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Tech mentality: We are the cream of the crop in engineering schools, therefore we must make an extra effort to make our courses as difficult and as muderous as possible, in order to maintain our reputation.


Tech: The average GPA of tech is 2.5, this speaks highly of us, because it shows that we have so high standards that our ultra bright students with 1300 SATs can only make a 2.5 at this school.

MJ: Since when is putting students through Hell, indicitive of high standards.

Tech: The difficulty of the SAT has decreased, therefore we must increase the difficulty of our courses to compensate.

MJ: What? By what logic did you arrive at this.


Tech: The average GPA has risen to 2.8. Grade inflation is occuring, thus we must get the average GPA back down to 2.5 where it belongs. ALL professors are REQUIRED to have a standard bell shaped grade distribution in all thier classes, so that order may be returned to the world.

MJ: Artificially forcing grades to follow some stupid curve is just as bad as grade inflation. And how is an increase from 2.5 to 2.8 grade inflation? Could it just be that the students are <gasp> smarter? Naw....


GT is one of the best engineering schools in existance, but it being located in that trashy state of Georgia has got to have some effect on the administration here. They can't seem to fathom why GT is ranked the 2nd most unhappy campus in America.

Northwestern University is just as hard on their students (we've also had some really odd curves, like the well curve before normalization.) That engineering program kicked my ass.

They start you off with a four-quarter sequence designed to fail as many students as possible, and in the 2nd and 3rd quarter they give you a design class that sucks away free time. (This is in addition to any other classes that you might take). You also don't get the "reading week" to study for exams.

You know I've never once heard of any of these bizarre marking curves or what have you practices in the schools I've been in here in the UK. Is it just an American thing or something?

Anyway, you'd never get me into a school like that. Just not worth the stress.

Really? Hm, how odd. I have a special place in my heart for the School of Engineering at NCSU.

Crazy_Vasey wrote:You know I've never once heard of any of these bizarre marking curves or what have you practices in the schools I've been in here in the UK. Is it just an American thing or something?

Okay, what a lot of teachers do is take the mean of the class scores and the standard deviation of the class scores. Anyone falling in between mean +/- 1SD gets a C. Anyone falling in the range between one and two SDs gets a B (right of the mean) or D (left of the mean). Anyone getting above mean +/- 2SD gets an A or F.

This is standard operating procedure for many teachers.

Anyway, you'd never get me into a school like that. Just not worth the stress.

US engineering schools typically are designed to fail as many students as possible no matter where you go.

Kelly Antilles wrote:Really? Hm, how odd. I have a special place in my heart for the School of Engineering at NCSU.

I loved NU's engineering school, but it was frankly too much for me.

UofT in Toronto also has that as well. Not only do they have the "target" GPA that you mention, they also have an quota of how many students they can pass each year, and they adjust marks weighting and bell curves accordingly. You'll never hear about this as it's all unspoken and off the record. UofT has to keep up its reputation so they can bilk more students into paying for their courses, and this is just one of the many shady things they do. Good thing I never even thought about going there, pretty much everyone I know that did ended up hating the damn place after a semester or 2.

Okay, what a lot of teachers do is take the mean of the class scores and the standard deviation of the class scores. Anyone falling in between mean +/- 1SD gets a C. Anyone falling in the range between one and two SDs gets a B (right of the mean) or D (left of the mean). Anyone getting above mean +/- 2SD gets an A or F.

This is standard operating procedure for many teachers.

I'm getting flashbacks of the fucked up A-Level marking system last year here... They messed up the exams and ended up with people doing A grade standard papers and still failing because there were too many people getting high grades. That was fucked up. I nearly missed out on my university place because of that crap.

It's just retarded. They're punishing people because too many got good marks. Not only do you have to do really well in the exam you also have to do better than the majority of the class to get the grade you deserve. Pretty stupid I think. You'd be screwed if you were in a class full of Einsteins.

At least now I undestand why I here of so many American's having to repeat classes.

Crazy_Vasey wrote:

This is standard operating procedure for many teachers.

I'm getting flashbacks of the fucked up A-Level marking system last year here... They messed up the exams and ended up with people doing A grade standard papers and still failing because there were too many people getting high grades. That was fucked up. I nearly missed out on my university place because of that crap.

The Advanced Placement courses in the US are based on a bell curve as well - they test a bunch of college students in a similar class with the same tests, construct the curve and that's how they'll score you on the high school AP Exams.

It's just retarded. They're punishing people because too many got good marks. Not only do you have to do really well in the exam you also have to do better than the majority of the class to get the grade you deserve. Pretty stupid I think. You'd be screwed if you were in a class full of Einsteins.

My physics teacher said that if the class average exceeded 60% he'd shift the curve. That has never happened.

