gpa a factor after graduation?

"OXMORON1" wrote in message
...
Who was it woh said..."The world is run by C students" or something to
that
effect?

C students that worked their way through school often lack the time to pull
good grades, but know how to work. The ability to work can cause an
employeer to soon forget about gpa.

On 21 Nov 2003 17:19:40 GMT, (OXMORON1) wrote:

Who was it woh said..."The world is run by C students" or something to that
effect?

No, not anymore, that is the older, more stringent, pre-Bush standard.

Her's an oxymoron for you:
A 2.3 gpa engineer.

"OXMORON1" wrote in message
...
Who was it woh said..."The world is run by C students" or something to
that
effect?

Oxmoron1

"Tarver Engineering" wrote

"Tex Houston" wrote

"sibersmith" wrote
This really bums me out. I went into Aerospace cause I wanted the job
of my dreams designing aircraft. Nobodys gona hire a medocree looser
that doesn't excell in math.

So how Important is a good GPA when looking for a job?

If this is an example of your work you might put in some extra hours of
study in English. Just using a spellchecker would help.

Nope, the low math grades pretty well disqualify him from engineering.
There are plenty of places where he could make a good living with the 2.3,
however. The only thing that would help is if he is one of those "worked
through school". If family paid, or there were loans, forget engineering.

GPA is a go-no go screen for many companies for new-grads. We won't review a
resume for a new-grad whose GPA is below 3.0. It's less important for people
with 2-5 years experience and GPWhat? after 5 years in industry.

Tarver is right that mathematics is critical. I interviewed a power supply
designer yesterday. He had 10 years experience as a technician, 12 years as
an engineer but he was 'way too weak analytically to do the work. Most
people who haven't done design don't realize that design-is-analysis.
Drawings only define-what-you will analyse. The analysis provides the
details of dimensions, component values and so on. Analysis proves that it
will work in all of the conditions contained within the customer's
requirements. All this is from an aerospace point of view. I've worked in
other industries where un-degreed engineers are common and virtually no
analysis was done. The practice in those places was to get the topology
right, breadboard or prototype the design and refine the design in hardware
to make it work. Not only can we not afford to work that way, doing so is
unacceptable because the breadboard and prototype testing can't possibly
cover the range of environments, component variations, workmanship and
process variations.

I was a blockhead at math when I flunked out of college in 1967. The stern
discipline of Hyman G Rickover's schools jerked my **** straight and when I
went back to school, I had the great good fortune to have a calculus
professor who was a great teacher, rather than a mumbling,
English-is-plainly-not-my-mother-tongue eccentric. Both those things were
necessary for me to acquire the skills I needed.

The ability to write clearly and precisely is also very important. Not only
does sloppy spelling and grammar prejudice your audience against what you
are trying to communicate, it also creates ambiguity about what you actually
said, which can be deadly.

That said, the anchor-man in my class went to work for HP as a sales
engineer. In the early modern era (1977) he made $100K the first year, about
6 times what_I_made that year.

"Paul F Austin" wrote in message
. ..

"Tarver Engineering" wrote

"Tex Houston" wrote

"sibersmith" wrote
This really bums me out. I went into Aerospace cause I wanted the
job
of my dreams designing aircraft. Nobodys gona hire a medocree
looser
that doesn't excell in math.

So how Important is a good GPA when looking for a job?

If this is an example of your work you might put in some extra hours
of
study in English. Just using a spellchecker would help.

Nope, the low math grades pretty well disqualify him from engineering.
There are plenty of places where he could make a good living with the
2.3,
however. The only thing that would help is if he is one of those
"worked
through school". If family paid, or there were loans, forget
engineering.

GPA is a go-no go screen for many companies for new-grads. We won't review
a
resume for a new-grad whose GPA is below 3.0. It's less important for
people
with 2-5 years experience and GPWhat? after 5 years in industry.

Many companies take into consideration the grading policies of the
university and the applicant's work history in determining wether to use the
3.0 hard floor. Comparing a student from a bell curve graded program to one
from a university where a "c' is the lowest grade possible requires some
additional leeway.

