engineering in college

[sciguy125]

As sort of a continuation to my post on a similar topic, I wanted to ask about people's college experiences.

Engineering's really hard. It seems that most people have agreed on that. The fact that I'm in the middle of finals might be skewing my perspective, but I've been thinking about how masochistic you have to be to go into engineering. I pointed out before that I don't think it's impossibly hard. Although, I might have been in it for so long that my definition of "hard" has been skewed. I want to point out that I'm not complaining though. I understand the need for what I'm being taught. I also understand that I'm being tested on information that I need to know. Well, for the most part anyway... I can think of several examples of unnecessary material, but I don't want to get into that right now.

People are failing tests and even classes left and right. When I took thermodynamics, I got a 70-something on the final, which ended up being an A-. A couple of my friends were telling me about one of their classes where the average on their midterms was in the 40's. Granted, those classes covered material that was particularly hard, but still.

A few of us were talking about the decrease in classes being offered and someone mentioned that enrollment is down. In response, someone off-handedly said that they must be failing too many people. I have a feeling that the class cuts might be more money related, but I think he had a point there. I know a lot of people that have had to retake at least one engineering (or engineering related) class, some have failed several. Most of them just keep on chugging, but a lot quit. (Interestingly, it seems that about half of those that do quit change to business.)

So, what's my point? Well, I think there's a few issues here. Are the low grades just an inherent part of a hard subject or are people just not learning what they need to be? You've also got the professors that curve to the point that a 40 is passing. Is this alright? Are they letting bad engineers by, or are they making it possible to produce engineers at all? Lastly, is this common everywhere, or is there just something wrong with my school? (Again, I'm in the middle of finals, so I might be exaggerating the difficulty in all of this.)