I am a female computer engineering major, and I just finished my sophomore year.
Before this semester I had a 3.83 GPA distributed over 53 credit hours.
I took 16 credits this semester and I am now expecting a semester GPA of 3.5.
I volunteer in a robotics research lab (I’m not yet doing any research of my own).
I have been a TA for the first year engineering lab for two semesters, and will resume my position in the fall.
I am in the university honors program, I am the Vice President of IEEE and the Webmaster of HKN (ECE Honor Society).
I feel like I might as well be failing. Before you judge me– I know I’m doing great. This semester was rocky and emotionally overwhelming, but what troubles me the most is not measuring up to standards I have set for myself. I was aiming for MIT or Stanford for grad school prior to this semester, and I feel like with that 3.5 weighing down my 3.8 I might as well have ruined all my chances.
I’m always stressing about my grades, my performance, and how I measure up to my peers. I want to truly master the course material, I want to do my own research, I want to be amongst the best at what I do and make a significant change/advancement in the world, but I don’t know what else I CAN do to enhance my college resume other than work on my GPA.
Does anyone have any advice on what to do or where to go from here? Any stories worth sharing or tips on how to keep focused in engineering?
Thank you.
Hey, I’m a bit in the same boat (female civil engineering major, almost done with junior year).
I’m taking my finals this week, but before this semester I have a 3.92 over 90 credit hours.
I worked as a research assistant this semester (worked around 120 hours this semester).
I’m in Chi Epsilon, a few Ambassador positions, and I’m a co-op student (already worked 4 times for the same company).
I’m also applying to grad school soon.
If you’re anything like me, you’re your harshest critic. But this shouldn’t mean that your success is at the cost of your sanity. We’re only human, and there’s only a certain amount of hours in a day. I’ve stopped doing a few of my extra curriculars so I could have time to myself.
Also, why do you want to go to MIT or Stanford? Just the brand name? Anything in the top 10 will be more or less the same (seriously). It’s not worth the stress to obsess over 2 schools.
If it’s more about the research, do your own research into who is doing what. Some no-name schools have absolutely groundbreaking research projects and some of the top experts working there.
Also, for grad school, research and letters of rec will be more important than a super high GPA score. Your GPA, as it stand right now, will not kick you out of the running.
Take a few deep breaths, maybe talk to your academic adviser or some of the grad students at your school (I have!). It’s really not the end of the world.
Besides, you’ll be successful where ever you go. The name on your degree isn’t going to drastically change your future.
You women are both doing great. You CANNOT judge yourself so harshly. It will be rockier in the “real world.” You have to do just do your best and go from there. And you don’t have to go to MIT or Stanford to get amazing jobs!
I’m also a female engineer (structural). I’m hard on myself, too, so I should take my own advice!
Make sure to leave some time to enjoy yourselves, too. You deserve some fun!
OMG, there are so many great places for you to go to graduate school, and there is so much demand for great researchers!
For graduate school, THE most important thing is your recommendations. Professors are hiring you, and THEIR career is on the line with their decisions.
Do your best, but get involved with research. The research is much more important than your grades.
Also, develop some technical sophistication so that you can write a statement of objectives, which is where you display YOUR maturity in how much thought you’ve given about why you want to be trained as a researcher in the direction that you want to do.
And finally, take a deep breath. You need to live also.
Also, the difficulty of maintaining a high engineering GPA varies wildly from school to school. When programs assess your fitness, they want to know how you will fit into their scheme, not some semi-random number. A frequent poster here, @boneh3ad, is typically quick to point out that he is in a highly regarded aerospace PhD program and his UG GPA was less than 3.5. It’s about aligning what you want to research with where they are doing the best work in that area. For all you know, Stanford and MIT might be terrible choices and some place like Iowa State might be the best option in the world. You’ll be more than fine. Good luck.
GPA is just a number.
Are you satisfied with what you’ve learned and how much you’ve learned? Do you enjoy the work you do and strive to do the best work you can do? Do you seek out opportunities to obtain new skills or enhance old ones? Do you get a sense of satisfaction from learning new things and tackling new problems? Do you have a desire to utilize your knowledge base and skillset for bigger things or for personal projects?
These are the important things and the important questions that will lead to success. Focusing so much on GPA is not only narrow-sighted, it’s potentially counterproductive, not to mention highly stress-inducing (as you already know). Sure, there are limits to this–I would not be giving this same advice to someone with a 2.5. But for someone like yourself, I think it’s quite valid.
If you define yourself by a number, no matter how important you perceive that number to be, you will be a slave to that number, and your sense of peace, satisfaction, and well-being will suffer because of it. It’s just a number.
Hey, hey, hey… was in that program. 
As was mentioned before, there are a lot of high-quality research programs out there. Don’t artificially limit yourself based on name brand. It’s likely way too early for you to have a sense of what research topic you would pursue in earnest once you reach graduate school anyway, so it is therefore way too early to say you for sure want to go to MIT or Stanford. Name brand isn’t the top priority in graduate school. In general, you are better off with a well-known advisor at a mid-tier school than you are with an unknown advisor at a top-tier school.