<p>How often does this happen? I'm a liberal arts major at Tech and was considering a transfer to UGA and wondering what kind of benefits a transfer could offer.</p>
<p>What sorts of benefits do you want? What are your career goals? </p>
<p>Transferring to UGA can make sense, particularly if you are struggling at GT academically. Moving to UGA will substantially raise your GPA for the same effort, even in liberal arts programs. </p>
<p>As far as salaries, UGA graduates have a lower starting salary than GT graduates with less job offers per student in the same majors. For example, the average International Affairs graduate at UGA earned $34,000 last year, at GT it was $52,000. The average business major from UGA earned $40,000, at GT it was $52,000. The average History major at UGA earned $30,000, at GT (STAC) it was $41,500.</p>
<p>How often does it happen? It’s fairly common for students to leave GT because of difficulty or because they decide to pursue a major not offered at Tech. When students leave GT for those reasons, UGA is a top choice.</p>
<p>Yeah, but wouldn’t UGA offer a broader curriculum in the liberal arts? Tech students may make more because they must be exposed to the natural sciences and math even when pursuing a liberal arts degree. Thus, they end up more well-rounded and have a greater variety of jobs to choose from, many of which are higher paying. So I don’t think the income made after graduation will judge quality in that area, because I’m willing to bet that students in the liberal arts here (Emory) probably make less than that right after graduation (part of this is because we feed lots of people to things like teach for America and the Peace Core, so the goals are different in a lot of cases), yet the teaching and oppurtunities are probably just as good if not better. And then you’d have to consider that many/most students at schools like UGA (or even us) in such programs probably pursue graduate school or law school opportunities. The pool of those who exit those programs and immediately enter the workforce may be smaller. Also, despite UGA being easier, apparently the students there still don’t do that well. The average graduating gpa is a 3.2, 1/10 higher than Tech. Therefore, it’s clear that most students there don’t find it easy, or perhaps don’t work as hard, but point is, their grades aren’t that high. One reason could be that there is a lot of distractions at UGA. That makes seeming non-rigorous academics hard sometimes.
Anyway, I personally would choose UGA for the course offerings if I was in those fields, as I’m more research/academia oriented. People at engineering schools are probably more “career” oriented regardless of whether they are in liberal arts or not, whereas a person at other schools in such programs will follow passion and pursue more unconventional fields that don’t pay as well. Heck lots of folks at MIT end up on Wall Street. A lot goes behind those numbers, so I wouldn’t use them to discredit a school.</p>
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<p>It depends on the field. The Sam Nunn school at Tech is surprisingly broad - more so than UGA, as is most of the Ivan Allen college. On the other hand, Tech is very limited in areas like Poetry, and Literature. </p>
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<p>Georgia Tech’s national prestige attracts many national and international traditional and non-traditional companies looking for graduates from all fields (such as consulting) that pay higher. UGA doesn’t attract many employers outside of the Southeast (other than the big firms that do their due diligence and visit basically everywhere - but even in that case UGA is not a target). There are exceptions, though, notably some of the life sciences, the journalism school, and the agriculture college attract national recruiters.</p>
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<p>It’s the same at GT. The difference is that those that do not pursue grad school have more opportunities at a higher pay.</p>
<p>In terms of grad school, GT places very well in law programs. Also, the school’s GPA profile boosts students.</p>
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<p>You’re assuming similar student bodies. That’s not the case. Also, consider that GT’s 3.1 average GPA is heavily impacted by the fact that more than 50% of students at GT are engineering students while a very large portion of UGA’s students are in programs like education and Forestry which have exceptionally high GPAs. This skew is evident in the honors designations. To graduate with honors (top 25%) at UGA, a public policy major needs a 3.5-3.6 GPA. At GT, that student needs a 3.15.</p>
