Weed Out Courses...

As a future engineer (hopefully!), I’ve heard a lot about weed out classes that engineering majors have to take. Classes like thermodynamics, organic chemistry, Calc 2, and introductory physics courses are probably the classes that I most often hear are weeders.

I’ve been wondering, who are these people being weeded out and having to switch majors? I’m sure there are people whose parents made them do it or that are doing it for the money, but what about other students? Can they just not keep up? Do highly motivated students with good high school grades and a love for science get weeded out a lot?

Any advice for surviving and thriving in these classes? Experience with weed out classes? Anything is helpful. Thanks!

I don’t believe that any college places a course out there to “weed out” students. However, engineering is a tough major and there is a minimum set of material that must be learned; both for the student to become a useful engineer and for the college to maintain it’s accreditation.

Engineering classes build on one another. Calculus must be understood before many of the concepts in the next tier of classes can be understood; and so forth. This means two things; first, if you don’t do well with the initial set of classes, then you won’t succeed in engineering and those early classes do become, in effect, weed out classes. Second, the student must learn and FULLY UNDERSTAND the material and not just learn it to pass the next test and then forget it.

If you did well in high school and you have developed good study habits, then engineering, while not exactly easy, shouldn’t be a problem for you.

The attrition rate is also frequently inversely proportional to the acceptance rate. State schools are required to educate their state’s kids and are often mandated to accept them even if they really aren’t ready for the rigor. As @HPuck35‌ said, they aren’t placed there with the intent to cull, they’re just hard classes that require a strong fundamental grasp of previous course work. Good luck!

According to my son, do all the reading before class, take good notes, organize your notes after class, do all the homework, get help or tutoring before you are lost, don’t fall behind. It is as much about work habits as anything else.

“Do highly motivated students with good high school grades and a love for science get weeded out a lot?” - It depends. One of the factors is rigor of hs courses. Some of the kids I saw struggle in engineering (30 years ago) had been top of their hs class, but they were from rural districts that did not offer AP etc.

Sequenced prerequisites of the type found in math, physics, and engineering courses have an inherent “weeder” characteristic, particularly at schools with less selective admissions. The courses cannot be “dumbed down” too much to allow weaker students to pass, because instructors of subsequent courses will complain about unprepared students.

The students with better high school academic credentials going in are less likely to find the material to be too difficult. Of course, good “college” study habits are a must – students need good self-motivation and time-management, which may be less required in high school where teachers monitor progress and have frequent small assignments to keep students from falling behind, and where the course pace is typically slower than in college.

Simple habits like these can help you succeed in college:

  • Read the books before class. (learn by reading)
  • Go to class and pay attention, asking questions as appropriate. (learn by listening and discussing)
  • Start assignments early. (learn by doing)
  • Do additional practice problems if necessary to understand the material. (learn by doing)

The existence of AP courses at a school doesn’t necessarily mean its students are adequately prepared for some of those introductory classes. On average, an AP class is likely to better prepare students than its non-AP counterpart, but the quality of even AP classes varies so wildly that there’s no way to make any generalizations. As a result, high school grades are only weakly indicative of a student’s eventual degree of difficulty passing through those introductory courses what have a high attrition rate.

For example, I took basically all of the AP courses I could in high school and pretty much aced them all. However, they weren’t all that great compared to the versions some of my peers had taken, and further, I hadn’t been required to try all that hard so I didn’t have very strong study habits. I struggled a bit at first despite having good grades in high school in AP classes.

Re: #6

How did you do on the AP tests after taking those AP courses that you say were low quality?

When S started engineering at Texas A&M I found it really interesting that they said that they found that how a student did in their first math course at TAMU was a good predictor of how they would do in engineering and it didn’t matter what that first class was. It could be precalc (because the student did not score high enough on the readiness for calc test) or calc 3. My son got 5 on BC calc in HS but chose to start with calc 1because he wasn’t confident about how prepared he was. (The school advised this because they said that even with a 5 many students are not at the level the school requires). In the end he felt he knew enough for calc 3 but was glad he could start freshman year where he was learning how to be a college student with familiar material. …I guess the take away from this is you don’t have to have had the best AP’s or study habits to succeed but you need strong study habits when you are in the program and you need a good foundation to be successful. It seems that in those early classes if you are successful you learn how to learn and that builds confidence and the ability to take on tougher challenges… and of course with success at the lower levels you have the the foundation to move on.

Yes. Well, sort of. I suspect it’s mostly a problem with scholastic aptitude.

