<p>I’ve read alot of reviews about Georgia Tech on the internet and alot of them say the same thing.</p>
<p>It’s a hell hole and it’s a trap. They are so miserable here because there’s not much of a social scene and the courses are immensely challenging. People have to spend nighters to earn a decent C.</p>
<p>Apparently, people work so hard that a 3.8 at one school is a 2.5 at GA tech.</p>
<p>They then called it a “trap” because with the difficult coursework and courses, your GPA stays low and you can’t transfer to anywhere decent like UGA.</p>
<p>I also read that the suicide rate at this school is sorta high. Georgia Tech seems to give a good education, but is 4 years of hell really worth the education and the money you’ll be earning after your out?</p>
<p>The question to you guys is: Is it really like this?</p>
<p>At difficult engineering low level and traditionally weed out courses, 32.7% of grade was A’s, 30.9% of grade was B, 17.9% of grade was Cs and only 7.6% D and F. Other colleges and upper engineering courses are even easier to get good grade. </p>
<p>So it is probably difficult to get A’s, but it didn’t take much effort to get C’s.</p>
<p>2) Why Tech students want to transfer to UGA? Most Tech students are engineering students and UGA only offer minimum engineering degree.</p>
<p>3) Tech is middle of midtown district, Atlantic station and Buckhead are only ten or fifteen minutes. There are football games, basketball games and baseball games on the weekend. Tech has its own Drama Club. Hawks and Braves are only Marta train away. I found most freshmen struggle because they have too much fun.</p>
<p>I highly doubt that. Anyway, I never hear any single case myself. </p>
<p>Most Tech students are very practical people. They are too busy study and/or find next co-op assignment. Since almost everybody got some bad grades in his/her courses, student tends to laugh off and treat that as some types of shaft by mother Tech.</p>
<p>I know a couple of kids in MIT commit suicide because they are no longer “the man”. That makes some sense since many MIT kids got some types of Science Olympic award or something.</p>
<p>I myself have NEVER heard of a suicide at Tech. The worst thing we have had is a PhD student going samurai on another student, but that was over a girl. So maybe our social scene is more intense than UGA’s : ) ?</p>
<p>He was a former PhD student. At the time, he had already graduated and was a Post-Doc at the University of Delaware. </p>
<p>Tech has a suicide once every two or three years. It happens for all sorts of reasons - statistically you’re more likely to have a nervous breakdown at age 20-24 than any other time in your life. But that frequency isn’t that out of the ordinary. The average suicide rate in colleges (7.1/100,000) would lead Tech to have one every 2.8 years. From what I can tell, the last suicide was in 2007 (with 2 since 2005). Compare that to Cornell, which has had 3 suicides just this year.</p>
<p>The people that call Tech a “hellhole” and tell you that you have to struggle to get a C are the people that do struggle to get a C. As was pointed out, to struggle to get a C, you need to be in the bottom 10% of every class you take. That’s a hard thing to do, unless you don’t go to class, never study, don’t turn in assignments, etc. That’s what those type of internet posters do - they do nothing and expect that they should be entitled to a C. Tech’s not like that, it won’t “baby” you (good colleges generally won’t, which is partially what makes them good colleges). If you don’t put in any effort, you’ll fail out. The thing is, when you fail out, who do you blame? Do you blame yourself for not putting in effort, or do you blame the school? Unfortunately, many choose the latter.</p>
<p>I’m not sure about other weed-out courses, but I read somewhere that 40% of students get a D or lower in physics classes. That sounds about right, since in most weed-out courses the average grade is a C. If you’ve looked at a graph of grade distributions for a physics class, numbers peak around a low to mid C and gradually gets lower for higher grades, to about 5-10% of the class getting A’s.</p>
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<p>I didn’t fail out per se, but I transferred out with a low GPA (to my standards). I blame that on Tech and I also blame the miserable experience I went through to even get that GPA on Tech.</p>
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<p>Yes, and I personally don’t think it’s worth going through four years of hell. At times it can feel like the professors are there to make your life as bad as possible.</p>
<p>True, to accomplish anything you have to work really hard at it, but it can at least be something you’re passionate about at a place that doesn’t suck all of your energy and soul out.</p>
<p>If you’re like my Dad, who defines his life by his work then maybe you will be able to stand it.</p>
<p>I can name over 100 people off the top of my head that went to the same school, but had high grades and a good time. If the school inherently causes bad grades and a miserable experience, how is that possible? </p>
<p>Personally, I’m terrible at playing the guitar. I have one in the closet that’s been collecting dust for ever. No matter how hard I try to learn, I’ll never get it. So that either means I’m bad at playing the guitar, or the guitar is incredibly difficult to play. </p>
<p>Since I know kids that can play the guitar, and I know dozens of people that learned to play in just a month or so, I guess that means the issue is with me, not with the guitar. I accept that.</p>
<p>schaden: I’m not saying this is you, but there are students that float through high school and get good grades without much studying. They wait until the last minute to complete assignments and still get good grades. They brag about it. But they get to college and it’s an entirely different world. There are a myriad of distractions (sex, booze, internet stuff, games) not to mention things like laundry and getting up on time that they may not have had to deal with (or take responsibility for) in HS. Further, what was turned in for a good grade in high school can get trashed in college. Some students can turn it up a notch or two, face the challenge and succeed. Others drop out.
