<p>Considering all the postings I see on this forum and others, it seems it is near impossible to get a good GPA in engineering. I have aspirations for grad schools and other things, but the way I see it, it looks like those are reserved for the pure genius. What makes it so difficult and how can I stay on top of it when I go to college?</p>
<p>I am naturally bad at math and I do really well. People complain, I don’t know.</p>
<p>Edit: (I don’t mean to imply that it isn’t harder than most people would find most degrees, btw. Just that you can manage.)</p>
<p>Some of the topics are very abstract. Take time to understand each topic before moving on. The learning process is like a ladder, climb one rung at a time.</p>
<p>People sukk at **practical **problem solving. That’s what engineering is all about…</p>
<p>Practical problem solving involves decomposing a big bad problem into small solvable problems and assembling everything into a solution. Also, most people are naturally optimistic, which is a real bad trait to have if you’re an engineer…</p>
<p>It’s actually a terrific question. </p>
<p>Most people don’t really understand what engineering or engineering classes really are. </p>
<p>The problem is that you get used to math classes and science classes but engineering classes are really neither. It takes a while to understand that engineering classes are really about abstraction. During that time, it’s really hard, because you don’t really appreciate what you are trying to do. </p>
<p>What is abstraction? Abstraction is such a key concept. It basically affords you the opportunity to work on a problem at a certain “level of abstraction”. Everything more detailed is captured in a few equations describing a black box, and you really don’t care about the details. </p>
<p>Once you’ve modeled a complex system as a “black box”, you still have to learn how to analyze a system containing those blocks. This analysis involves the use of “analytic tools”. Engineering classes teach you how to use these analytic tools. </p>
<p>Because these concepts are so abstract, until you see the point, it’s really hard to internalize.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to steal this thread, but as an incoming freshman in CS, this is actually really helpful to me about what to expect. I always thought engineering was difficult because of the high workload and math.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well there is that too :-). </p>
<p>But even working really hard won’t solve the first problem of figuring out what exactly you’re really trying to do. What is this course really teaching me.</p>
<p>As a quick note, it is NOT impossible… just harder. Engineering GPAs may be a little lower than the average (about 0.1-0.2), but high GPAs are not uncommon. At Penn State, for example, 3.5 is about the 25th percentile for enginering majors, with the top 10% having 3.8+!</p>
<p>Cosmicfish, really? I find that statistic hard to believe! At schools such as Rensselaer (one that I am looking at), the average is around 3.1, and so are most schools I am looking at. When looking at that number, it definitely does seem impossible.</p>
<p>So it seems like an engineering student is like a fish inside a bowl (or ocean). How can one discover the water? Office hours? More homework questions? Deriving equations? Everything else?</p>
<p>Average is the average. There’s always going to be extremes. Purdue’s average is a 2.8 GPA. There was a girl graduating with an Aerospace degree who only got 1 B her entire college career, the rest were A’s. I currently have a 3.90 (not to say it won’t drop over the course of the next few semester). I don’t think it was toooo back breaking so far, 100% of the time.</p>
<p>You go to class, you listen, you read books/ materials, you do homework, you ask questions. Sometimes it clicks, sometimes it takes more work, but it’s not impossible to get a 3.5+ GPA.</p>
<p>Engineering requires a lot of work. Homework (problem sets) are often relentless. Even if they are not graded, you still need to do them or it will be hard to pass the class. Also labs can be very time consuming. </p>
<p>In other majors there could be a class or two where you can skate a bit and still do well if you do the reading and are a good test-taker. Not so much in engineering. </p>
<p>I graduated as MechE with 3.5GPA 30 years ago. It’s not impossible. But I worked very hard every single semester. I had fun too, but schoolwork was always the priority.</p>
<p>By now, after tons of research, I know quite a bit of how the college search goes, and how engineering in different colleges is looked at and such. But I am having much trouble deciding between Mechanical and Electrical. What would you guys perhaps recommend me to look at. Of course I won’t know until I take actual classes, but just a nudge would perhaps help. I always thought designing missles, rocketry, space missions were cool and I think perhaps Mechanical is mostly designed for these types of jobs? I always liked seeing the type of things I could do. But then I also like ideas in quantum mechanics in physics that might associate to EE. I know both can do these jobs, but I like seeing what I built instead of just “knowing” its there. So I am guessing Mechanical? I just don’t want to get stuck in a job building elevators or designing cars, just feels a bit ordinary to me.</p>
