Something to point out about that 2.65 GPA at Mudd is that it was close to 20 years ago. Even Mudd has had some grade inflation (average GPA is around 3.3 or 3.4 for grads now). A lot of grad schools have a 3.0 cutoff, some have 3.2, some have slightly higher I think. My kid with a 3.1 from Mudd just got into 7 grad schools – not all top programs, but all with funding, and a couple that are very good options. Good GRE, subject test GREs, recs, and research experience can go pretty far.
Not enough facts to help make a decision.
There’s a difference between the kid who entered college convinced she was going to major in Mechanical Engineering because that’s what her HS teachers and parents told her she should major in- and now has decided she loves Econ or Urban Planning more… and getting C’s in her engineering pre-req’s just helped her solidify her other interests… vs. a kid who loves theoretical physics, is tagging along at the bottom of the class but just couldn’t imagine studying anything else.
As long as the physics major is realistic about next steps- teaching HS physics in a private school while getting a Master’s in Education at night, or becoming a middle school math teacher for TFA, or getting a job as an account rep for an educational textbook company, or several hundred other careers that don’t involve physics- I’d be fine encouraging the second kid. I’d be realistic too- the reality is that if the kid thinks that a 2.65 GPA is going to mean a top physics grad program and a tenure track job at Cal Tech–that’s not happening.
But kids need a reality check regardless of how well they are doing as undergrads. Kid can be a 4.0 student at U chicago in political science with 174 LSAT scores- the chance of sitting on the Supreme Court is still monumentally small.
But “slog through it” means different things to different people. Slog because it’s hard but gratifying? I’d be ok encouraging that. Slog because the kid hates it but is too stuck to switch? Life’s too short for that.
Maybe it was taught by the guy who taught my calculus section.
One really common target STEM graduate program is medical school. I’m not going to pretend to have comprehensive knowledge about medical school admissions, but I have a strong impression that a 2.65 average, even from Harvey Mudd, isn’t going to cut it anywhere in the U.S., at least absent some very special circumstances.
One of my kids wanted to go to medical school. He went to a demanding high school, ranked very highly, had great standardized test scores, won a STEM prize, had an ecstatic recommendation from a STEM faculty member with 30+ years experience. The further he got into calculus, however, the more trouble he had with it, and he really foundered on organic chemistry. He got one C, and his college’s STEM advisor started telling him to find other career plans. I was really angry about that, but one of the worst things I have done as a parent was pressuring him to stick with it and buckle down for one more quarter. He was miserable, and did worse than the previous quarter. When he finally shifted into another field, he became vibrant, happy, engaged, and successful again.
He has a job in a field he likes, a graduate degree, a career. He’s buying a house, and about to get married (to a doctor). He needed to be happy and to be studying something he cared about. He didn’t need to persist with his pre-med program.
I actually went through this decision. I was accepted into Computer Engineering at a top STEM school. My 3 roommates were all brilliant, way smarter than me in addition to better prepared (i.e. Better high school education). I did ok first semester but just wasn’t happy while my roomies were coasting through with straight A’s.
Fortunately for me, my school introduced a brand new interdisciplinary degree at this time. It was offered out of the Philiosophy department and gave a lot of leeway in designing your own degree. I was interested in CS but my school didn’t have a BS in CS at the time, so I switched to that new major and designed a degree that allowed me to take all the CS classes I would have as a CE major, but instead of all the math/engineering/physics/etc, I took psych and philosophy for essentially a CS degree focused on AI. My objective all along was to become a programmer and this looked like an easier path to get there.
My roommates did give me a good-natured ribbing as they were all pure math and engineering majors and I had just swapped from a super prestigious CE program to the philosophy department. The Dean of the CE department was incredulous went I met with him to switch out.
I will say that the change was the absolute best decision for me. I loved all the psych and philosophy classes. I loved the CS classes. I was meh on math and pure science and I got to skip all of those. I slapped “CS with specialization in AI” on my resume when I graduated and had plenty of job offers to choose from. And ironically I got totally burned out on programming senior year and decided I didn’t want to be a programmer after all, so my interdisciplinary degree turned out to be absolutely perfect for getting a technical job that benefitted from a humanities background.