Finding the right college is more than a numbers game. It’s more than rankings. It’s about fit. Obviously GT was not a fit for you, but there are plenty that do fit at GT.</p>
<p>Counterpoint. Take the worst city in America. Could you find 100 people in that city who are perfectly happy? I’m sure you could. </p>
<p>And I’m not saying it is inherently bad, since that is impossible.</p>
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<p>On the same note, I have a friend who can play the piano while I am throwing golfballs at him. He is very skilled at dodging the golfballs and focusing on the piano at the same time, even when I’m aiming at his head. That is something he was born to do and I accept that. It’s just not something I’m interested in doing…ever.</p>
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<p>And I’m not advocating that Georgia Tech be disbanded since I wasn’t satisfied while I was there. But I want the OP hear opinions from both sides of the picture.</p>
<p>In a truly terrible city many more people hating it than liking it. My experience at Tech is that it’s about 4 that likes it to 1 that hates it.</p>
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<p>The analogy doesn’t quite follow because a lot of people play the guitar and you only know one that can play the piano while dodging golf balls, but lets say you have a lot of friends that can do that particular skill. If so, you could say “I’m not interesting in doing that” or “I can’t do that”, but you wouldn’t be able to say “I can’t do it because it’s too difficult”.</p>
<p>And perhaps there is a reason that so few people like to play piano while dodging golfballs. Anyone who would want to do that is only doing it to be able to say they can do it, or that they are better than everyone else who plays piano while not dodging golf balls. To be honest, I’d kind of like to learn how to play piano and if I ever did get good at it, I wouldn’t be too worried that other people can do the exact same thing I can do, but while dodging golf balls. I would be 100% content with just playing the piano. It’s not because dodging golfballs is too difficult but mainly because I’d prefer not to.</p>
<p>Fair enough. But if that’s truly the case, post on here that Tech isn’t for everyone, don’t blame Tech because you had a low GPA or that you were miserable.</p>
<p>Statistically, it seems like a pretty tough institute. But with that high of a standard, you’re bound to truly become inquisitive and learn applicable material you never knew existed. As for the rigor and the “hell trap”, attending Georgia Tech is a decision you’ll have to make. If you feel you can live up to the high standard and compete with your class, I would say go for it. If you are susceptible to endless partying and procrastination, I suggest attending somewhere else. But statistics show that leaving Tech with a high GPA IS possible. So simply calling it a “hellhole” and a “trap” seems like an easy thing to do if you are not the one succeeding.</p>
<p>I went to tech and have found that even in this economy I have not found it difficult to find a job, nor have any of my friends. The degree is very respected, Emory medical will except Tech engineers with less than a 4.0 to their medical program which is unheard of for most other schools. A friend of mine had a 3.0 and was still accepted to medical school because they know that Tech has standards and is very difficult. I know this is cliche but if it is easy to get is it worth having? If Tech just printed out degrees it wouldn’t be Tech. </p>
<p>An all nighter and nothing else will get you a C, Going to class taking notes doing the homework, and pulling an all nighter will get you a B, pulling a 72 hour marathon in the Library will get you an A on the Fluids Final and if your taking Glezer an A in the class. Avoid Federov, if your partner doesn’t hand in the paper and doesn’t tell you, he will give you a 0 because you are responsible for working together as a group even if your partner went crazy, dropped out, and checked into a rehab facility to get off the coke. No really that happened to me. Thank God for Kristy, she made him let me re-write the paper, therefore Tech will Shaft you but not hard enough to tear your paraniuem, but child birth will.</p>
<p>Yeah, but the average GPA at Emory Med School is about 3.7. It is therefore apparent that they take students below 4.0. Even an Emory student would be screwed if they expected 4.0s from everyone.<br>
