<p>@rhandco , that’s an interesting idea about the major vs overall idea.</p>
<p>@bschoolwiz you actually bring up something I’ve been wanting to address. There seems to be this common belief that social/communication ability is inversely proportional to technical ability. First hand experience with high achieving students has actually led me to the understanding that strong work ethic is generally what led to better technical understanding of subjects. This strong work ethic goes hand in hand with working well in team and group environments. There are exceptions to this, but they are as much exceptions as charismatic C students who later turned out to be CEO’s of major engineering/technical companies. I think you’ll find many more people in top positions with cum laude somewhere in their resume than not.</p>
<p>Forgive me if I don’t buy into your excuses for mediocrity. I can counter your examples with my own about working fathers who are high achieving students in engineering. Granted there aren’t as many, but that’s due more to the fact there aren’t as many non-traditional students in general; otherwise they’d be called traditional :-p</p>
<p>This self serving idea that book smart people have no common sense is related to the lack of communication ability myth above. Seriously think about that. You’re saying smart engineers can’t figure out when they’re getting scammed, or how to dress for the weather, or how to be empathetic toward others? Don’t confuse youth and inexperience with a lack of common sense. It’s really easy to pick on a fresh 22 year old graduate with a 3.5+ who has never supported themselves and say “what, you don’t know how lease agreements work?” “what you don’t know how to get your new car registered?” “You paid $400 at Whole Foods for your weekly groceries?” etc etc. </p>
<p>I posted my previous comment because I was frustrated with the lack of real innovation I see nationally. It is the root cause of a stagnate economy and crappy job market across many industries (what’s that national labor participation rate again?). In the end I actually agree with you that GPA is not the sole measure of one’s intelligence. However, I would submit that a combination of effort and intelligence are represented by GPA. Therefore, corroborating a high GPA with outstanding work performance or research is a reasonable way to quickly estimate someone’s overall value as a potential new hire. A normal BS in engineering requires more than 40 courses. I seriously doubt you had the exact same professor with the exact same test format for all of those courses, so being a “bad test taker” doesn’t fully explain a mediocre GPA.</p>
<p>That said, my engineering school career center posted 3 Siemens jobs today that clearly state students with a 2.8 and higher may apply. So there you go OP, some honest to goodness evidence that one can get an engineering job with a 2.8 GPA.</p>