see a lot of friends and acquaintances falling by the wayside. Possibly also the feeling that your professors and TAs have a different agenda other than actually helping you. And I think it’s inevitable that if you need to weed out a certain number of students BY DESIGN, by definition you aren’t going to give everybody the support they could use- instead you’ve got to set up criteria for folks NOT to succeed. By contrast, other schools pre-select students they expect to succeed. Of course, not everyone does succeed, but the emphasis of the program (and the resulting atmosphere) is to support all students as much as possible. This can make a big difference in your undergrad experience. By the way, I’ve taken Calc I, Calc II, Physics, etc., etc.: I have two engineering degrees. I’ve seen lots of people drop out simply because they couldn’t handle the material, and so be it. But generally that was in spite of the environment, not because of it. In any case, you can see how the OP feels, right? He implies that personally he’s doing OK but still unhappy. Is that just his imagination?</p>
<p>I think the main issue for freshmen engineering students is that in high school they were probably towards the top of their class and used to acing every exam and every assignment. It can be very stressful to suddenly be in a program where the competition is much higher and the grading is much harsher. I don’t think it is uncommon for freshmen engineering students to feel like professors and TAs are trying to screw them over, but as weldon said, these courses are designed to weed people out. In all honesty, it needs to be this way. This adds to the legitimacy of engineering degrees. Unlike many other majors, someone who graduates with an engineering degree is in a way part of a select group. You generally will not find slackers or people that really are not serious suceed in engineering. Engineers do have responsibilities to design essential things that people depend on every day. It wouldn’t be good for anyone if engineering programs did not make it difficult to obtain an engineering degree.</p>
<p>Weldon, Fair response. From my personal experience as a student and TA at Purdue, I don’t feel the the school wasn’t providing the needed support to the students. Actually, I think the school excels at providing the needed support.</p>
<p>For example, in the sophomore engineering course I TAed years ago at Purdue, We had the professor, a graduate TA, and a undergraduate TA keeping nearly 20 office hours a week for a class of about 100. There were multiple help/recitation sessions for students, and the professor was quite good. The curves on the tests were reasonable. The tests covered basic electronics that the students needed to know. While a top score might be 95%, a 75% would get you a straight A. Yes, people would get C’s, D’s, and F’s, but they were getting 20% to 30% on tests that were mostly multiple choice. I just didn’t feel as a TA that I or the Professors had a different agenda. If the students couldn’t get reasonable scores on these tests, they would be clueless in grad school or in corporations. In grad school the stuff just gets harder.</p>
<p>I understand the OP is unhappy, but I don’t know the specifics. I was unhappy as a freshman when I went to school years ago too(not at Purdue). Sometimes the adjustment is just difficult. There may be other things about Purdue he may not like. I didn’t particularly care for West Lafayette and Lafayette, for example.</p>
<p>I will say publics play a different role and it is sometimes difficult for them to “pre-select” students. Publics need to make sure an education is accessible. I genuinely feel that this means they accept people they don’t always believe are “sure bets”, simple because these students and the parents pay taxes and believe they should have a crack at a great education. Purdue is cool in the sense that a student’s parent may not have been able to send him/her to a great prep school out east, but if he can go into Purdue and make lots of A’s, he’ll have a clear shot at going to grad school at MIT or Stanford because of Purdue’s engineering rep.</p>
<p>In response to post #4. </p>
<p>I’d rather be a part of the weed out school so I know that I’m getting the best education. The Toyota crisis comes to mind when I think about this.</p>
<p>Weldon, your post still bugs me quite a lot.</p>
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<p>As a TA this is just not what I saw. I think it is true that Purdue’s drop out rate in some courses including many of the sophmore and freshman courses and engineering programs is worse than other schools. The thing is this is not be DESIGN. From my experience as a graduate TA in a sophmore engineering course, it was my experience that Professors hated giving out Ds and Fs. The thing is some students just wouldn’t turn in homeworks. On multiple choice tests, students were getting 20% to 30%…you pick the right answer out or 4 or 5 choices. I remember that usually 15% to 20% of the students in the course I TAed had students retaking the course. This would just drive professor nuts. I remember one professor would literally pull up some of these students files and contact the students who were retaking the course to make sure they turned in the hwk and showed up the class. The professors just didn’t want to give Ds and Fs.</p>
<p>The legitimate question and discussion I think is Purdue’s admissoin criteria at the undergrad level. To say that Purdue wanted students to fail by DESIGN and wouldn’t give the necessary resources the students needed to suceed is just untrue.</p>
<p>alright, jack, if the situation at Purdue is as you’ve described, then things don’t sound unreasonable. After all engineering students have standards they must meet. But, I wonder what would happen in upper-level classes if everybody did do their homework well as freshmen? Overloaded sections? Tons of adjuncts hired at the last minute? And, I’ve heard about the old “look to your left, look to your right, two out of three of you will be gone” routine from lots of Big Ten engineers. Is this just an urban legend? If so I apologize. If not, is that always the best approach for a bunch of 18-yr-olds? And what’s the deal with negative points on an assignment (see OPs post)? .The way you have described things, though, it sounds like “weeding-out” is more a function of plain poor student performance rather than super-high expectations. </p>
<p>cabhax, I understand your statement but I don’'t accept the premise that a “weed-out” philosophy correlates with a quality education.</p>
<p>Well there is a standard, the ABET accreditation, and if the material is above the standard, it seems as if it would correlate with a better education. The students who can’t cut it shouldn’t be making sticky gas pedals… do you not agree? Med school is the same way, law school, etc.</p>
<p>If you’re saying that the atmosphere being created by the intense pressure of having to make the cut, then that’s different, but I would think most people would disagree with you also. Competition helps fuel growth and motivates people to do the best they can. If you’re not pressured in the industry to make gas pedals correctly, would you say that there is less of a chance that you’ll make a faulty one? I say that weeding out is probably the best way to prepare students for the real world of engineering, it just seems reasonable to me.</p>
<p>weed out courses have nothing to do with quality of education; they function to separate the men from the meek. I Likewise, am glad I didn’t go to one of those programs that ‘does not have a weed out philosophy and ensures all student’s success’ (basically high school p2)</p>
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<p>No, as I understand this actually happens at Purdue for the freshman courses…at least it did when I was there. Professor actually used to say that…so you don’t need to apologize :). I wasn’t familiar with freshman courses, but at the sophomore, I just don’t think there was any Design to have students fail. I will say that there were a bunch of sophomore students taking engineering course that wouldn’t turn in hwk or go to class, so I don’t know how hard the intro engineering courses could have been.</p>
<p>Would schools want more engineering students. Where I’m at now at Michigan, the administrators would desperately want more qualified undergrads. It means more tenure track faculty and more TAs(supported grad students).</p>
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<p>(I know I’m screwing up your alliteration, but they also separate out the women from the meek. 
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<p>Either way, I am fine with it I will do everything in my ability to succeed, I just wanted to clarify that I wasn’t imagining things. Thanks for all the replies.</p>