<p>I'm currently a junior and I am in AP Calc BC and AP Chem. I am considering taking AP Physics C and possibly AP Computer Science next year. If I plan on majoring in engineering and going to grad school for engineering (civil engineering undergrad, environmental engineering grad), does it make sense to take the AP class, but not the test then just take the class in college and make a high grade for higher GPA?</p>
<p>sorry, forgot to mention this, but I am also thinking of taking AP Environmental Science next year. And also, I do plan on using AP credit for classes that do not directly relate to engineering (english, history, gov’t, economics)</p>
<p>It depends on where you go to college. It seems as though some of the honors classes at universities (chemistry for example) are geared toward young people who have had the AP classes. Any foundation you gain in high school will help you in college. Once you decide where you are going, the advisor there will be able to tell you what to do, which isn’t a lot of help today. It seems as though many students who have taken the higher level math and science classes, which you are obviously taking, often opt out of just the first semester of the courses. You will want to take the university’s courses, taught by the professors who know what you will need to be successful in the upper level courses.</p>
<p>thanks MD Mom! im thinking that not taking the ap test for calc and chem will be good for me this year cause then i can really focus and make sure i do well on the english lang and psych ap tests (both of which i will probably need to study a lot for).</p>
<p>The trade off is really time vs. understanding. An AP Calc course is not be as rigorous as a Calc course at a good university. As a result, a student that tests out of Calc I will be at a disadvantage compared to a student that took Calc I at the college level. The similar argument is made for students that think it’s a great idea to go to a CC to take Calc and Physics in the summer because “it’s easier”. </p>
<p>On the other hand, taking AP credit can decrease your time in college. From your post, it looks like your AP credits can put you at least a semester ahead. If you attend a school that costs $30,000 a year and make at least $30,000 in six months in a full-time job*, that’s a $60,000 advantage. </p>
<p>What would I do? In a class that you probably won’t use again - e.g. CS - take the credit. If they’ll give you elective credit for AP Env Sci, take it. But for Calc / Physics / Chem, I would have to think through my abilities. Did I just get past the AP course, or do I feel like I sufficiently mastered the AP material? Keep in mind, as was mentioned, pretty much every student in Calc I in an engineering school took AP Calc A/B or B/C. </p>
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<li>Ending in December and starting grad school the next August might hamper this, but remember that you may change your mind about grad school, or you might attend a part-time / distance program after graduation (Georgia Tech has an excellent and highly ranked Distance Learning MS in Environmental Engineering - other schools have similar)</li>
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<p>I got a 4 on the AP calculus exam (many years ago). My dad knew the university calculus prof, so we asked him what he thought. He recommended that I retake the class, and I’m glad I did! It really helped reinforce the concepts. I did place out of several English classes, though, which helped me graduate in 4 years. Most of my friends took 5.</p>
<p>Personally, I got a 5 on the AP Calc exam in high school and so in college I skipped Calc I but I opted to take Calc II, which seemed to work just fine for me. Then again, I got that 5 on the exam and finished the whole exam in something like half the total time allotted, so I was very comfortable with calculus. I am very glad I took Calc 2 at the college level though. No high school class that I have ever heard of is going to prepare you that well for some of the things that go on in Calc II.</p>
<p>If you’re worried about it for your GPA, then using the AP credit depends a lot on the school and discipline. I found my junior/senior level classes within my major to be a lot easier than the freshman, large lecture hall style classes, so since I used seven classes worth of AP credit it probably bumped my GPA up a little bit. It also let me graduate a semester early (all I had to take my last fall was my senior capstone course) saving about $8000 in loans.</p>
<p>The only course I didn’t place out of that I had taken the AP for was Chem II. I got a 4 and the school required a 5 to place out. I took the class since I was thinking about being a chem minor and found it to be one of the easiest classes I had.</p>
<p>One thing to remember is that if you opt out of a class now and replace it with something you’d normally take later, you’ll have more opportunities to take electives (or just easier semesters) down the road.</p>
<p>“The similar argument is made for students that think it’s a great idea to go to a CC to take Calc and Physics in the summer because “it’s easier”.”</p>
<p>Who gives about “understanding”? You go to college to get the best job possible available to you and doing the hard classes at CCs allow you to maximize your gpa which is the most important thing for getting the best job available. On the other hand, doing the hard class at your university and getting a bad grade while you have the opportunity to do it off the books (grades do not count in gpa calculation) at a CC is a disservice to your career. </p>
<p>I have a gpa that allows me to make all the gpa cut-offs of elite companies in part because I pick my classes very carefully to choose the easiest graded elective within my major and also doing the prereqs at CC. Not to mention you only need to do the bare minimum at a community college because all I need is a C- at CC to get a “Pass” transferred, and anyone would know it doesn’t take any effort to get a C-. Does this hurt me at all? Let’s see… Companies don’t usually see transcript until background check. So you can keep all your hard classes and crappy gpa, dead end job while I keep my high gpa and get an elite job. It is not factored into their decision process because they won’t know what classes you “weaseled out at a community college”. If I had taken all the prereqs at Michigan instead of at a CC, I would probably have like a shytty 3.5.</p>
<p>If you are operating on the assumption that what you learn in college is useless and that you’ll learn everything you need to know OTJ, then your comment makes sense. Of course, it shows your naivety as well.</p>
<p>“If you are operating on the assumption that what you learn in college is useless and that you’ll learn everything you need to know OTJ, then your comment makes sense. Of course, it shows your naivety as well.”</p>
<p>If I have to choose between</p>
<p>a) Take hard classes and learn a ton in college and get a mediocre job due to a mediocre gpa, then do well in the mediocre job by using textbook knowledge while learning on the job</p>
<p>b) Take easy classes and Learn nothing in college and get an elite job due to a superb gpa, then do mediocre in the elite job by purely learning on the job</p>
<p>I would choose b any day of the week. It makes perfect sense financially and you are less likely to be stuck in a dead end job (elite job leads to next elite job leads to elite MBA -> more elite jobs)</p>
<p>Also, a lot of great jobs could care less about any of your coursework.
