<p>Sorry sakky, I still don’t agree with you. I could write huge long posts explaining exactly why, and quote/refute your points, but I really don’t have the time nor desire to do so. I’ll just try to sum it up:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You’re still confusing the kind of fairness I am talking about. First of all, the world is never going to be perfectly fair, so bringing up other sources of unfairness is no excuse. Second of all, take the actor example. There is no need to “compensate” because actors have it hard enough as it is! Not just anyone can become an actor. You have to have amazing luck (born with good looks, know the right people, etc.) as well as good acting skills. There’s no need to further compensate that with grading them harshly, that just makes no sense. However, if you’re looking at different majors, there is (generally) no such “real life compensation”. Anyone can major in CS or Engineering as opposed to AS or Sociology or whatever. That’s why some majors are capped and graded harshly to weed out students. Not because the demand for those professions are too high, but because the students’ demand for entering those professions are too high. Now, while I don’t agree with the nature of weeding, I do think some majors need to be “harder” than others.</p></li>
<li><p>I still don’t agree with your view of supply and demand in regards to salary. If that were true, we must really want a lot of CEOs of OS companies. But clearly that’s not the case. If that were true, we must really want a lot more professional NBA players and teams, since they get paid so much. But obviously, doubling or tripling the number of NBA teams would not be a good move. Salary is not a direct effect of demand and only demand. If we just uncap EECS and make it as easy as, say, the Theater major, I suspect what will happen is the EE and CS market will resemble the acting profession more. You have some CS hires who will make a lot, because the profession is still valued highly, but a lot more people will be out of a job, and the competition will get a lot tougher. So basically, instead of “weeding” them out in college, you are weeding them out after college. That’s the crueler path.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Look, I’m on board with people experimenting and trying out new majors. I’m on board with grade inflation. I support Slicmlic trying out EECS, and if he does a mediocre job and gets a string of C’s, I support giving him the freedom to transfer out. But it’s a tough major. Why give him an A unless he really earned it? As for the easy majors, some of those classes are so easy that you really can’t do badly in it. So why give out a bunch of C’s just for “fairness’s sake” and nothing else?</p>
<p>By the way, I’ve just realized a point which needs further clarifying. I don’t support imposing the same grading curve on all majors. That’s what I mean by “I don’t think all majors should be graded the same way.”</p>
<p>"By the way, I’ve just realized a point which needs further clarifying. I don’t support imposing the same grading curve on all majors. That’s what I mean by “I don’t think all majors should be graded the same way.”</p>
<p>I think I agree with all of your views here vicissitudes, but I don’t think they’re actually responding to Sakky’s points. They’re responding to an <em>extreme</em> version of sakky’s points. I mean, unless Sakky genuinely believes every major is inherently as hard, and deserves the same curve. I think he’s trying to say that some majors are made much easier than they really are, and some majors are made harder than they really are.</p>
<p>E.g. I am sure he will say to what you wrote that Stanford maintains sufficient rigor in its EECS curriculum and doesn’t have such a discrepancy between EECS grading and other majors…etc, etc, EECS majors don’t get screwed as badly.</p>
<p>I.e., I think Sakky [and I] wouldn’t agree every major is being as hard as is fair…some unnecessarily hard, some unnecessarily easy. I’m not sure, it doesn’t seem you want the current grading system to exist, but you’re arguing as if we’re suggesting that all majors have the PRECISE same grading scale. I don’t think anyone is arguing that. There are big differences in how an engineering and English class are run, and that’s the bottom line.</p>
<p>I think this is getting to the point where people are not responding to each other, but responding to what they think each other are saying.</p>
<p>As an average Berkeley applicant (4.5 UC GPA, 32 ACT), am I going to be chewed up by EECS?
