Your grades in university and where you are now 6

[eliou]

Hey there,

What are your thoughts on how well you did in university and where you are now? Do you think you would have a better job if you worked harder and got better grades? Anyone ever fail a course and felt that it shut doors?

 

[swivel63]

how was the transition from work back to a school setting?

i've had about 3 or 4 courses a peice on those subjects you spoke combined grad and undergrad of except for masonry and wood. but i learned enough of those two to pass the Structural 1.

 

[271828]

swivel63, it's actually not bad. Of course, we're poor. We have 2 kids too, so that part is challenging.

As far as work goes, a PhD program is easier than working in a consulting office.

Believe it or not, the math comes right back. I started out with vibrations in the engineering mechanics dept, so had differential equations and eigenvalues up to my eyeballs almost from day one. In no time, though, I was a lot better at that stuff than I ever was in my BS or MS program. I'm doing vibe research, so I've had to take a lot of ME classes also. Still, that's not too bad.

BY FAR the biggest challenge is not having enough deadlines and clients breathing down my neck. Research can become about like a treadmill (a lot of work, but not really getting anywhere) if one's not careful!

 

[271828]

StrlEIT, I forgot to answer your last sentence.

I don't have any reason to believe that you have deficiencies, based on having multiple design classes already. Obviously more design classes are always a good thing, so I'd jump all over them if they're offered.

In general, a lot of structural guys are weak at dynamics, so have trouble understanding floor vibrations, EQ stuff beyond equivalent lateral forces, and wind beyond rigid bldgs. I know I sure fell into this category. If you don't have it already, you should try to get a super strong background in structural dynamics and vibrations. If your university offers a vibe class, usually in the ESM or ME dept, that would be good. If there's an EQ-specific class, that would be great too. I'd prefer both if possible, even though there's some overlap. Those subjects are hard enough to warrant some of it twice. The ESM and ME versions get into things that the CE EQ classes don't.

If you don't have it already, you should try to get a very strong background in matrix structural analysis and, secondarily, finite element analysis that's specific to structures. Don't get bogged down in porous media and other stuff not relevant to your work.

If you're not planning a thesis option, I'd recommend some technical writing also. If you're like most of us, you're a so-so writer after undergrad. More practice at that can never hurt. Aside from reports and memos, you might get involved in committee work at some point and need to develop text, examples, etc.

Same goes for public speaking. You might want to give seminars or presentations over the years. I can think of some very famous and noteworthy SEs out there who could use some work in these areas, LOL!

Anyway, these are the types of things I'd be thinking about.

FWIW, two of my friends, both PEs at this point, did their MS part time while working. It worked out great!

 

[Lion06]

271828-
I actually have a B.S. in Structural Design. I didn't have to take the transportation, environmental, or other non-structural classes associated with a traditional CE degree.
Thank you very much for your input and insight, I sincerely appreciate it!!

 

[271828]

That's so cool. I've been thinking for a while now that structural engineers are much closer cousins to ESM folks than the rest of CE. I wish I could've gotten out of that (for me) worthless stuff.

 

[SomptingGuy]

University rep in the UK is a snob thing but still exists. When I was interviewing back in the 80's, graduating from one of the favoured places (IC, Brunel, Loughborough, plus those two old places) was everything.

 

[2dye4]

I wonder if there is a difference regarding the quality of the school in regard to the effect of grades. I graduated from one of the common state schools with a low GPA but I like to think I really got it. However over time i have seen not much correlation between grades and engineering ability from graduates of my large state school.
My theory is that in lower quality schools it is easier to memorize and regurgitate on tests without really knowing the subject. Most tests are just slight variation of the homework and many just work for the grade.
Contrast to a high quality school where the fundamental knowledge is tested and required for graduation.
I had a roomate who took controls and after his final exam could not give me an example of a control system. He had now idea what all that chaos was about but he made the grade.

 

[SomptingGuy]

In the words of Tom Lehrer, "Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it."

Ditto universities.

 

[swivel63]

so who is to say what a quality school is and what isn't?

 

[SomptingGuy]

If you want to know how to define quality, read a well known book by Robert M Pirsig.

But seriously, in the UK at least, a quality school can be measured by its entry standards. A kind of positive feedback loop really.

 

[Lion06]

2dye4-
I would be curious to know how you determine what, in your opinion, constitutes a "higher quality" or a "lower quality" school and how you would make such a generalization that the tests at a "lower quality" school test your ability to regurgitate information rather than know the subject matter.