At the end of the day I was able to find that path between marketable degree and taking classes that I was interested in. I wouldn’t recommend swinging too far in either direction, but finding a balance as I did. Oh one additional big benefit of making the switch was having extra free time. I was able to do a lot of social activities with my roommates (table tennis, started our own intramural tennis team, movies, etc), I took 3 years of martial arts, got to take a class in modern dance, was a TA for a computer skills class for a couple years, psych research assistant for a year, etc. All that stuff sounds frivolous but it did wonders for my outlook, self-confidence, and emotional IQ. Absolutely do not underestimate the benefits of those things vs classroom knowledge.
I know several folks have touched on the “is the student really interested in the subject” angle. I am talking about the kids that Gladwell talks about. Really interested in the subject, but are so dejected by their performance that they start to seriously question whether they are “smart enough” to do Engineering at MIT for example, given how they are faring. IIRC, I think Gladwell presents the case of Caroline Sacks who wanted to major in a STEM discipline from Brown University but switched her major because she felt “stupid” compared to her classmates after making mediocre grades in her classes. The way he presents the story, it was not lack of interest that torpedoed Sacks. It was what he called “relative deprivation”
Gladwell however never really explores the idea that Dweck swears by namely: “never giving up” and “persisting” through the hard stuff with faith that they will eventually break through.
Gladwell usually uses the most simplistic examples to make his point. Real life is much more nuanced.
I cannot imagine a kid smart enough to get into MIT but too stupid to recognize that he or she is not going to have equal mastery over every single subject. My own kid went into MIT with a pretty realistic assessment I think- college is going to be really hard; I love to be challenged; it’s a GOOD thing to be with people who are smarter than you are. This way the first C doesn’t torpedo your self-confidence.
I think you are talking about a psychological issue- “dejected” is the giveaway, not something academic. And I wouldn’t take academic (or psychological advice for that matter) from Gladwell. He’s an entertainer, not a scientist.
Good Link @intparent and @Postmodern
Couldn’t agree more. I remember setting a goal of being a Chemistry major upon entering Cornell. At some point, one of the posters is right, as you get to advanced levels, its not what you thought it would be. Still, I stuck with it even though I was premed, and relished in the fact that I had tested my mettle. Looking back, I too remember nothing about P Chem, except for the topics: Quantum Mechanics, Kinetic Theory and Thermodynamics. But the real lesson, is that when life gets tough, the tough get going. Stretching myself and learning to believe in myself was perhaps the greatest lesson that has served me well throughout my lifetime.
At some point, every major gets hard as in Science, Math, Languages, you name it. Moving on to easier things may not be the best solution, except if of course you are way over your head and drowning, and at that point no learning is taking place.
STEM is not monolithic.
For example, a student earning a 3.1 GPA in pre-med courses should realize that there is very little chance of getting into any medical school and should make alternate plans that do not involve medical school (does not necessarily mean changing major, since pre-med students could be any major, unless the new academic and career goals lead to a different major). But a student earning a 3.1 GPA in an engineering or CS major that s/he likes can certainly continue and be employable at graduation.
As many people have said, it depends on the specifics of each individual case. Generalities don’t help and you can’t apply the same framework to all.
Someone who wants to switch out just because they feel stupid, IMO, just doesn’t have enough of a passion for the subject for it to be worthwhile to keep going.
A key test is to ask yourself: Would you keep studying something if there were no external rewards (or external competition)? Find something that you would devote time to if you were independently wealthy and didn’t have any responsibilities. Chances are, you’ll become good at it.
I don’t understand why a student who doesn’t have an aptitude for a subject would choose it as a major. I know we’re in a STEM-mad world right now, but not everyone is cut out for it and even some who are may enjoy another field more. And contrary to popular belief, a mediocre engineer isn’t necessarily going to make more than say, a history major in the long run. Sure, the engineer may command a higher salary out of college, but if she’s not that good at her job, she’s going to get passed over by better engineers.
To answer the OP’s question, if you’re at the bottom of your class in any subject at any college, it’s time to change majors. And if you’re just not good in academic subjects in general, learn a meaningful trade. There is no shame at all in switching from electrical engineering to electrician.
@QuantMech hit on the key point. STEM subjects tend to be cumulative. If you are getting blown out of the water early, there isn’t much learning going on and the prospect of 3 more semesters of a subject like calc or chemistry on a poor foundation is frightening. I was that guy. After scratching out a C and not learning a thing in my flagship 300 person chem and calc classes, I could see that the movie wasn’t going to end well. Contrast that with DS who is home for break this week and was waxing on poetically about the integral of 1/x and the beauty of logarithms. He’s on the right path, I wasn’t. And sticking it out would have done nothing but doom me to a 2.0 average and 4 years of misery.