Should I just stay in L&S in order to graduate, or would having a B.S. be worth more?</p>
<p>From the sounds of everything, it seems like I should just go to a lower school and take a guaranteed job. It’s evident that Berkeley is a risk, as in I may not graduate… but is it a good one?</p>
<p>I’m talking about something like 40-30-30 A/B/C for intro engineering/sciences, while some classes can keep grading 80-90% A’s. That’s a pretty big difference. But so what? Some classes are inherently effort-based, and everyone does the work, so why should we impose another major’s grading standard? Furthermore, I don’t mind if for some majors, they grade easier in order to help boost the student’s GPA. I’m talking about a lot of the humanity majors, because let’s face it, a lot of them have nowhere to go but grad school. If we grade them harshly like engineering majors, they’ll just be more disadvantaged against people who go to easier schools or those who go to top private schools, where grades are also inflated for a lot of majors. I don’t like it, but that’s the reality. Same thing with pre-meds. Some Chem classes have a curve where only 15% of the class gets an A or A-. That sucks. Frankly they’re better off taking these classes somewhere else. And the med school acceptance rates for UCs are pretty pathetic, to be honest. So why not inflate the grades more for these people?</p>
<p>The other side of the coin is engineering. Most of them don’t consider grad school, so it’s a different situation. Engineering is graded harshly to discourage more people from entering the field. EECS is already one of the largest majors on campus, and it’s heavily impacted. If Berkeley just starts handing out EECS degrees like candy, that would probably start hurting its reputation as well as its graduates, not to mention the department couldn’t handle it budgetary-wise. Stanford can grade easily because they have a rigorous admissions process that does the weeding before college. Berkeley can’t afford to do that.</p>
<p>vicisstudes:
I feel like you’re kind of referring to the different models for a public university versus a private university. I was told once that a private university is run much like a business. Each applicant is viewed as an investment to the university’s future based on their future potential to make donations to the university, which is why legacy is considered. If a private school views their students as investments, they are definitely going to try and take care of them so that these investments could turn profits for the university in the future in the form of donations. On the other hand, public schools (for undergraduate studies primarily) are almost oligated to accept their students because their funding comes from taxes paid by the student’s family. They don’t expect or depend on alumni donations as much private schools do. However, since students are more of an obligation to the university rather than an investment, they are not going to be taken care of as much. </p>
<p>I feel like Berkeley should try and switch into a semi-business model in viewing students as investments, especially in times of a budget crisis.</p>
<p>Does anyone know why the average CS salary is higher than the average EECS salary, as shown by dill_scout’s links? I always thought EECS was the “better” major.</p>
<p>Well, this is just a hunch, but it might something to do with more people in EECS going on to graduate school than CS. I’m not sure how the calculation of salaries works for those in grad school figures into these statistics.</p>
<p>“If Berkeley just starts handing out EECS degrees like candy, that would probably start hurting its reputation as well as its graduates, not to mention the department couldn’t handle it budgetary-wise. Stanford can grade easily because they have a rigorous admissions process that does the weeding before college. Berkeley can’t afford to do that.”</p>
<p>Stanford doesn’t even admit based on major…and if it considers what you put on your applications, it’s kind of shakily at best – it’s really up to Stanford students to figure out what they want to major in. I don’t think this is plausible to me at all. Most people I know who went to Stanford would be crushed in both its and Berkeley’s and MIT’s EECS majors in a second…same with most who go to Berkeley. Berkeley at least admits EECS majors separately! Honestly, they could cut the deflation very easily…Sakky’s point there is valid.</p>
<p>“I’m talking about a lot of the humanity majors, because let’s face it, a lot of them have nowhere to go but grad school. If we grade them harshly like engineering majors, they’ll just be more disadvantaged against people who go to easier schools or those who go to top private schools, where grades are also inflated for a lot of majors.”</p>
<p>Well, I hope you’re gonna be fair and suggest the same for math and physics majors. The casualties in Phys. 137AB apparently ain’t anything to sneeze at, and guess what – you probably have to go to grad school if you want to get anywhere at theoretical physics. Same with math. Any theoretical subject which isn’t professionally oriented fits your criteria.</p>
<p>If you’re going to be fair, then I accept you have some point. Though I still don’t buy in any sense how you’re saying other schools are selective enough to have an EECS population that doesn’t need to undergo the brutal weeding. MIT students in EECS are definitely as good as Stanford students at the very least on average, and guess what – they have a brutal grading scheme. Caltech! Same thing. Harvey Mudd! Same thing. I think Berkeley grades hard because it does. Not much more to it. None of this “Stanford is selective enough” stuff, please…it’s a shot in the dark to get into that school. I’d feel better if you told me Caltech has a right to not brutalize its students so much, because they admit explicitly based on technical qualification.</p>