Some teachers are assholes and still use the bell curve even if the class average was a 95%. And yes, if by chance the entire class got the same grade everyone would get a C.

At least now I undestand why I here of so many American's having to repeat classes.

No, that's not it. A lot of American students are stupid. They end up repeating classes like Algebra and stuff

aerius wrote:UofT in Toronto also has that as well. Not only do they have the "target" GPA that you mention, they also have an quota of how many students they can pass each year, and they adjust marks weighting and bell curves accordingly. You'll never hear about this as it's all unspoken and off the record. UofT has to keep up its reputation so they can bilk more students into paying for their courses, and this is just one of the many shady things they do. Good thing I never even thought about going there, pretty much everyone I know that did ended up hating the damn place after a semester or 2.

Universty of Minnesota Twin Cities has hellish weeder classes, apparently. My dad once had a class where the average was something like 10% on a tests. They get so many students in that they're forced to fail as many people as possible

No, that's not it. A lot of American students are stupid. They end up repeating classes like Algebra and stuff

Idiots - the universal constant.

Those guys generally don't get past secondary school here and if they do they end up in something safe like media studies or what have you. There's plenty of simple subjects for them to study here.

Fuck.

That's exactly my college

UofT in Toronto also has that as well. Not only do they have the "target" GPA that you mention, they also have an quota of how many students they can pass each year, and they adjust marks weighting and bell curves accordingly.

If only I had know beforehand....wait, make the my parents know it beforehand.

phongn wrote:Universty of Minnesota Twin Cities has hellish weeder classes, apparently. My dad once had a class where the average was something like 10% on a tests. They get so many students in that they're forced to fail as many people as possible

UofT has a similar problem from what I hear. Every year they admit several thousand more students than they have places for so they end up having to flunk them out. But guess what, they've already paid their tuition so it's like a free money grab, the school gets the money and they don't have to pay for the students' education cause they just got flunked out. Fucking ingenious if you ask me, but it sure sucks ass for the students.

aerius wrote:

phongn wrote:Universty of Minnesota Twin Cities has hellish weeder classes, apparently. My dad once had a class where the average was something like 10% on a tests. They get so many students in that they're forced to fail as many people as possible

UofT has a similar problem from what I hear. Every year they admit several thousand more students than they have places for so they end up having to flunk them out. But guess what, they've already paid their tuition so it's like a free money grab, the school gets the money and they don't have to pay for the students' education cause they just got flunked out. Fucking ingenious if you ask me, but it sure sucks ass for the students.

UofMN can't simply deny too many students, or there will be a stupid lawsuit from irate parents demanding why their precious child can't get in. So, they let them in as frosh and then fail them.

phongn wrote:Okay, what a lot of teachers do is take the mean of the class scores and the standard deviation of the class scores. Anyone falling in between mean +/- 1SD gets a C. Anyone falling in the range between one and two SDs gets a B (right of the mean) or D (left of the mean). Anyone getting above mean +/- 2SD gets an A or F.

Heh, my dad had a math professor at General Motors Institute (before it became Kettering University) who was a statistician. He would make a bell curve for the class, and based on that curve, he would set the number of students who would receive an A, B, C, D or F in the class. So, no matter what, someone would fail.

Durandal wrote:

phongn wrote:Okay, what a lot of teachers do is take the mean of the class scores and the standard deviation of the class scores. Anyone falling in between mean +/- 1SD gets a C. Anyone falling in the range between one and two SDs gets a B (right of the mean) or D (left of the mean). Anyone getting above mean +/- 2SD gets an A or F.

Heh, my dad had a math professor at General Motors Institute (before it became Kettering University) who was a statistician. He would make a bell curve for the class, and based on that curve, he would set the number of students who would receive an A, B, C, D or F in the class. So, no matter what, someone would fail.

Indeed. Many classes are like that.

Why is everyone ragging on the bell curve? It's great! Think you failed that mid term? Chances are everyone else did too and you get a C instead of an F. Oh blessed Lady of the Bell, smile upon me in my unworthiness.

Lord MJ wrote:Tech mentality: We are the cream of the crop in engineering schools, therefore we must make an extra effort to make our courses as difficult and as muderous as possible, in order to maintain our reputation.

That is standard-issue engineering mentality.

Tech: The average GPA of tech is 2.5, this speaks highly of us, because it shows that we have so high standards that our ultra bright students with 1300 SATs can only make a 2.5 at this school.

MJ: Since when is putting students through Hell, indicitive of high standards.

It indicates that your graduates can handle pressure.

Tech: The difficulty of the SAT has decreased, therefore we must increase the difficulty of our courses to compensate.

MJ: What? By what logic did you arrive at this.