<p>Mechanical has more to do with rocketry than EE, if that’s what you’re trying to get at.</p>
<p>It’s very much not a certainty, but remember this: if 5% of jobs are the “cool” jobs that everyone (including you) wants, then it would stand to reason that 95% of people will not have them. Then again, EE is notoriously boring in many ways and you could spend your life building $2 digital watches, so it has no advantage in that regard.</p>
<p>I don’t want a boring job and money isn’t important to me beyond a pretty attainable level…But if you told me that 10 years from now, I could be making 80K+ designing $2 digital watches and using the rest of my brain to run fantasy basketball draft simulations, my only question would be, “do I need to wear close-toed shoes?”</p>
<p>Dark: dd just graduated with a 3.2 in EE. Husband is EE Masters grad from Stanford.</p>
<p>It is a very hard discipline because sometimes your tests involve one question. Just one. You’re graded on those abstract steps that it takes to get to the answer. Yes it’s unfair if you miss one minor detail, you miss the entire question and that’s an “F”. </p>
<p>DD had to work in groups, which a lot of these universities push, and that’s not a fair thing when you have idiots in your group who can never seem to ever meet in a lab. </p>
<p>You have to be able to see how an airplane would bank during certain weather conditions and how your piece of the comm systems engineering will react to changes in altitude in conjunction with the software piece done by another student group from CSE.</p>
<p>Everything is abstract and difficult and is based on your experience in power systems, computer languages, the physics of everything and your calculus expertise. Plus, some of the professors are difficult to understand if they have strong accents or just don’t know how to organize their thoughts. They may write excellent texts, but their presentation skills are lacking.
Often the TAs/grad students who run the labs, don’t show up and the assignments are due. Some grad students are only concerned about their individual research such that if you’ve expected an open lab, you might be frequently disappointed.</p>
<p>In other words, it’s a difficult major.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Hard to believe. Source ?</p>
<p>OR do you mean 75th percentile ?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>LOL! Heavens no! EE can be really awesome and has a really bright future. Also try designing a watch accurate to one part in a billion. Not so boring. </p>
<p>Mechanical engineering is more stress and strain, fluids, thermo, etc. Thinking about stresses, strains my patience and causes my fluids to overheat. </p>
<p>EE is more digital and analog electronics, circuits, signal processing, electromagnetics, semiconductor physics, etc. </p>
<p>Things like control systems and robotics are really the domain of both, with perhaps different emphasis</p>
<p>Rockets require both ME and EE.</p>
<p>Sorry, yes I meant 75th percentile, not 25th! Serves me right for doing this on the phone while distracted!</p>
<p>At most universities, the average for any and all majors will be within spitting distance of 3.0, including engineering. Engineering routinely has high GPAs, and the slight bias is known to employers and grad schools. The only real place it is an issue is with law/med school admissions.</p>
<p>If the average is 3.0, why is said that a high GPA is near impossible?</p>
<p>For a few reasons:</p>
<p>1) Even the though the GPA difference is small, it is there. Exagerration takes care of making it seem bigger.</p>
<p>2) Unlike other grade-depressed fields (like the hard sciences), engineering pays very well, attracting a lot of people who lack the ability to succeed in the field. This means a lot of transfers out by under-performing future business majors, which falsely increases the appearance of difficulty.</p>
<p>3) Most colleges do not really select for success in engineering, most colleges select for humanities and social skills. This means that the kind of person most likely to get into a given college (excepting technical schools) has NOT been vetted for their ability to handle an engineering courseload, but even engineering majors HAVE been vetted for their ability to handle most non-mathematical majors! This non-reciprocity amplifies the appearance of difficulty.</p>
<p>4) While all majors are held to nominally similar standards, the reality is that engineering and science majors have been subject to knowledge creep for decades. This means that while English majors have seen a relatively static knowledge load, engineering and science majors are expected to know more and more each year. This means an ever increasing workload, and even though this average workload does not directly affect GPA it does give the appearance of difficulty.</p>
<p>5) Preparation for engineering and the hard sciences has gotten skewed at the high school level. Emphasis has shifted from “solving problems” to “using tools”, and while this does indeed mirror industry, it does NOT mirror college. Incoming students are often unprepared for how much pencil-and-paper math they will need to do. This is a genuine problem, and leads to a rough first few years for a lot of students as they either catch up or drop out.</p>