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<p>It really depends on the field. For something only UGA offers, it’s an obvious choice. But the old rule still holds: if UGA and Tech both offer the same program, you’re better off at Tech.</p>
<p>Yeah, but does Tech apply the same standards to every dept. or does it actually consider the average GPA of Sam Nunn. Basically, with a university wide standard, it’ll be easier to get honors if in the Sam Nunn since their grades will probably be higher than science/engineering majors. Emory has departmental standards. Most will require a 3.5, some 3.7. You also have to do an honors thesis to be considered for it. Does this automatically mean Emory and UGA are equal in rigor?</p>
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<p>You’re the one arguing that equal grades = equal level of difficulty across universities, not me.</p>
<p>Despite Tech’s prowess in that realm, I think those other majors/concentrations are important to a liberal arts education, and I think UGA has broader offerings there. I also disagree with liberal arts being thrown around so loosely as a term simply meaning courses/majors disconnected with science/engineering. Liberal arts is a method of teaching/learning, moreso than a label. And that approach can be integrated into sciences with success. It works really well with some courses here (though when applied to courses like intro. bio, and orgo., it makes them far more difficult).</p>
<p>I’m merely pointing out that your statement comes with that implication. It would be more reasonable to say, that I’ve seen the work/exams that they have and it doesn’t stack up and that could be one explanation why they get slightly better grades overall (the 3.2), but if they were say Tech caliber students, they would be doing much better. But the latter statement could be mean considering the sizes of their classes (I’m sure many are larger than y’alls, including some of their harder classes). I mean, from a science major’s perspective, I really question if I would do as well if I were in classes that large. I can’t say so for sure. Though our classes are harder, the profs. and learning resources are more accessible to help me through. I felt bad for my friend at UGA who took gen. chem 1 last semester when I asked him if they had SI (or P-Set solving sessions, or P-Sets at all) and he said no. Large classes+less practice+less accessible help for at risk/struggling students= great difficulty for lots of people. He did quite well on his ACT, managed 4s and 5s on AP (including bio so he isn’t bad at science), but still got a like a C+ or B- in that class. While the exams/workload is easier, the academic environment makes it harder for many than what it should be. </p>
<p>Using honors standards gets dicey as many schools, even difficult ones have that standard, that’s the point I’m making.</p>
<p>OP: I really just encourage you to look on each website and compare the academic offerings, decide what you want in your education, and decide. Banjo is right in that, if you really just want a higher paying job upon graduation, Tech has you set. But if you are more serious about a what might be a “fuller” liberal arts education perhaps at the expense of some money, look further into UGA.<br>
Hopefully, a UGA student can tell you about their experience with the liberal arts there, because it’s kind of ridiculous that I am speaking on behalf of a UGA sector that I am not truly familiar with (I just know course offering in the “liberal arts” is larger overall. If you want a particular program and that’s it, you’ll need to compare head to head). All of my friends there are in the sciences.
I’m also just kind of defend you from the assumption that you are really only leaving because of one of those two reasons cited above. That really isn’t fair to unhappy Tech students or UGA students. Both are two completely different environments. That would be like if I said that anyone who transfers from Emory to UGA either can’t afford or couldn’t handle it. This is a sweeping generalization.</p>
<p>Bernie12,
Do you have any data to support your statement that the average graduating GPA at UGA is a 3.2? I’m not challenging you. I’m just curious.</p>
<p>I don’t know how accurate this is, but I found it here. Apparently this guy researches grade inflation. I would imagine UGA had it somewhere available on their website.<br>
[Georgia[/url</a>]
The last reported piece of data was in 2007, so it could have gone slightly up or down, but I’d imagine it is still close.