Do you think bankers give a flying crap about linear algebra? Do you think traders (other than quants) give a damn about PDE? Do you think strat consultants care about your physics knowledge? Engineering company examples: Do you think the ILP program at GE, which is by far the most competitive program to get into at GE and considered a feeder to GE management positions, give a shyt about any of your hardcore programming knowledge?
Working under the assumption that everyone needs anything they learn from college shows that you are the naive one. Obviously there are jobs like say a nuclear engineer at a power plant or a chemical engineer at an oil company would need their textbook knowledge. But there are also significant proportion of jobs that do not require anything from college. Ironically, these jobs also tend to be the elite ones that a huge number of college kids are trying to get. That is the exact reason why an art history major could somehow get a more prestigious job than an engineering major from berkeley.</p>
<p>You are also working under the assumption, as usual, that everyone’s goal is to get into the financial sector. That is most certainly not the case.</p>
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<p>I am sorry - I forgot that you know everything. </p>
<p>We’ve dealt in the past, and I know that there is no point in arguing anything with you, because whether or not you’re wrong, you’ll argue the point until everyone else just gives up. Apparently, there’s some sort of psychological issue that requires you to always be “right” and the center of the universe - but that’s not uncommon for a 20-22 year old male. Hopefully you’ll grow out of it. </p>
<p>But for everyone elses’ sake…</p>
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<p>No. The i-banks will hire you anyway. However, if you go into a position and just use things you’ve learned “on the job” or have been taught by the company, you are in for a mediocre low-level career. On the other hand, if you are the guy that remembers linear algebra and uses that to create a model to predict the success of M&A transactions in the future or forecast future performance of a firm, you’ll be a superstar. “But it’s the quant guys that do that”. No, it’s the quant guys that are paid to do that. You should still have some ability to perform a basic analysis.</p>
<p>Every company has a preexisting set of skills and abilities when you enter it. If you just learn those skills and abilities and apply them, you are not creating value. If you are able to create or introduce a new skill or ability successful, you create a large amount of value. How do you create or introduce new skills? As a new college graduate, your main resource is to use your education. If you ignore that education, you better hope that you’re a better communicator, team leader, or organizer than anyone else in the company (hint: despite what you think, you’re probably not).</p>
<p>“You are also working under the assumption, as usual, that everyone’s goal is to get into the financial sector. That is most certainly not the case.”</p>
<p>I listed examples from google and GE, both companies with a core focus on engineering.
I also acknowledged the fact that ther are jobs that require textbook knowledge.</p>
<p>I guess the only wrong assumption that I made is that I assumed you can read.</p>
<p>“On the other hand, if you are the guy that remembers linear algebra and uses that to create a model to predict the success of M&A transactions in the future or forecast future performance of a firm, you’ll be a superstar.”</p>
<p>Funny. The three best traders at the BB desk I interned at are
- Harvard Art History major
- Yale History major
- Texas Electrical Engineering major</p>
<p>“You should still have some ability to perform a basic analysis.”