<p>I think it is precisely because the world is never going to be perfectly fair that supports my point. Because the world is never going to be perfectly fair, why should we be so interested in correcting the ‘unfairness’ of differing salaries for different majors, which in the grand scheme of things, is a tiny fraction of the unfairness in the world. {Like I said, the greatest source of unfairness that I know of is that some people are simply born to super-rich families.}</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Here I’m not actually sure what you’re saying.</p>
<p>First off, I think what you mean to say is that it’s hard to become a successful actor. Anybody can probably become an actor, in the sense that they probably will get some (bit) roles. Jennifer Granholm did get a few bit roles. But they didn’t turn into any starring parts. But in any case - you said it yourself - the very high salaries for the star actors is commensurate with their capabilities: i.e. the good looks, the acting ability, the networking, the self-promotion and the rest of the package that comprises being a famous actor. </p>
<p>But in any case, I think your later statement is far more interesting: that anybody (at Berkeley) could major in CS or engineering. I completely agree. In fact, I would say that anybody who is good enough to get into Berkeley almost certainly has the wherewithal to get a CS or engineering degree at some school. Maybe not at Berkeley, but at some school. And the fact is, getting a CS or engineering degree at even a no-name school will almost certainly garner a higher salary than will getting a humanities degree at Berkeley. </p>
<p>But that’s the point. The labor markets, through the price signal, is attempting to encourage more people to major in engineering or CS and fewer to major in humanities. </p>
<p>Hence, the stories of the actors and the CS/engineers are basically the same: the market is encouraging people to develop those skills through high pay. In the case of acting, the huge pay packets earned by Brad Pitt strongly encourages more people to become the next Brad Pitt. Let’s be perfectly honest. If Brad Pitt was just making some mediocre salary, how many people would really want to become movie actors? Sure, maybe you’d have a few narcissists who just want to see themselves on the silver screen. The promise of giant riches - if only for a few - serves as a strong incentive for aspiring actors. After all, why work hard to develop your acting ability, to network, and to take on low-end bit roles to build your portfolio - if there is no possibility of a huge reward at the end? </p>
<p>The only difference I can see between the actor and the engineering/CS story is that the actor story is also a ‘high-variance’ story in that most actors will make little, but a small percentage will become supremely rich. But at the end of the day, the story is still the same: higher pay, or at least the <a href=“small”>i</a> possibility* of (very) high pay, encourages market entry. It is precisely for this reason that people continue to start new companies. The vast majority of new startups will fail. But a small chance exists that you will become fabulously rich. If that chance didn’t exist, then very few people would bother to start new companies. {This is one major reason that relatively few startups are founded in Western Europe, because successful entrepreneurship earnings are heavily taxed, hence discouraging the founding of startups in the first place.} </p>
<p>But at the end of the day, the economy demands more engineers. It demands more CS people. It also demands more A-list actors. The way to do that is through higher pay, or in the last case, the small potential for extremely high pay. On the other hand, the economy doesn’t really demand humanities graduates, and that fact is signalled through lower salaries. </p>
<p>Hence, I fundamentally disagree with the notion that certain majors “need” to be harder than others. But even if that were the case, why should the universities be the ones to make that decision? Why not just let the market decide? Why would a university presume to “know” more than the market does, when it comes to what skills are really needed and what skills are not? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>First of all, I never said that salary was only the direct effect of demand. Obviously there is no such concept as the “law of demand”. There is only the “law of supply and demand”, and hence the supply of a particular skill is obviously implicit to the value of that skill. </p>
<p>But your example of a tech CEO and the NBA player, as does the A-list acting example, in fact support my case in that they illustrate the basic point: the potential for very high pay serves to encourage entry. This is also the same reason why Ibanking analysts jobs continue to draw so many interested students. I personally don’t think that Ibanking really pays that well to start, on a per-hour basis. You take your first-year analyst pay and divide it by the number of hours a week you spend in the office, and you come up with a figure that is relatively mediocre. What is truly attractive about Ibanking is that it confers the chance for extremely high pay later. </p>
