Grade distribution report

Thanol · January 31, 2009, 12:20am

In my Honors Accounting class, we correct our professor all the time. They’re mostly small goofs that he makes rushing so that he covers the concept thoroughly. He’s American by the way.

When I took Calculus last year, I had submitted test corrections, usually it dealt with partial credit and work. The TA’s have to grade hundreds of problems in a very short period of time, so mistakes are made. They might not understand the work you were doing, if you didn’t do it in the standard format. They almost always fix your grade, as long as it’s a legitimate misunderstanding.

AimHigh · January 31, 2009, 12:20pm

Thanol, it’s good to hear they’re willing to change the grade if something is marked wrong. And I’m glad you’re correcting the teacher when mistakes are made, or others in the class might not understand the work, thinking the information is correct. As long as you do so respectfully, I’m sure the teachers appreciate it.

SportsMama · January 31, 2009, 2:33pm

Mama4, I would like to try to clarify some of the points you and I have made. Maybe then you can see where I’m coming from.

"You are right; something is wrong. They have earned the passing grades by using curves and extra credit and maybe even complaining parents…especially in high school: “My child got an A in Mrs. ____ class. So they deserve an A in this one.”

My daughter’s calculus teacher did not use a curve or extra credit. I never complained to her teacher; I thanked him for helping her UNDERSTAND and love mathematics. She had A’s in class and maybe a B or B+ and she earned a 5 on the AP calculus exam, so she must have learned what she was supposed to learn. She went into college well prepared.

“Do you really want an engineer designing a product who just gotten by and complained through every difficult math class or any other class.”

It seems that this is the system in engineering. I didn’t create it and I don’t understand it. Are there so few students truly qualified to be engineers that they have to curve the grades so that students pass? As I said before, I am a teacher. If my students do poorly, I wonder what I could have done differently so that they would have better understood the material. I would think that the majority of engineering students are highly capable students or they wouldn’t be in a major with so much higher level math and science. So what IS the problem?

“I know scholarships are at stake, but is it really all about the money? Or something else? One fumble, one slow down, one repeated class is not going to make them lose a scholarship.”

Well, yes, it is about the scholarship. My daughter has to have a 3.2 or she loses her scholarship. She is just about there, but not quite. Her grades are good enough (if she maintains them) that she should have no problem getting a job. She’s intelligent and a hard worker. My whole point is that the average GPA of engineering students is lower than other majors because of the nature of their courses, but they are still held to the same standards.

“Figure it out yourself and stop scaring the kids.”

I have no clue about this one. I need some help understanding what you are talking about.

germanprof · January 31, 2009, 3:35pm

"My whole point is that the average GPA of engineering students is lower than other majors because of the nature of their courses, but they are still held to the same standards. "

I do understand the concern behind this comment. S is a 2nd-year engineering student at a large (37, 000 students) university in the city where we live. His scholarship requires a 3.2, and the honors program requires a 3.4 cumulative GPA by the end of the second year. He would tell you that the engineers, the pre-meds, and the DAAP students are working like crazy, and the rest are enjoying “the college experience”.

In his first calc course last year, the class average on the final exam was 59%. All of what the previous posters have said about curves, about grading, about profs or TAs who barely speak English seems to be the reality of engineering at a big school. The students have to learn to aggressively scramble for any help they can find. S would say it doesn’t get easier, but he has learned how to help himself and get what he needs from the profs or the TA.

In terms of grades, S had a 3.17 his first first quarter at college. He is now up to a 3.5 cumulative GPA, still working very hard, but with better resources: more self-confidence, aggressively seeking out help, study buddies.

So… yes, it’s only a scholarship, but I agree that maybe there should be more “wiggle room” for certain majors. Older S and his wife, both grads of this school and working in major industries here, would say that anything over a 3.0 in engineering is good. The cut-off for interviews for the “good” co-ops seems to be 3.0. (Even so, the co-ops, at least just now, are harder to get than they used to be…)

SportsMama, I don’t understand the system, either. But that seems to be the way it works. Best wishes to your daughter.