 

[2dye4]

I would define it by the quality and consistency of the graduates ability. If you take a group of MIT graduates and a group of (Big state school) graduates you might find that given a design contest one group would know better how to hit the ground running than the other.
I don't mean to offend. I know that many of you come from the (Big State School) and so do I. But I cannot deny that there is a significant variablility in the quality of this group as opposed to the quality of the higher prestige schools. Just reporting my observations.

 

[271828]

2dye4, granted there is variability, but I think it goes both ways and might depend on the type of engineering.

Some of these fancier places don't have enough students to offer a lot of classes, especially practical design classes. This is a big deal, IMO, in structural engineering.

Almost to a person, my former co-workers who went to big state schools had tremendously stronger backgrounds than the half-dozen or so of them who went to fancy $25k+/year private schools.

That's simply because the big state schools offered multiple design classes (like 10-15 in some cases) whereas the smaller private schools offered 1 or 2, and in some case 1 that was half concrete, half steel.

 

[Lion06]

2dye4-
I am not offended. I am certainly not comparing my education to that of an MIT grad. I still don't know how you track consistency and abilities of grads other than an anecdotal sort of thing. That being said, you really think that "Big State Schools" provide an atmosphere where tests merely require regurgitation of information provided in class? I guess that could be said for all schools since you MUST apply what you learned in class to pass the tests, but certainly not what you are stating.
I went to a "Small State School" (actually a branch of a "Big State School" because it offered a B.S. in Structural Design instead of CE) and my professors were very no-nonsense, the classes were very intensive, and while some people made it through without soaking up all the information they should have, they didn't do it with very good grades.

 

[2dye4]

Sorry for striking some nerves.

Of course I cannot speak for all BSS (Big State Schools).
My observations of those in my area are as follows.

Many of the graduates have a solid backing and understanding of what the theory meant and how to initially apply it. In other words they could be given a task and then at least know what corner to look in to find the missing pieces.
Many of the graduates also displayed a remarkable ability to talk the talk but not walk the walk. They could carry on for long periods citing the tech buzzwords but any experienced person listening is struck by how increadibly far off the mark they were. They apply the wrong branch of their training to problems that they have been assigned. They are incapable of finding a proper starting point to analyze the problem further. I'm not talk rocket science either. Basic, basic stuff. One feels embarrasement for them when you are forced to suggest "Go look at this type of analysis" F=ma or Ohms law or any of the other pillars of a engineering program.
And yes some of my classes were taught by profs that required you to have a grasp of the topic. The test problems were like nothing you had exactly seen before and without the fundamentals you were toast. I also had many classes where the tests were the homework problems with diffent values for the parameters. People passed without getting a glimps of the big picture. Didn't get any tools with which to analyze problems but they made the grade.
That is what I don't think happens in the more reputable engineering schools.

 

[271828]

2dye4, I am having a hard time grasping your point, while no offense is taken of course.

Big state schools are very often very reputable. Like I typed, I had quite a few co-workers from $25k+/year, very famous, private schools who started out deficient compared to the folks from BSS. Granted, I'm typing about a sample size of <20 engineers.

 

[swivel63]

a whole lot of the high prestige engineering schools are the big state schools.

 

[swivel63]

in fact.....i would venture to say that a good portion of the top 10 universities are big state schools.

i.e. Illinios, GT, Berkeley, Michigan, Purdue, ECT. the list goes on and on.

i would hardly say that you would lose very much comparing #7 to #5 or even #1 or #2.

 

[macmet]

Regarding the BSS. I live in Canada, imagine I was in the position where I needed to pick one person to interview and I had two possible candidates. The first was from a school I already knew was at least decent and the other from a school I had never heard of and required google to find... chances are I would give the interview to the person from the school I had heard of.

At the same time, if I have two openings and give them both interviews, then the school wouldn't matter as much. Still though, the possibility of alumni tickets to a big game might help. jk.

BTW, what is ECT?

To the OP, I found grades helped a lot of people get jobs with the bigger companies. I am not sure if that is a good thing or not, if everyone at the company has the same grades then you will need something else to set you apart from everyone else when promotions come about.

 

[swivel63]

i really would hope my grades don't come into account during promotion time.

not that i don't have anything to be proud of, lol....but seems like something stupid to base a promotion off of.