Steps to take to get into engineering grad school after graduating

slurryseal
Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:18:09 +0000

Hi everyone,

I’m a senior that is graduating this semester in civil engineering. A goal of mine is to get a master’s degree eventually, but given some things that have come up these past few years that seems kind of out of my reach and was wondering what steps I should take to make grad school an option for myself again.

I didn’t do so well my first two years, but things started to change in my junior year and I began climbing back up again. I finished junior year with an overall GPA of 3.1, and a upper division GPA of 3.3. That’s when I thought that grad school would still be a viable option. I then decided to study abroad in Hong Kong. While I had a great time there, my grades there for horrible. I certainly tried my best while in Hong Kong but the teaching style is much different, and grades are based almost entirely (70%+) on final exams. Not only that, but there seems to be an unusually harsh curve there too, and I ended up with nothing better than a C+ in all of my classes (even in the ones where I was doing well), and even failed a class. For that failed class, I emailed the professor and asked how it was possibly I did so poorly, and he said that I did decently on the design project (which demonstrates that I understood the material) but did poorly on a part of the exam, so he just flat out failed me. I’m currently in the process of having that grade converted into P/NP retroactively (because my adviser believes it’s an unfair assessment of my performance) but it’s a process that is not very likely to work out in my favor.

So now I’m finishing up college, and my current GPA (without having the previous grade removed) fell down to a 2.9. This semester I’m finishing my requirements and am taking a graduate-level course, and so far I’m doing very well, but there’s still a long way to go until the end. Even if I get a 4.0 this semester, I will still only barely meet the minimum requirements of graduate admissions.

I’ve taken the GRE (550 verbal, 800 math, 5 writing) and plan to apply for grad school before that score expires. I’m currently participating in research project in the area of civil engineering that I’m most interested in. I’m also using a lot of my free time in trying to get an entry-level position for work experience after graduation. I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do after graduation aside from work to make me a stronger applicant for grad school. Is there any way I can make up for those poor grades while I was in Hong Kong? I hear of some people doing postbacs but I haven’t really looked into that; is that something that could work for me?