AimHigh · January 31, 2009, 8:13pm

Germanprof, interesting that this seems to be commonplace. The problem is not just in engineering. I have one son at OSU in pre-business and the other is a Junior at Indiana U. in psychology. The problems I’ve discussed have been in math only. Both of them have gpa’s that are where they should be for their majors and scholarship money. The one at OSU has a 3.6, the Junior at IU has a 3.8. The issue for us is, all the extra work that’s been necessary to try and understand math because of the problems previously outlined - and the consistently low scores of the majority of kids in math that do indicate a failure in teaching concepts.

Like Sportsmama, I’ve never even talked to high school or college teachers. My kids earn their grades through hard work. They attended a highly competitive, highly ranked school in Illinois with more than four thousand students, so they couldn’t afford to be lazy.

These are legitimate concerns, and when people try to shut down the discussion by manipulating people through insults they’re pontificating based on false assumptions. These forums are here so parents and students and potential students can share information and support one another. But I could tell by your courteous reply that you already know that.

The_Speaker · February 1, 2009, 2:34pm

For a moment there, this thread got REALLY scary.

I hope that all posters in this forum, parents and students alike, understand that it is meant to be a resource for discussion, information, advice, etc. That means that a healthy discussion of observations about the shortcomings of a certain program based on students’ experiences is definitely fair.

What is unfair is to personally insult people’s parenting, or to make gross insinuations/assumptions about meddling parenting, soft standards, ignorant professors, yadda yadda yadda. We’re all good people, and we’ve all got legitimate views and concerns. I can see that this thread has definitely taken a nice turn back to respectful dialogue, so koodos to all. With that, allow me to weigh in.

As many of you know, I am a current Engineering student at OSU. I’m in the Honors program, on several academic-based scholarships. I’m only a first-year, so I can only speak of the little wisdom/experience I’ve gained thus far; I know full well that there are many on this forum who have more firsthand experience than me. Now that it’s clear where I’m coming from, allow me to make a few points:

<ol>
<li>FEH, Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors, really does care about the freshmen engineers here. Dr. Freuler, the head of First-Year Engineering, is all about helping the students succeed. FEH holds meetings regularly of ALL FEH instructors (in FEH, the Math, Physics, and Engineering profs are ALL part of the FEH team) to address issues in the classroom. Students are allowed to comment EVERY weekend freely and anonymously to the FEH staff if they believe there are teaching issues in Math, Physics, or Engineering. And the best part? They listen.</li>
</ol>

I have personally witnessed a change in Lab Report policy based on student comments (we get much better feedback now) and a grading change on a Math midterm (there was a hidden question that half the class never knew was there!).

The resources to help the Honors Engineering kids are there. They know it’s rough.

<ol>
<li>My first quarter GPA was lower than I had hoped, just a shade above 3. Being one of those over-achieving AP kids in high school, I was aiming for straight A’s, at least a 3.7 or a 3.5. Nope. You know why? I thought one hour of studying each night was enough. And the fact is, in college, it just isn’t for most kids, certainly not for me. You’ve got to work crazy hard, you’ve got to study like mad, and that scant study/homework time you had in high school just doesn’t cut it. I know this now and am doing much better. :-)</li>
<li>The curves are there to help make engineering / math a little less unfair. A B in a Math class is quite good (remembering that C is supposed to be average, remember?). An A in some GEC classes is just plain expected. To atone for this, there is that curved grading, since University-wide, a letter grade is a letter grade is a letter grade. University-wide honoraries and the like ask for GPA, regardless of major. By adding curves to Math/Engineering classes, it evens out the playing field a bit for those Engineers who are slaving away.</li>
<li>Engineering is a hard major. It’s just a fact. You WILL work harder than some other majors. Don’t get me wrong, there are some majors out there that make engineering look easy. But Engineering is certainly towards the tough end of the spectrum. It’s the way it is. If you don’t want that, or love math/science enough to struggle through it, then there are certainly many other majors to choose from.</li>
<li>Big University. That means big opportunities, big resources, but also it means some missteps are just statistically bound to happen. A terrible TA, even a terrible Prof. Bad Profs happen everywhere, even at schools as small as Franklin W. Olin (look it up, it’s tiny!).</li>
</ol>