<p>Again, consider a world where NBA players made mediocre salaries. Where tech CEO’s made mediocre salaries. Where even the top Ibankers made mediocre salaries. I’m sure we can agree that far fewer people would be interested in joining the NBA, or learning tech business, or becoming Ibankers.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Ha! Look, vicissitudes, much as we might like to believe it to be so, the fact is, the world doesn’t revolve around Berkeley. How many people graduate from Berkeley every year? Around 5000? That’s not even 0.5% of the total number of college graduates produced in the United States every year. {I believe that the nation produces around 1.5 million college graduates every year.} So let’s be realistic. Given Berkeley’s tiny size relative to the entire national pool, whatever Berkeley does is going to have practically no effect on the rest of the market. Berkeley’s student population is a rounding error compared to the entire population of all college students in the country.</p>
<p>Think of the practical implications of what that means. You expressed fear at the notion that the EECS major might become just as easy as some of the humanities major. Yet the fact is, that’s happening right now at the national level. The country has literally hundreds and hundreds of EECS (or pure EE or pure CS) programs out there. The vast majority of them are easier than getting a Berkeley humanities degree because, if nothing else, at least getting a Berkeley humanities degree requires that you get admitted to Berkeley. For example, I would strongly suspect that getting a CS degree from SouthEast Missouri State University is easier than getting a humanities degree from Berkeley. But the former will almost certainly pay you more.</p>
<p>In other words, we already live in the world that you described. Most engineering/CS degree programs in the country are easier than the Berkeley humanities programs when you factor in admissions. Yet I don’t see the cruel world that you fear. Those people who graduate with tech degrees from no-name schools nevertheless seem to get quite decent jobs, or, at least, better jobs than do the Berkeley humanities students. I certainly don’t detect the harsh engineering job competition and mass “weed-out” unemployment that you fear. Most engineers in the country are graduates of no-name schools, yet the unemployment rate of engineers is almost always significantly below the national unemployment rate across all industries. </p>
<p>The only salient point that I see is that there may be some advantage to getting a Berkeley engineering degree vs. an engineering degree from a lesser school. But, frankly speaking, due to the salary compression of the tech industry, that advantage is minor, as the fact is, graduates from top tech schools don’t really make that much more than do graduates from lesser tech schools, after you control for geography (and hence cost of living). For example, maybe in the future, because of future (easier) grading reforms, Berkeley engineers might “only” make what the engineers from San Jose State will make. I hardly find that to be a terrible outcome. Heck, SJSU mechanical, materials, and civil engineers in 2007 actually made more on average than did the same disciplines from Berkeley. That’s right - more. Generally speaking, Berkeley engineers don’t really make that much more than do engineers nationwide, and certainly not after you factor in the cost of living in California (which I can safely presume is where most Berkeley engineering grads will work). In other words, sadly, there is practically no salary premium to getting an engineering degree from Berkeley as opposed to from a lesser school, which obviates any true market need for Berkeley engineers to be held to a higher standard.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, market efficiency requires that you provide clear incentives for people to make efficient choices. Whether we like it or not, the market demands more people who know technology and fewer people who know humanities, and that fact is reflected through the salary price signals. That incentivizes more people to study technology and fewer to study humanities. That is the way that you induce people to provide what the market demands. Your proposal to compensate for this supposed unfairness distorts that signal and therefore encourages people to learn skills that the market doesn’t really want.</p>
<p>But the reason for that is simple: there are too many humanities graduates for the market to handle, and the reason why that is the case is that the humanities are easy, which hence encourages their overproduction. Let’s be honest: a lot of people who don’t care about the humanities and who aren’t interested in learning anything at all will major in them anyway just because they’re easy. They want to get an easy degree without having to work hard, which is why so many humanities degrees end up being produced. In other words, the problems of humanities majors are inherent in the way that the humanities majors are managed. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>First off, exactly why couldn’t Berkeley afford to produce more engineers? You would simply shift the funds from whatever majors those students would have chosen and instead devote them to the engineering majors. Now, I agree that that would invoke internal political conflict, but there is no inherent reason for why this couldn’t be resolved. After all, it is only natural that those departments that have fewer students ought to receive less funding. </p>