The basic analysis that you are talking about is plugging a couple numbers in a pre-made excel spreadsheet, press the solve button on the solver and spit out the result. Sure… you need school to do that. (at most firms you don’t even need to do that, you just need to find the relevant information and plug in and you are done)</p>
<p>Oh not to mention the “basic analysis” work you are talking about only come at the low level, once you reach VP and beyond, you are spending most of your time maintaining client relationship…
My cousin, a women studies major. Everything she do, she learned from training and people around her. She made top bucket at MS. She is moving onto one of the top PE (KKR, blackstone type) after her analyst stint. She’s a womens studies major. She cant even do calculus, let alone “remember linear algebra and uses that to create a model to predict the success of M&A transactions in the future or forecast future performance of a firm” and I guess she is now doomed to a “mediocre low-level career”.</p>
<p>My uncle was a ILR at Cornell. He’s on track to make 5 million bonus this year in IBD. I guess he is also doomed to a “mediocre low-level career” because he’s not using anything from college. Compared to my dad, a math major, masters in operations research. I am sure he can still do his linear algebra just fine. He’s barely making 7 digits.</p>
<p>My entire extended family is either in trading or investment banking at bulge brackets. The old ones are all making 7 digits. But I am sure you know more about how to be successful at an investment bank.</p>
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<p>To be fair, I’m a managing director for Goldman Sachs, my uncle is a partner, and my grandfather was Edmund Lynch. </p>
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<p>You’re missing the point of my previous post. I didn’t say that you needed a quantitative background to be successful in a business - I said that you need to create value. How do you do that as a college graduate? By using your education, whether that is critical analysis of historical documents, engineering problem solving and analytical skills, personal interactions in labor relations, or even data analysis and taxonomy in library studies, you create value.</p>
<p>One thing that you realize when you’ve been through many different education programs is that your degree program is more than just textbook problems - it’s a cognitive framework. Your education defines how you look at a problem. A sociologist will look at the exact same problem a different way than a business major, who will look at it differently than an engineer. All three will use different methods to solve that problem based on different tools that they have from their education. How you create value is by bringing a different framework and tools, and by using that framework and tools to see solutions or methods that other cannot. </p>
<p>If you just look at a problem based on how the company has told you to look at it, you’re not using the lens of your education - you’re using the lens of the company, which is what hundreds of others are doing. So what will make you “special” enough in that setting to allow for a promotion or advancement? I know you think you are special, but in reality, you’re not. Just being yourself is not enough to make you a top performer.</p>
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<p>One day you’ll realize a few things about life…</p>
<p>I’d say take the tests, and make use of the credits. For two reasons:
- The classes that unis give you credit for cover about halfway up to what the actual AP test covers (so basically the second half, which you’re shaky on you’ll be redoing while in college).
- I’m not sure about other universities but mine takes into account how many credits you have to see when you can start registering for classes. So if you took alot of AP tests / community college classes you have a higher chance of getting into the calsses you want.</p>
<p>bearcats family background explains a whole lot about his general attitude towards people on these boards. Seriously, get over yourself, man. Life isn’t about money. I would much rather have a job that I love and have to sit there and do it until I am 65 to maintain my standard of living than make $5M a year but hate every second of it, and that is exactly what I would do if I was in investment banking. That stuff bores the crap out of me to an unbelievably ridiculous degree.</p>
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<p>Nowhere in your post did you mention anything about Google. Maybe you thought it, but you didn’t mention it. Then, when you talked about GE, it was all in the context of making it into management, which is again, something that not everyone aspires to, and in order to make it into management, you have to be good at your peon job anyway, which won’t happen if you are technically incompetent. Last, while you acknowledged that there are jobs that still require technical skills, you then proceeded to casually mention how they aren’t the elite jobs. Taken in context with every other post you have ever made, it is quite condescending.</p>
<p>However, there are an entirely different group of people other than yourself that do not value money above all things and who are looking for a job that they find fulfilling, be it technical or nontechnical. For me, that fulfilling job will be performing heavy research either in industry or academia, and as such, I am in grad school working on my Ph.D. and not out there trying to make my way into investment banking. For some people, that fulfilling job is just being a peon with relatively low responsibility in some huge company. If that floats your boat, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. For others, their dream might be to get into investment banking or other similarly lucrative careers. My point is, and always will be, that everyone’s goals and dreams are different, and just because someone strives for the less lucrative option doesn’t mean they are any less of a person than anyone else.</p>
<p>Working on the assumption that the OP wants to go into ibanking, then sure, take those AP credits and take the easiest electives possible. However, most engineering majors don’t go into college with a preconceived idea that they will someday work for Goldman Sachs (you are an obvious exception). In fact, most people originally go into engineering to do engineering. Working on the assumption that this prospective engineer is actually looking to engineering, then the prudent advice is to tell him that he shouldn’t be afraid to use some of his AP credits to get ahead, but getting too far ahead will hurt his ultimate understanding of the finer points of some of the early fundamental subjects like calculus or physics.</p>