BOTTOM LINE: Yep, it’s rough. Yep, it’s tough. And yes, sometimes the system just isn’t all that fair. But there are resources (GOOD profs, free tutoring, study spaces, free workshops on time-management/studying, etc. etc.) to help. And though it takes some getting used to, Engineering is what I love, and accordingly, I found a way.

Thanks,

The Speaker

Mama4 · February 3, 2009, 12:56pm

Thank you, Speaker, for your reply.

I particularly like your #4 and the Bottom Line responses. Engineering requires extra work and you are willing to do that. Kudos to you!

To Sports Mama, when I wrote “Figure it out yourself and stop scaring the kids”, I was referring to figuring out the GPA with a B or C in that particular class. More than likely, the GPA will not fall below the required scholarship level. My point was to go for the learning and not panic about GPA.

Thank you.

SportsMama · February 3, 2009, 10:35pm

Speaker, thanks for weighing in with your experiences thus far.

My daughter is not in the Honors Engineering Program. I’m glad to hear, however, that you are getting the help that you need. She was in the Honors program, but she was several tenths short of the required 3.4 at the end of her freshman year, so she was taken out of the program.

Her first quarter GPA was also short of what she expected. (It was a 2 point something.) I think many kids come in with great academic success behind them and don’t realize how hard you must work to be successful in engineering (and many other majors) at Ohio State. She’s figured it out since then, but it put her behind the eight ball, so to speak, starting out like that.

Now as far as your comments about the curve:
“The curves are there to help make engineering / math a little less unfair. A B in a Math class is quite good (remembering that C is supposed to be average, remember?). An A in some GEC classes is just plain expected. To atone for this, there is that curved grading, since University-wide, a letter grade is a letter grade is a letter grade. University-wide honoraries and the like ask for GPA, regardless of major. By adding curves to Math/Engineering classes, it evens out the playing field a bit for those Engineers who are slaving away.”

Not every professor curves and every professor who curves does not necessarily curve the same way. It’s still not fair, but that’s the way it is.

Please understand that I know engineering is hard and it is meant to be hard. That’s great. I simply don’t understand their system of having low, low average scores on exams. And when I say “their” I am speaking of engineering (and all of the related classes), not OSU.

My daughter loves what she is learning and she is working very hard at it. That thrills me beyond belief. At the end of her freshman year, she wondered if she should change majors, thinking that maybe she wasn’t cut out for engineering. I asked her if she was happy, and she said she didn’t think anything else would be as interesting as what she was doing. So . . . she’s sticking with it, even if it means losing her scholarship.

SportsMama · February 3, 2009, 10:45pm

Mama4, I still don’t get what you’re saying.

“To Sports Mama, when I wrote “Figure it out yourself and stop scaring the kids”, I was referring to figuring out the GPA with a B or C in that particular class. More than likely, the GPA will not fall below the required scholarship level. My point was to go for the learning and not panic about GPA.”

If you need a 3.2, and are not quite there, and get a B or C in a class, it will lower your GPA.

She IS going for the learning. She could have switched to an easier major and this would be a moot point–but she enjoys engineering. We not in a panic about the GPA–just frustrated and a little worried.

SportsMama · February 3, 2009, 11:11pm

*We are not in a panic about the GPA–just frustrated and a little worried.

I’m still not sure who I am scaring, but if I scared someone, I apologize. It was not my intent.

(Too late to edit the regular way.)

Grade distribution report

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