<p>{Granted, such a process might take decades as the tenured faculty in those fading departments would have to retire, but that’s hardly an insurmountable problem. You just don’t hire anybody to replace them. For example, Berkeley hasn’t hired any new mining engineering professors in decades despite the fact that Berkeley actually was originally founded as a mining college, and in fact used to be one of the largest mining schools in the West. Berkeley just let the entire mining department fade away because nobody wanted to major in mining anymore, and shifted funding away from that department to other programs that students actually demanded.}</p>
<p>Now, let’s take your reputational gambit. You say that Berkeley’s engineering reputation might suffer if it makes its degrees easier. Yeah, so what? As I mentioned in my previous post, Berkeley’s engineering reputation doesn’t really provide much market value anyway, for Berkeley engineers really don’t make that much more than do engineers nationwide, once you adjust for cost of living. They certainly don’t seem to make much more than do the engineers from nearby SJSU. In other words, the market doesn’t really seem to value Berkeley’s enhanced engineering reputation. In other words, Berkeley is crushing its engineering students for basically no reason. </p>
<p>Look, if Berkeley engineers were making double or triple the national engineering salary, then I would agree with you that a valid market reason for Berkeley to weed out its engineers so harshly would exist. But that doesn’t happen.</p>
<p>Basically, the pure CS major was uncapped only about a year ago. Before that time, students who wanted to declare the CS major had to first take the lower division technical courses of the major and then apply to the department, and only the best students in those courses were allowed into the major, with the rest of the applicants being forced to choose some other major. Yet, because of the time lag, it is precisely those students who had done very well in the lower division work who are now graduating and whose salaries you are seeing. Those salaries therefore generally include only the very best students, as most weaker students wouldn’t have been allowed to declare the major in the first place.</p>
<p>Contrast that with EECS which admits students straight out of high school and which will pass to the upper division even those students who got straight C’s in the lower division coursework. Hence, the EECS salary figures includes some students who performed poorly (but still well enough to graduate).</p>
<p>I could make any major’s salary figures look better by simply not including the worst students. That is effectively what the CS major has done.</p>
<p>Well, in the case of MIT and Caltech, at least those schools have certain grading policies that cushion the blow. MIT uses a P/NR and A/B/C/NR policy in the first year, and an ‘exploratory’ option (which is basically a retroactive drop) in the second year. Caltech grades P/F the first term, and only “shadow” grades in the second term. Berkeley doesn’t do any of that. If you fail your engineering courses in your first year at Berkeley, you’re screwed. Hence, Berkeley’s engineering grading policy is clearly more vindictive than MIT’s and Caltech’s. </p>
<p>Berkeley also has what I find to be the most ridiculous policy of all: what I call the “engineering trap”. Basically, if you don’t do well in engineering, you may actually find yourself stuck in engineering, because the other colleges (such as L&S) don’t want to take you. In other words, those students who are performing poorly in engineering are precisely those students who are forced to stay. To this day, I have never understood why Berkeley forces students to remain in a major in which they are performing poorly. </p>
<p>MIT and Caltech have no comparable policy. Students are allowed to switch to whatever major they want. You come to MIT to major in engineering but perform poorly and decide that you’d rather switch to management in the Sloan School? No problem. Nobody is going to stop you.</p>
<p>Well to make it clear – the point of my above was to say that the brutality of a school need not at all depend on whether or not its students have undergone a hard admissions process, and I certainly don’t think Stanford’s own admissions process warrants use of the Sakky grading policies better than Berkeley’s does…I think Berkeley and MIT grade hard just because they do…however of course MIT’s P/NP thing is great,I have supported it many times.</p>
<p>“You say that Berkeley’s engineering reputation might suffer if it makes its degrees easier. Yeah, so what? As I mentioned in my previous post, Berkeley’s engineering reputation doesn’t really provide much market value anyway, for Berkeley engineers really don’t make that much more than do engineers nationwide, once you adjust for cost of living.”</p>
<p>Hmm, I wonder what would happen to the demand among future students though. I mean, it wouldn’t be rational to think this, but students may be delusional enough to think that now that it’s not as hard, it’s not as worth going to anymore. Not sure if this would be an issue.</p>
<p>I kind of don’t think the major needs to be much easier than it is now – is there any reason it should? I think mainly we need to be able to avoid traps and transfer…and I know it is the worst students who have the most trouble transferring because the other colleges will not accept someone with lower grades. But it seems like just allowing for a test run [and NOT inflating grades more] would be a perfect way to do things, given it’d keep Berkeley’s reputation the same as a toughie school, and yet avoid the foolishness of giving students an unnecessarily hard time. </p>