<a href=“http://www.googlesyndicatedsearch.com/u/universityofgeorgia?hl=en&domains=uga.edu&sitesearch=uga.edu&ie=UTF-8&&sa=X&ei=TkIzTcvBKIWKlwf4kaiuCg&ved=0CAMQBSgA&q=average+gpa&spell=1[/url]”>http://www.googlesyndicatedsearch.com/u/universityofgeorgia?hl=en&domains=uga.edu&sitesearch=uga.edu&ie=UTF-8&&sa=X&ei=TkIzTcvBKIWKlwf4kaiuCg&ved=0CAMQBSgA&q=average+gpa&spell=1](<a href=“http://gradeinflation.com/Georgia.html]Georgia[/url”>Georgia)</a>
this page gives a pdf report that supports the guy’s date up to 2004 (apparently that’s where UGA peaked).</p>
<p>This small little snippet supports that it has gone down slightly. <a href=“http://www.uga.edu/greeklife/academics/index.html[/url]”>http://www.uga.edu/greeklife/academics/index.html</a></p>
<p>I suppose one could say UGA is kind of like Emory without the grade inflation, but I imagine some would argue that before 2004, there was an unwarranted upward trend (as in SATs did not increase enough to justify 3.25). I’m pretty sure our unwarranted upward trend will continue, but it often depends how hard introductory science/orgo./biochem/NBB 301 courses are in some years. It’s always difficult and generally the same profs. teach, but some years they choose to make the courses a tad easier than other years for no random reason.</p>
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<p>Bernie, have you ever taken a Liberal Arts class at Georgia Tech to be able to compare the method of teaching and learning?</p>
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<p>I’m not really a fan of what website. The author takes GPAs without considering causes. For example, many schools have justly increased their average GPA as they’ve increased their admissions requirements. Also, many schools have increased their GPA as they’ve widened their curriculum offerings.</p>
<p>For example, 30 years ago (the span of the survey), people did not go to UGA to become teachers. They became teachers either through practical learning or through local 2-year colleges. Now, you need a 4-year degree to become a teacher, and as a result, UGA admits many more education majors than 30 years ago. Education majors have a higher GPA than non-education majors, so a higher percentage of education majors increases the university GPA. That doesn’t mean that UGA is inflating grades, it just means that one department has more relaxed GPAs than other departments.</p>
<p>And that’s just one example of a career that until recently did not require a 4-year degree. UGA has many others.</p>
<p>Yeah, I understand that Banjo, and would agree as, again, lots of things go into GPA. But still, that is UGA’s average graduating gpa. I personally can’t tell if there is inflation, and that’s why I said that UGA seems like Emory (similar, overall, but much broader offerings) without the grade inflation. I know for a fact that we have a good bit of it as I go here (though, yes some of the increase probably did come from the increasing admission stats. starting in 2000, but the fact that it was close to 3.3 even then is sketch). All I can say is that at UGA, there is an upward trend. I don’t know if it’s warranted or not.
Liberal Arts: No, I wasn’t trying to say anything about Tech’s liberal arts in this instance. Go back and read it, I didn’t comment on Tech’s method. I would imagine its social science and humanities courses use exactly the same approach as every other institution (though correct me if I’m wrong, some courses are indeed more focused on the technological perspective, but this is often a good thing I guess). I was just saying that I wish people would not use the term so loosely, it doesn’t matter what school they come from. I personally think it would be inappropriate for me to designate everything outside of my science classes as liberal arts courses. Yet I even have an inclination to do it. I now simply just call them social science/humanities courses b/c I realize that liberal arts methods/approaches can even be applied to the sciences, and often very successfully. Don’t take everything as an attack on Tech or UGA. I merely wanted to criticize usage of the term. Sorry if it seemed as if I was attacking the school itself. That wasn’t my intent. I admittedly claimed that having a greater exposure to some/many of the humanities that may be available at UGA, but not Tech could be good if they want to add to their “liberal arts” experience. I stand by this. I often found courses in such areas perhaps even more helpful than my history or polisci classes in terms of enhancing my writing skills and inspiring creativity. As an aspiring researcher, this is useful to me. Note this is my personal opinion. I’m pretty sure many would find such exposure as petty or useless, but it wasn’t for me.</p>