Zorz

engineering used to be a professional degree like medicine and law, why would hey change it back.

rocen

the most important reason I chose to do engineering major is because if I don't do it now...I'll never be able to do it in the future (other than to redo an undergraduate degree)

Kharatos

^freaky, I thought exactly the same thing =O ........

scorp

I'm afraid that if you make engineering a graduate degree you will find yourself with a shortage of engineers. On the other hand, engineering salaries will begin to match those of doctors and lawyers. Which means that more engineers will try to get into engineering grad schools to the point where you have competition like you have for medical school, and all the current "engineering" jobs that require little to no actual engineering/analysis/math will go to the BS.

urrjun

GPA does matter quite a bit, just not as much as professional schools.

1) internships recruit based heavily on gpa and often have a cutoff for consideration (3.0 or 3.5 usually). I know people say its who you know, but I knew a lot of people, and eventually they want to see a proven ability to handle work well (i.e gpa).
2) When you apply to good grad schools, the people you are competing with are invariably good in all categories: gpa, gre (even verbal though it doesnt matter), and research experience. To be considered, you need to be in this bunch.
3) If you want funding for grad school
4) What else would your first-year employer look at? Remember everyone takes similar classes; so how do you stand out on a piece of paper?

Overall since its so tough, I think its easier to go from engineering-> anything as opposed to the opposite. You don't hear about too many pre-med/law students deciding to "go for" engineering.

chaoses

there are people with 4.0 in engineering for 4 years too
it doesn't mean that if you get 3.0 in engineering ur better than a 3.5 in other major. My TA had like a 3.4 in bio and went back to school majoring in EE, he had a 4.0 for his undergrad and grad in EE.

Most employers have a mindset that if you can do well in engineering, you can do well in other fields too. Now, there's no indication if you do poorly in engineering, you'll do better in other fields.

TooRichForAid

It's not true you cannot do engineering unless you do a BS in engineering. Lots of program allow you to obtain a Master Degree in Engineering even if you don't have an undergraduate in engineering. I have a friend who was in first year Medical school before she decided she did not like Medicine and switched to Computer Engineering. She got a MS from Stanford easily. She seems to like Math better than Bio.

I went from business major to EE for my BS and had better GPA in Engineering. The only factor is how determine you are to succeed in Engineering school. In business school I did not study all the time and worked nearly 35 hours to support myself. In engineering school, I only work less than 10 hours and studied all the time.

Zorz

Ya don't have to have a degree in engineering to be a engineer, ya dont even need to have a degree. I have a good friend of our family who is a engineer from cisco, never graduated from HS, He just tought himself everything and went from there.

rocen

I know this is the case for Biomedical Engineering. However, most good BME graduate schools set different requirements for BEng applicants and BS applicants. For a BS (in a science) applicants they require that you have taken certain courses such as Mechanics, Electric Circuit, Fluid Mechanics, Differential Equations...etc.

I believe, however, that this is due to the interdiscipline nature of Biomedical Engineering.
...i'm not sure about other engineering branches

GodzillaBorland

how is it possible that a physics major or a biomedical engineering major can get a masters in electrical or computer engineering? wouldnt they be clueless joining the program because they dont have the requirements?

aswat12389

Usually you are required to go back and make up some prerequisites

karthikkito

Not really. BME -- lots of EE classes, controls, etc. Take a look at a BME lab sometime as well as the products coming out...many times, they do just as much EE work as electrical engineers.

Physics - there are many areas of EE that have a lot of overlap with pure physics such as solid state physics, etc etc etc. If a student went from majoring in solid state physics into, say, solid state devices, there wouldn't be too much of a lag.

Rabban

Indeed!!! A good friend who majored in EE all through his life (BS,MS,PhD) landed his first real job @JHU Medical Center as a Bio-Medical Research Associate. Lots of DSP, Image mapping & processing is widely used in BME field.