<p>Oh and BTW, I have myself undergone the transfer – I know it’s a bit annoying, but it went quickly for me because my grades were good I guess. The Dean just looked at my grades and said it’d all work out OK. The thing I learn from that, though, is Sakky’s concern is very real – which is that what if my grades WERE NOT OK? As it happened, I was kinda breaking COE rules and taking a 100% math schedule, and they were forcing me to leave <em>then and there</em> before letting me take this schedule. They said not getting accepted into the college I was transferring into would mean having to have some talks with them…I can only thank my stars I was transferring out of interest, not because I was screwed.</p>
<p>Does grading harshness actually increase or decrease desirability? I think that’s a wash. After all, Stanford and Harvard are grade inflated, and that doesn’t seem to deter anybody. Heck many people choose them over rival schools such as MIT or Caltech because they’re easy. </p>
<p>One can also simply look at what is happening at Berkeley right now. There are a lot of humanities and social science students at Berkeley. While certainly some of them pursue those topics because of genuine intellectual interest, let’s face it, many others pursue them just because they’re easy. I know many such people, and I’m sure you guys have met these kinds of people too. Let’s be frank - a lot of Berkeley students don’t really care about studying hard or learning anything. They’re just looking for an easy major. They just want to get a degree from Berkeley while doing as little work as possible. </p>
<p>So while it may be true that some Berkeley students truly are attracted to engineering because of its difficulty, many others (such as slicmlic2001) are actually deterred for the same reason. Hence, the overall effect is probably a wash.</p>
<p>Well, like I said, one main reason is to correct the unfairness that engineers experience when they compete for international scholarships such as the Rhodes or admissions to placements at law schools or med schools where they are competing against the entire gamut of majors and hence suffer a significant disadvantage because of their harsher grading systems. I believe slicmlic2001 once said that he was deliberately protecting his GPA (hence, not majoring in engineering) because he wanted to maximize his chances of getting into a top law school. But why should majoring in engineering necessarily hurt those chances? The best engineering students should have just as much chance of getting into a top law or med school as does a top American Studies student.</p>
<p>“ut why should majoring in engineering necessarily hurt those chances? The best engineering students should have just as much chance of getting into a top law or med school as does a top American Studies student.”</p>
<p>Right, I mean as long as it doesn’t become <em>too</em> easy. A certain integrity should be maintained for the sake of applying to grad schools as well, in my opinion. I.e., getting A’s in engineering [or math or physics OR EVEN English and history] classes should mean something. I favor reducing grade <em>deflation</em> in the sense of reducing irritating competitive spirits. I guess Stanford is still hard enough to do well in that it preserves its integrity. </p>
<p>“The best engineering students should have just as much chance of getting into a top law or med school as does a top American Studies student.”</p>
<p>As long as we’re not compromising the integrity of the major. One can’t do everything, and make it the best for everyone of course, but I understand making it less of a rampant grade deflation program [that doesn’t even raise students’ levels of understanding or prep 'em for graduate school more] is not a bad idea. I am assuming, though, that most engineers want to be trained professionals at engineering and not even go to law school, and a fraction will want grad school – I feel I’d cater to this population first and foremost. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we can’t implement what you’re saying, but as long as we’re remaining reasonable.</p>
<p>“So while it may be true that some Berkeley students truly are attracted to engineering because of its difficulty, many others (such as slicmlic2001) are actually deterred for the same reason. Hence, the overall effect is probably a wash.”</p>
<p>Vicissitudes said it himself: most engineers are not interested in grad school. They just want to get a job. Hence, even if it were the case that grade deflation is necessary preparation for grad school (a premise with which I disagree), I don’t see why we need to prepare every Berkeley engineering student for grad school.</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is, most engineering jobs are really not that hard. That’s why you can graduate with an engineering degree from a no-name, 4th tier school and still get a quite decent engineering job for good pay, as, frankly speaking, most engineers in the country are not very highly talented, nor do they really need to be. Like I said, Berkeley engineers enjoy relatively little salary premium over the average engineer after correcting for geography, which means that Berkeley is imposing unnecessary rigor that the market does not demand. If the rigor really was so valuable, then you really would see Berkeley engineers earning substantially more (i.e. 2x or 3x) compared to the average engineer. </p>
<p>What I would proffer is for those engineering students who do want to pursue grad school to take an additional optional sequence of courses, something like an ‘honors’ sequence’, that is highly rigorous. But that sequence would be optional. Those students who don’t care about grad school and just want to get a job would not have to take this sequence. You shouldn’t impose “grad-school-prep” rigor on those who don’t care about grad school anyway.</p>