More than 4 years at university as an undergraduate

[sciencenoob]

I know this guy who is currently in his 6th year at university as an undergraduate doing his bachelors in engineering. His program is surposed to be 4 years long. He has extremely low grades, with an extremely low borderline fail (literally) GPA (GPA = 2.0 or 50+%), and his academic record is also full of failed courses with courses in the 0 GPA range (20+%), with additonally certain failed courses almost every year.

 

I have a hard time imaging him being able to find a job because most employers look at transcripts when you go straight out of university, especially so for technical engineering jobs. It is also quite impossible to talk yourself out of the fact that you are quite incompetant. Also his record will be a complete turnoff and there is no way any recruiter will even consider him on first glance. I mean i dont think he will be unemployed per se, because he can obviously get lower middle class jobs like working in a shop, restraunt, mcds, janitor,etc but other than that I dont see how he can land even a middle class to decent job.

 

The other wierd thing is most of the people in his normal year are either done with a masters by the time he is done if he can graduate this year, or have 2 years work experience.

 

What are you take on this?

[DrDNA]

He will probably end up being the head of a major corp. or go into politics.

[Sisyphus]

It depends on his reasons for having a low GPA. If he was just lazy he can still find a way to prove himself, but stupid is stupid....

[hotcommodity]

Your friend sounds like a suitemate of mine who typically gets C's in his classes. But the thing is, when it comes to lab work and hands on stuff, he's top notch. And because of this, he already has a summer internship. Your friend would be better off pursuing what he's good at, what he has a knack for, and not worry so much about grades. Besides, he won't obtain an engineering degree unless he makes C's or better in all of his required classes. And if he's competent enough to do this, then I'm sure he can find something to do with his degree.

[sciencenoob]

But who will employ him into an engineering company though? Seriously he has like a really bad record. He is extremely lazy and has really poor communication skills, like when he does presenations he chokes up pretty bad and it becomes extremely awkward because he starts getting nervous and shaking and everything, ive seen it a few times.

 

The thing is, competant or not, it is SIX YEARS of a 4 year degree. Recruiters are known to be harsh when it comes to selection. He cant even make an interview with those grades, how can he even land the job?

 

I dont know I feel sorry for him.

[fattyjwoods]

that guy should of just applied for an apprenticeship and not gone to uni. If he’s young enough he still can go back.

[sciencenoob]

You mean apply for internship? but you cant be an engineer if you dont have an enegineering degree. if you dont goto uni its probably worse than his situation with a degree and have shit grades, at least he has the degree

 

He is like 26 so he is basically 3 years older than anybody in his class

[fattyjwoods]

oh sorry we call it an apprenticeship here in New Zealand. Oh you cant apply for one just straight out from college? You can I think in NZ. Or he can go find someone who needs help in the engineering industry. Anyway what type of engineering is he doing? Well if he cant pass he’ll just be stuck there. And he’ll still be paying for the courses that he cant pass. So he’ll be wasting money as well as wasting time. He’d better lick himself into shape or go find a job as a worker doing labour or something that will help him enter the engineering sector later so he can put some experience on his CV or Resume.

[hotcommodity]

His age shouldn't have anything to do with it. It doesn't matter how old you are, you can pursue what you want, as long as you mean business. I'm 24 and I'm a sophomore, but I don't let the age factor discourage me. One thing he'll have to get over is being lazy. You can't be an engineer and be lazy. At the very least it would cost him his job, and depending on the type of engineering he's pursuing, it could cost lives.

[sciencenoob]

You can't really apply for internships and expect to have a full time job of it when you dont even have your engineering degree yet. Also without an engineering degree from a known or respectable university you cant become a legal engineer professional (licensed) which means its useless.

 

How engineering or other degrees normally work is, there are prerequisites that you must pass before you can do higher level courses. He just fails a few prerequisites every year that pulls him down a level until he is finally in his 6th year now. If he passes everything he will get his degree. Thats not the point though, he spent TWO MORE years than anybody else. On top of that his academic record is extremely scarred with really bad grades and a lot of failures in courses with extremely low grades (0GPA or 20%).

 

I am not saying his age is a factor, but only the fact that he spent 2 more unneccesary years than what people normally spend, so this means he is wasting his time. It doesnt matter if you are 35 starting engineering degree as long as you can finish it in the normal time then you will look ok. He spent 6 years which kind of shows to employers he is incompetant

[CDarwin]

oh sorry we call it an apprenticeship here in New Zealand. Oh you cant apply for one just straight out from college? You can I think in NZ. Or he can go find someone who needs help in the engineering industry. Anyway what type of engineering is he doing? Well if he cant pass he’ll just be stuck there. And he’ll still be paying for the courses that he cant pass. So he’ll be wasting money as well as wasting time. He’d better lick himself into shape or go find a job as a worker doing labour or something that will help him enter the engineering sector later so he can put some experience on his CV or Resume.