As for 2.5 at Tech=3.8 at another school: Yeah, but what other school (maybe it’s=3.0-3.1 here if you compare it to science major where humanities/PEs can actually help) Such a claim can’t be proven, and is certainly a hyperbole if you compare it to schools of similar caliber that have students with a similar curriculum ?: Here, The distribution for As in premed/science classes seem to be lower here than that person posted for Tech. Plus/Minus system also screws many over here (You kinda feel like crap when you get an 82.x in a course, which is a B-, thus a 2.7). My friend’s (he just finished freshman year here) GPA was lowered by second semester due to a B- in chemistry, and a smaller neuroscience course where his grade was curved down to a B+ (from a really solid/high A-). Those two classes made the difference between a 3.3 and a 3.1 (that’s what he got, he had a 3.6 1st semester). He got lucky in biology though where he was curved to an A-. Here, all they have to dois give most people a B-, and that’ll weed people out of medical school. Most of the pre-med classes actually have to curve up to B-. Which means that the general pre-med course average is 2.6-2.8 range starting at gen. bio and chem, and physics where curves usually don’t occur (let’s not talk about those crazy neuroscience courses). The only advantage over here is that pre-meds/science majors here can buffer their GPAs with humanities. And I have to specify humanities as opposed to social sciences because many pre-meds perform poorly in those (social science) courses that they are made to take as part of GERs. Those often help correct for the humanities that boosted their GPAs b/c many are as tough as some of the pre-med courses. </p>
<p>I really don’t think Tech is as bad as many portray it as. I here of many people doing OK/well as poorly. Same here. It is tough on the GPA b/c you don’t have hardly any buffers for any lame grades in science courses and I imagine (as G.P. emphasized elsewhere) that the teaching style differs there. I have to keep wondering why people think the grass is greener for science majors at a place like Emory or UGA (ok, maybe UGA), or many other names dropped in some forums. From my experience here, I seriously doubt it is in terms of difficulty unless you go through the engineering classes. I wouldn’t expect much of a difference if one came here to do bio, chem, psyche(getting past those intro. courses with a good grade is really hard), or NBB. I’d rather be at GT where med. schools only expect a 3.3-3.4 than here where they expect far higher due to the environment (smaller classes among other things) and prevailing idea that grade inflation has run rampant in all private schools (which it does to a degree, just not in science courses). My experience here for two years has revealed that there is much less grade inflation than most think. OP, just don’t think you’ll get it easier being a science/engineering major at say a top private school. It will not be too much better if you want higher grades (especially if you don’t have AP credit in intro. social sciences which have picked off many of my friends). Grade inflation will not save you. There are still many harder classes that either don’t curve, bell-curve or have a harsh curve simply capping As to 10%. And the competition is stiff. I mean, we collaborate, but one is up against extremely motivated students that go out of their way to achieve almost perfect grades (which also partially accounts for what is seen as grade inflation. Heck you’ll notice that even Tech has experienced some). </p>
<p>OP: if you want to go to Tech, go to Tech. Don’t let horror stories about grade deflation scare you. If you work hard, you’ll do well. If you chose not to, and to attend a school of similar caliber, expect to work just as hard if not harder. Your grade can get “shafted” at most top schools.</p>
<p>Oh, as for suicides. They’ve even occurred here (and not too long ago), for perhaps non-academic reasons, but among students/former students nonetheless. We are apparently better at covering it up though.</p>
<p>No, I go to Emory. I just post here because people here tend to put Emory and UGA in the same sentence when comparing other schools to Tech’s stress level. And what do you mean by freshmen forgiveness?</p>