When I helped someone who was in trouble in a “weed out” class, what most struck me was how they made it this far in the first place. They were running up against a wall in terms of how fast they could grasp things, master them and move on to the next.

Typically, these students went to a HS that either wasn’t too demanding or they avoided doing what demanding work there was, so they could get good grades, be told they were really smart and get into a reasonable college. At some point, they just run into their limits.

Typically, their “love for science” was more based on a memorization of factoids or a fascination with science in popular culture such as “Trekkies”, for example. They are very motivated, however.

The second most common group was just students who had never been challenged enough to learn good study skills. These people usually got some help, self-corrected or disappeared.

@ucbalumnus‌
That depends on which tests. Generally I got anywhere from a 3 to a 5. The 5 was in calculus and I still felt ill-prepared for college-level calculus courses.

@spectrum2‌
I don’t think I entirely agree with that rule of thumb. I think a student can take a bit longer to find his or her sea legs than just the first math class and still do fine.

Sometimes there are just bad professors, really. Know when your drop dates are (frequently you won’t even have any grades by then but regardless you will have an idea whether you are learning anything in that class), know what your degree curriculum allows, know where to sign up for free (or charged) tutoring and especially save as favorites those Open Courseware videos/notes/worksheets where another teacher can explain it/demonstrate it on a way you can understand.

Boneh3ad, as I understood it, this wasn’t a matter of agreeing or disagreeing. It was their statistical finding. I don’t think it means
it’s time to hang it up if the first math class goes poorly. It is motivation to do well in that first class and to not start at a level higher than ready for. Perhaps it also means it is worthwhile to reassess the career choice or class schedule and work habits if that first math class isn’t going well. Particularly if it is the first course of a sequence.

Don’t get me wrong, @spectrum2‌, as I’m sure the statistic bear out. My point is that administrators should be careful throwing that factoid around. It’s a compelling piece of evidence of several things: mathematical preparation/aptitude plays an important role in engineering students’ success (especially early on when people are on more unequal footing), and placing students in the correct starting level of math is important.

I think the danger here is that the trend can be misinterpreted to imply that a student who initially struggles in math is toast, and I don’t agree with that sentiment. I think a student who initially struggles with the math definitely has a relatively small window in which he or she can right the ship, but hope is not lost. While I doubt the statistic thrown about by TAMU administrators is meant to cause that interpretation, I also would imagine that I very well might be discouraged about my chances to recover if I heard that and then struggled in my first math class.

Boneh3ad I see your point. In the context of the discussion I think the point was to encourage students whose screening indicated they weren’t ready for calc to just go ahead and take precalc. It was also to encourage kids like my son who scored a 5 on AP to still start with calc 1. In my son’s case I think it was good advice. I’m sure it’s not necessary for every student but if in doubt sometimes a step back is more efficient than attempting to accelerate. For some it could be the difference between weedout and success.

“The existence of AP courses at a school doesn’t necessarily mean its students are adequately prepared for some of those introductory classes” - Agreed.

My example of student from rural non/AP hs had two facets.

  • they had skated through easier classes at top of their class and didn’t yet have honed study habits.
  • they had not been exposed to the college level math/science that helps many hs students decide if Engineering is a good fit.

Again, this is based on memories from 30 years ago… but I assume it’s still relevant.

Getting AP credit only means you should be able to pass the equivalent courses in college so you can go to the next level. It is exactly why it is called Advanced Placement. If you just barely passed in Calc 2 does not really mean you will do well in Calc 3. It just mean you can start Calc 3. So it is totally not surprising to see students struggling in Calc 3 after AP Calc BC even with good grades and scores. My D got 5 in all her AP exams and skipped Calc 1/2, General Chemistry, and Physics 140. She found her to be right around average or slightly above average in her Calc 3 and Org Chem I last semester. I know many students forfeit the AP credit and retake the class in college for a better GPA.

Not necessarily just for a better GPA but also for a stronger foundation and better prep for down the road.
It’s an individual personal decision, lots of factors beyond the obvious…Not that a better GPA isn’t a valid reason.

For those who are going the premed track, GPA is what they are aiming for. Many students do not even need Calculus down the road for instance. It does help the foundation by retaking the class tbough.

It is a good idea for the student with AP credit to try the old final exams of the course that may be skipped. This will help assess whether s/he knows the material according to the college’s expectations.

It may not, however, indicate whether his/her study skills, self motivation, and time management will be suitable for college (as opposed to high school) work.