dtshen

i have a 2.8ish from purdue university, engineering major. I've gotten about 10 interviews this year. i'd recommend you apply to every single job you see. i literally look for jobs every day. i've definitely applied to every single job on my career center, even if they do have a 3.0 gpa requirement.

I'd say i've probably applied to over 300 internships since august.

Of course, it's gotten a hell of a lot easier now that i have one internship on my resume. but last year when i had nothing on my resume, i did the same thing applied to hundreds of internships and got about 4 interviews. of course the companies arent "great" but u have to start somewhere.

NYao

dtshen, how do you apply to so many internships? I've applied to like 50 so far since august, and i think thats like pretty much 80% of the internships offered by my school's career center, and pretty much everybody comes to hire at Michigan.

dtshen

apply to companies online as well. It may not be as effective, but i do it anyway. I got an interview with my #1 company through applying through the company website. Also what I do is I ask my friend's password to their online career centers, and email the recruiters. but yea, i agree i've probably only applied to about 50 as well through the ones offered by the career center.

dtshen

i duno, almost all of my interviews have been through the career center though. maybe something is wrong with your resume then. send me a PM if you want me to take a look at it

2331clk

NYao,

I remember my son using the term "blanketing" for sending his resume for internship to a couple hundred prospective employers. His career center was helpful...I'm surprised at Michigan's although perhaps you have to be more persistent with them.

Is your gpa higher in your major? If so you could list that on resume.

What about the Michigan alumni? Is there a way to contact alumni directly and explain your situation? What about GM, Ford etc which are right there in Michigan...they should be loaded with Michigan alumni.

Can you minor in something that might make you stand out?

Remember too you have 3 more semesters to bring up the grades. Often those earlier intro courses in engineering are the hardest for grades. You could conceivably graduate with above a 3.0. There's another less common cut-off of 2.8 I've seen, hopefully you'll be above that by the end of this semester.

Also remember if you don't get an internship this summer it doesn't mean you won't eventually find a good job.

I think posting on this forum is a good thing. I might suggest posting this on the parents forum...a lot of experience over there.

sakky

I have to agree with dtshen that you just need to be highly aggressive in your search. Even if you don't have the GPA that an internship requires, apply to it anyway. The worst thing they can say is No. Apply anywhere and everywhere.

If it makes you feel better, I know a guy who barely graduated in EECS from Berkeley - and I mean barely. He spent quite a bit of time on academic probation with a GPA below a 2.0, and just barely got his head above a 2.0 (which is the bare minimum you need to graduate) by the time graduation rolled around. He still managed to get an engineering tech job in Silicon Valley. It wasn't the greatest job, but it was OK.

wingardiumLeviosa

This is what scares the hell out of me. What's the point in going to a top engr. college, busting your ass off and graduating with less than a 3.0 when you can have fun in a normal college and graduate with a 3.5+?

It's actually pis.sing me off a LOT. It's also one of the reasons I'm debating getting the hell out of Cooper Union before I get completely screwed. I'm seeing a lot of people here graduate with 2.8, 2.9 averages who end up going to pathetic grad schools like Stony Brook for engineering. In fact, most people in my chemE department end up getting less than a 3.0 GPA and go to mediocre grad. schools and very few people actually even try to get jobs (everybody's interested in graduate study for some reason). It's actually quite scary. All these people are telling me graduating from cooper is going get me top jobs but I can't see that happening.

Like the OP said, what's the point of graduating from Michigan with a 2.8 and get very few to no jobs VS. going to Mich. Tech, having much more fun, graduating with a 3.5+ and getting great jobs.

wingardiumLeviosa

Matter of fact, I recall that one of my goals was to go get my master's degree at a college like Michigan or Princeton or Cornell (in chemE) but with barely a 3.1 GPA from Cooper, I cannot for the life of me see myself competing against people with 3.8 GPA's from state schools in the same major.

dtshen

i guess nobody expects when they go to college to graduate with a sub 3.0 gpa.

dtshen

also, another hint of advice. when applying for jobs... always include a cover letter. sure a lot of people wont even bother to read it. but some do.

and also... try to personalize the cover letter.

ex.) one time i read an article by " XXXX XXXXXX" on the company Boeing.

then when searching for jobs, i noticed this name... instead she was recruiting for Intel. so in my cover letter.. i mentioned the article, how much i enjoyed it... etc..

try to make the recruiter have a reason for talkign to you. speak to a few interns who currently work for a company you want to work for...

ask them what the ongoing projects are.. format your cover letter around that.

good luck

and then when you get that interview, make sure you do well.
it would be unfortunate if you got an interview but did not get the job.

you spend 10+ hrs studying for a test, whose purpose is to get you a GPA and get you an interview.

so.. it makes sense to study 10+ hrs for an interview.

NYao

i don't think u are at a significant disadvantage with a 3.1. If u have enough research material, u can still get in. But i see your point.

boomer01

bump......

sakky

The assumption you are making is that you will actually get that higher GPA at a normal college. This is not a safe assumption. In fact, you may actually end up with LOWER grades at a lesser college. It mostly has to do with sociology. Let's face it. Human beings are social creatures and tend to copy what they see around them. When you surround yourself with hard-working students, you will tend to be harder working, but when you go to a school that has lots of lazy, mediocre students, then you will tend to become lazy yourself.

And besides, if it makes you feel better, I would say that relatively few engineering grad students at MIT come from no-name schools.

dtshen

i agree with sakky, when you surround yourself with lazy people you also become lazy.

keep applying to every job you see on your career center. also, go down the fortune 500 list and visit their website and apply to every intern that fits you hehe. you should hurry, it seems like a lot of deadlines are approaching.

Twonius

I have to disagree

I took summer classes at a lower ranked university and found the class only covered about 2/3 of the material, without much of the homework and less in depth test questions on what was covered. And yes I got a 4.0 that term.

Now we've all had statistics and anecdotal evidence is not proof, but from my perpective there are a lot easier ways to get an engineering degree while achieving a higher GPA.

I will say however that I've worked with a lot of engineers from "lesser" universities and found them to be a lot more practical than a lot of people from my alma-mater (once again anecdotal)

As for getting interviews, if you don't have the grades a lot of your interviews will end in the first 5 minutes. (I don't have my GPA on my resume)

I know i'm painting a pretty bleak picture and a lot of people will beg to differ. And of course I can only blame myself, but for those of you who are still a few years from graduation take note of my situation because it is definately somewhere you don't want to be.