If everyone in the bottom of their class changed majors, there would be no one left in college. One time, I took a math class where 80-90% of the students in the class had scored in the top 500 on the Putnam at one point in their lives. Should someone in the bottom half of this class (I think I might have been one of them) have changed majors if they were a math major?
This assumes that the student understands everything about the major and everything about themselves…neither of which, I think, bear out in practice.
HS chemistry is, I have found, nothing like upper-level ChemE classes, yet I chose the major because I liked HS chemistry. I still don’t know what the actual career is going to be like. That’s how high schoolers choose majors…they can’t tell the future. You can like chem and still fail out of chemical engineering. How were they supposed to know they didn’t “have an aptitude”?
And then the question becomes…switch to what? I don’t know what I’d be doing otherwise. What if I didn’t have an aptitude for whatever I switched to? Who determines that?
Dweck faculty profile at Stanford https://psychology.stanford.edu/cdweck
Her CV contains MANY publications. Pretty impressive. Found via a very quick google search.
For the OP’s question, the student in that situation needs to take a long, hard look at themselves, their study habits, their interests and the future classes in the major and decide whether to stay in the major and get the help they need or switch. There is no right answer.
If a student has been working really hard, went to office hours, and got some tutoring and is still lost, perhaps they really can’t cut it in that major. Not sure that if they had gone to an “easier” college that the class would have been easier enough to make a difference (unless it was a very easy, 75% acceptance rate type of school that is unlikely to be the target of an Ivy league admit).
In general, perseverance is the way to overcome issues with self esteem, not giving up. But there is also no reward to continue on a path that is not working. If the student really can’t write code for an assignment without major help even after their best effort, perhaps the student is in the wrong field. Same for a student that can’t write a coherent paper.
OTOH most students accepted to a college program can do the work, IF they are motivated enough and like the subject enough to get through the bumps in the road.
This is an interesting observation, specially considering what Dweck says. Her research seems to suggest otherwise. She says that the human brain is flexible enough to learn almost anything, if the person has the right attitude and applies themselves to it. She in fact strongly recommends that a student approach any subject with “I can do this, I can learn this, I am going to learn this, I am going to understand this” and embrace it even if it is extremely difficult at first. She calls this the “Growth Mindset” as against the “fixed mindset”
Looks like there are folks on both sides of this issue like any issue on CC 
I was always lousy in math. Could I have hacked it in a math intensive major in college? Perhaps. Not at the college I attended (a superb applied math department with REALLY brainiac kids in it) but for sure I could have found a college where my math skills put me closer to the mean or the top in terms of native ability.
But why?
I never liked math. I LOVED college; I loved my classes and my professors and the independent work I did, it was a joy to go to class, I think back to lectures I attended and books I read and papers I wrote and museums I visited in the course of doing research-- and wow, it was just an inspiring and energizing four years.
Does the world need another person slogging through their education (that would have been me in a math intensive subject) just to get their ticket punched? How would four years of me being mediocre (or being at the top of the class in a much less competitive math type program) have helped me?
Sure Dweck- I could have become a third rate engineer.
But why?
@blossom: I’m more in line with @denydenzig:
The reason why you shouldn’t have pursued a math-heavy major is because you didn’t care for it much. Not because you were bad at it.
Someone who really likes a subject and wants to devote themselves to it (assuming a decent intelligence, and also assuming that they like the subject for its own sake and not just to punch a ticket) can become pretty good at it no matter their starting aptitude.
But yes, math and many STEM subjects are cumulative. Someone can go in to a PhD-level philosophy seminar as a sophomore having taken no philosophy classes and get an A and draw high praise from the Prof for the final paper (since I did so). That simply wouldn’t be possible in a STEM/quantitative discipline even if you read a few books on the subject (unless you are a savant-level genius).
Do you really think that someone who loves music who is decently intelligence but doesn’t have strong musical aptitude can becoming “pretty good” at it?
Boy, I’ve been lucky enough in my life to know some really talented people, and for someone without aptitude in that area to think that with enough studying they can become “pretty good” strikes me as sort of arrogant.
I didn’t care for math because I wasn’t good at it, and struggling to master things that seemed very obvious to other people didn’t seem like a lot of fun.