Tarver is right that mathematics is critical. I interviewed a power supply
designer yesterday. He had 10 years experience as a technician, 12 years
as
an engineer but he was 'way too weak analytically to do the work. Most
people who haven't done design don't realize that design-is-analysis.

Every real engineering problem involves an integral. Math becomes a way of
thinking for an engineer and without that a man/woman will never do any real
engineering. There are many in the wage slave class of engineers that never
learned the math, even though they earned high marks. The same "cram and
dump" study habbits that work for medical students tend to produce poor
engineers. These types tend to flee to management at their earliest
convenience.

Drawings only define-what-you will analyse. The analysis provides the
details of dimensions, component values and so on. Analysis proves that it
will work in all of the conditions contained within the customer's
requirements. All this is from an aerospace point of view. I've worked in
other industries where un-degreed engineers are common and virtually no
analysis was done.

Non-degreed engineers are common at BCAG, but those are drawn from the ranks
of technicians. It is a means through which some injured in the shop can
continue to have productive lives in the industry, as well.

The practice in those places was to get the topology
right, breadboard or prototype the design and refine the design in
hardware
to make it work. Not only can we not afford to work that way, doing so is
unacceptable because the breadboard and prototype testing can't possibly
cover the range of environments, component variations, workmanship and
process variations.

In my experiance there is no shame in going "roll b", for a new design, but
I will agree with you that a breadbord's performance has little relevence in
aerospace applications. An airplane is a rather nasty environment, from an
electrical perspective.

I was a blockhead at math when I flunked out of college in 1967. The stern
discipline of Hyman G Rickover's schools jerked my **** straight and when
I
went back to school, I had the great good fortune to have a calculus
professor who was a great teacher, rather than a mumbling,
English-is-plainly-not-my-mother-tongue eccentric. Both those things were
necessary for me to acquire the skills I needed.

Math has always been easy for me. I am a California "gifted child".

The ability to write clearly and precisely is also very important. Not
only
does sloppy spelling and grammar prejudice your audience against what you
are trying to communicate, it also creates ambiguity about what you
actually
said, which can be deadly.

Grammar is a source of ambiguity in design specification and theory of
operation type writting. Although, at some point a money pitch is usually
required to get anything done and there polish is necessary. Today there
are grammar and spelling bots included with word and even the illiterate can
come across as educated. Here at ram we have an example of such, without
his heavy use of homonymns, I would have never caught on to the bots.
Management is usually far less attuned to logical flow than a working
engineer, so it is probably unnecessary to even hide the bots.

With our latest TSOA applications, FAA lauded Skylight for our short and to
the point documentation. The way it has been explained to me, most
applicants will turn in a binder of fluff, that includes about one page of
aprovable data; times as many engineers as are on the project.

When I made up a means to procure parts seperate from the NSN system, I had
all of RPL's MIS group to create fluff for management. RL later replaced
the Mil-Spec component system with that work. So, in conclusion, fluff and
polish seem to work well when seeking funding and these days all of Federal
Electric lives off of it. ("the reliability people")

That said, the anchor-man in my class went to work for HP as a sales
engineer. In the early modern era (1977) he made $100K the first year,
about
6 times what_I_made that year.

Comercial pays a lot better than government work, but production becomes the
issue.

sibersmith wrote:

Hey guys it's me again.

How big of a factor is GPA in getting a good aerospace job at a cool
company? The line "...Do good in school" is always given in advice
when I was growing up. To tell the truth I was holding a decent
3.3gpa untill I hit my math sequence at college. Now I have no more
'breeze' classes (history etc) to prop up my gpa and it's killing me.
I'm problobly around a 2.3 now.

This really bums me out. I went into Aerospace cause I wanted the job
of my dreams designing aircraft. Nobodys gona hire a medocree looser
that doesn't excell in math.

So how Important is a good GPA when looking for a job?