 

In the US the equivalent is probably technical school or junior college.

 

I am not saying his age is a factor, but only the fact that he spent 2 more unneccesary years than what people normally spend, so this means he is wasting his time. It doesnt matter if you are 35 starting engineering degree as long as you can finish it in the normal time then you will look ok. He spent 6 years which kind of shows to employers he is incompetant

 

I'm not sure where you're at, but they're beginning to tell us to expect to spend at least 5 years on most "4-year" degrees, unless you want to kill yourself with course-load every semester. Having to spend that extra time in a program may not hurt him that much, even if it is a waste of money.

[sciencenoob]

you _are kidding right? Most honours bachelor degrees are 4 years. That course load is not insane, even for engineering degrees. I mean we are only taking about 5-6 courses per term versus someone doing an arts degree will have 3-4. Its not really that insane. In my point of view it is the arts students that are having an extremely relaxed time versus the very normal work load for engineering students because once you are working, we are talking 9 work hours everyday straight up for the entire week, at the minimum excluding travelling etc.

 

And who is this 'they' anyways. But that is besides the point right. Fine, if you want to take your time and spread things out its ok, you can do it in 5 years or more as long as you arent failing courses and having a bad record.

The guy i am talking about fails courses which forces him to do 6. Its not his choice.

[hotcommodity]

The guy i am talking about fails courses which forces him to do 6. Its not his choice.

 

How is it not his choice? Is somebody forcing him to be lazy?

 

By the way, it's pretty common for an engineering degree to take nearly 5 years. All of the engineering graduates I know have taken 4 and a half to five years to finish up.

[fattyjwoods]

You can't really apply for internships and expect to have a full time job of it when you dont even have your engineering degree yet. Also without an engineering degree from a known or respectable university you cant become a legal engineer professional (licensed) which means its useless.

 

Well what do you propose he does. He fails all his courses, spends money on courses that he probably would be unable to pass because he's lazy and dosent try. What else can he do? He's never gonna get a degree unless he snaps into shape.

 

One question sciencenoob, what does he do during the course? Does he just sit around and muck about?

 

All I think he can do is to apply for part-time jobs and see if he can skip the uni part of a person's career - providing he does a good job for his employers. Otherwise there is nothing he can do but sit around collecting unemployment benefits.

 

And no - age isnt a big factor at all. You still can go to uni when you're like 50 and try and get a degree.

[CDarwin]

you _are kidding right? Most honours bachelor degrees are 4 years. That course load is not insane, even for engineering degrees. I mean we are only taking about 5-6 courses per term versus someone doing an arts degree will have 3-4. Its not really that insane. In my point of view it is the arts students that are having an extremely relaxed time versus the very normal work load for engineering students because once you are working, we are talking 9 work hours everyday straight up for the entire week, at the minimum excluding travelling etc.

 

And who is this 'they' anyways. But that is besides the point right. Fine, if you want to take your time and spread things out its ok, you can do it in 5 years or more as long as you arent failing courses and having a bad record.

The guy i am talking about fails courses which forces him to do 6. Its not his choice.

 

"They" is the infallible Mrs. Sue Dunlap, master of English at Seymour High School, esteemed educator at Walter State Community College, and my Freshman Experience professor. I probably won't need 5 since I'll be going in with 25 hours of credit, but if you're starting from scratch and you want to do a major/minor (I want a double major, but that's a weird case), at her recommended 12 hours a semester you apparently need 5 years to get in all the requirements for many degrees.

 

My point was just that the longer amount of time to get the degree isn't per se that important. If he pressed himself a little and finished up I'm sure he wouldn't be doomed forever to the depths of janitorial work just because it took him a couple of more years.

[sciencenoob]

Obviously its his fault he failed his courses and has to do 6. Me by saying 'its not his choice' is referred to the other person who makes an example of how someone can choose at their own will to spread out the course requirements over a longer than normal timespan. In that case it will be their choice. But here, its not his choice because he does try to do all he can do but he cant and is thus FORCED to do 6 years.

 

And no, it is not 'pretty common' to do engineering degrees in 5 years becomes the VAST majority of all students in any engineering program in north america will finish their degree in 4 because thats what you are surposed to do, and we are of course talking about the average to top notch bunch obviously = the bunch that will go on to get good engineering jobs without much trouble.

 

Well the guy isnt stupid. He doesnt do shit. He locks himself in his room all day playing computer games and he sleeps at 6am and wakeups at 5, etc. He skips all his classes except labs and hands in the odd homework and studies right before the final for 24 hours straight and walks into the exam not having slept, that kind of deal. So he is not at all stupid, just incredibly incredibly lazy and a waste of his own life. But thats not the point. Employers dont know and dont care to know that! His record shows he is incompetant whether he is nor not. Ad even if employers do know, his level of laziness and bummness is NOT a good trait!

 

The ultimate question of discussion here is how good are his chances of landing a job though? I dont know, I can imagine engineering firms being pretty tough.