They want to ensure that people who sneak in don't make it out.

Tech: The average GPA has risen to 2.8. Grade inflation is occuring, thus we must get the average GPA back down to 2.5 where it belongs. ALL professors are REQUIRED to have a standard bell shaped grade distribution in all thier classes, so that order may be returned to the world.

MJ: Artificially forcing grades to follow some stupid curve is just as bad as grade inflation. And how is an increase from 2.5 to 2.8 grade inflation? Could it just be that the students are <gasp> smarter? Naw....

They have to lower excessively high marks because they need to fail some of the students. This may sound perverse, but the fact is that a certain percentage of students must fail in order for passage to mean anything. Any course in which most or all of the students succeed is worthless, because it means anyone can do it. When I was in school, I remember my friends and I had the "ten to fifteen" rule. Look around your classroom at the beginning of each school term. Make sure you can identify 10 to 15 people who are less competent or less intelligent than you. Why? Because the bottom 10 to 15 won't be here next year, and if you can't count 10 to 15 people behind you, then guess what that means

EDIT: In first-year, it's more like the "eighty to one hundred rule".

GT is one of the best engineering schools in existance, but it being located in that trashy state of Georgia has got to have some effect on the administration here. They can't seem to fathom why GT is ranked the 2nd most unhappy campus in America.

I'm sure there are other reasons for peoples' unhappiness, but a hard-assed abusive attitude toward the engineers is standard fare at many schools. I still remember "hell week" in second year, when they made us write six three-hour final exams in six consecutive days, and each exam was worth 100% of the mark in that course. Many burned out. Some failed. And some passed but the stress was so great that they quit the program, vowing never to return.

That's why you take a certain pride when you receive your iron ring; you and your compatriots feel like survivors, not just graduates.

They can't seem to fathom why GT is ranked the 2nd most unhappy campus in America.

Hell, I can tell you why that is. 70% men, 30% women.

Durran Korr wrote:

They can't seem to fathom why GT is ranked the 2nd most unhappy campus in America.

Hell, I can tell you that. 70% men, 30% women.

I'll buy that explanation. My engineering classmates were 90% men, 10% women, but luckily, there was the rich resource of the Arts students.

Darth Wong wrote:That's why you take a certain pride when you receive your iron ring; you and your compatriots feel like survivors, not just graduates.

Especially when the schools ever get the idea of executing the flunkies and are allowed to do it.

The problem with some schools is that while they pride themselves one making themselves unbearably difficult for their students, they're shooting themselves in the foot when not too many can get into professional school.

For instance, from the first introductary class the fail rate is at least 40% and increases as the classes get harder (mind you, the fail rate increases as the less brighter kids are weeded out and held back). And the fail rates remain the same year after year even as kids have to compete with people retaking the class.

So this means, at LEAST 40% in lower and upper division classes will get a D+ or lower, about out of the 60% or so remaining, about 50-60% will get a C fewer will get a B and only the top of the top will receive that highly vaunted A.. and these are even in classes where the brightest that have survived four years of such sh*t will fall flat on their face.

But my beef is that people that have transferred out of my school to the more "prestigious" schools are actually doing much much better and says the classes are much much easier. It's a really crappy system in most regards, and some schools especially with joint programs really really try to weed people out as best as they can.

They don't want to see how much you know.. they just want to hand out as much C's as possible to pretend they're doing their job.

Georgia Tech participates in a dual degree program with the Atlanta University Center (Morehouse, Spelman, and Clark). The transfer students from those schools have historically higher average GPA then those that spend the entire 5 years of thier undergraduate career at Tech.


I could mean many things....

1.) They are simply smarter, which is a plus for the black community as it shows that HBCUs instill the discipline that majority white schools lack. '


I'm really happy for my brothers and sisters from the AUC. They have done so much to spit in the face of the racist elements that still have positions of power down here in this state of Georgia.

2.) They avoid the weed out courses of freshman and Sophomore year, thus proving the excessive difficulty of entry level courses at Tech in unnecessary.

But that does nothing to explain the fact that the transfer students have higher scores in the same classes as the full tech students.

It also could indicate that early classes are made difficult for the sole purpose of getting rid of students in the first and second year, but Tech wants to retain everyone that makes it to thier third year.



3.) Tech students are so beaten down by the 3rd year, that they really lose drive, while the AUC students are highly enthusiastic.

I'll buy this.

Trytostaydead wrote:
They don't want to see how much you know.. they just want to hand out as much C's as possible to pretend they're doing their job.

Hardly, our profs told us something first year: Doctors tend to kill people one by one, Engineers tend to kill people by the hundreds. The point of the difficulty is to make damn sure that you know what you are doing when you finally get out.