I don't know about the US practice when it comes to GPAs, but learning
to do math well isn't any different in the US than anywhere else.
Being good at math is not just a question of having a `knack' for it or
not. There is a lot you can do about your ability to comprehend and do
math by working really hard. Learning to do math at a high level simply
takes a lot of hard work (except for super geniuses, and there aren't
too many of those). Talk to people about the math problems you have
difficulty with. Spend a lot of time in the library. If your lecture
notes aren't clear enough, try to learn more about the problem by
looking at other textbooks. Prepare well _before_ you go to a lecture or
class, and of course practice, practice practice. There is no such thing
as doing too many exercises.

Regards,
Ralph Savelsberg

As important as High School GPA is in being accepted to colleges, from
what I've heard. A Career Services person here at ERAU said that an
LM guy in charge of hiring looks for at least a 3.0 GPA, and prefers
at least 3.3.

"James Cho" wrote in message
om...
As important as High School GPA is in being accepted to colleges, from
what I've heard. A Career Services person here at ERAU said that an
LM guy in charge of hiring looks for at least a 3.0 GPA, and prefers
at least 3.3.

That way LM gets all white collar type engineers, none of whom have ever
worked. This can be problematic in aerospace, as piloting is an inherently
blue collar activity. (ie operating equipment)

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 10:02:55 -0800, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote:


"James Cho" wrote in message
. com...
As important as High School GPA is in being accepted to colleges, from
what I've heard. A Career Services person here at ERAU said that an
LM guy in charge of hiring looks for at least a 3.0 GPA, and prefers
at least 3.3.

That way LM gets all white collar type engineers, none of whom have ever
worked. This can be problematic in aerospace, as piloting is an inherently
blue collar activity. (ie operating equipment)


There was an old saying in the military, "if the minimum weren't good
enough, it wouldn't be the minimum." I'll confess, reluctantly, to
graduating from college with a 2.01 GPA (2.00 required for
graduation.) All I needed was an undergrad degree to get a commission
and got to USAF pilot training. (That was when there were a lot of
requirements and a low number of qualified candidates--the situation
is reversed today.)

I'll add, however, that once given the opportunity to compete, then
job performance becomes a big factor. When I got the chance, unlikely
as it might have seemed based on my undergrad performance, to go to
graduate school, I got serious. 4.0 for first MS, 3.95 for second.

Pilots, despite what engineer Tarver says, are inherently systems
managers, not blue collar equipment operators. While I was at
Northrop, the ex-mil aviators on the payroll where definitely "white
collar". The engineers were more rumpled polyester double-knit, plaids
and stripes sort of Goodwill eclectic. Maybe it was because the SME
("Subject Matter Expert") category of employee got paid better than
the engineers.

Bottom line, however, is that when you come right out of college in a
competitive world, the recruiter has only limited info to base a
decision on. If there are a load of folks with no work experience,
qualified degrees, and not much more, then GPA is going to be
decisive. Higher will always be better than lower, even if that isn't
necesarily indictive of potential.

You've got to get hired first before you can demonstrate your
creativity, tenaciousness, management skill and dependability.

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 10:02:55 -0800, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote:


"James Cho" wrote in message
. com...
As important as High School GPA is in being accepted to colleges, from
what I've heard. A Career Services person here at ERAU said that an
LM guy in charge of hiring looks for at least a 3.0 GPA, and prefers
at least 3.3.

That way LM gets all white collar type engineers, none of whom have ever
worked. This can be problematic in aerospace, as piloting is an
inherently
blue collar activity. (ie operating equipment)


There was an old saying in the military, "if the minimum weren't good
enough, it wouldn't be the minimum." I'll confess, reluctantly, to
graduating from college with a 2.01 GPA (2.00 required for
graduation.) All I needed was an undergrad degree to get a commission
and got to USAF pilot training. (That was when there were a lot of
requirements and a low number of qualified candidates--the situation
is reversed today.)

I'll add, however, that once given the opportunity to compete, then
job performance becomes a big factor. When I got the chance, unlikely
as it might have seemed based on my undergrad performance, to go to
graduate school, I got serious. 4.0 for first MS, 3.95 for second.

Pilots, despite what engineer Tarver says, are inherently systems
managers, not blue collar equipment operators.

In fact, under the law, pilots are equipment operators. An operator, as
legislated by the International Brotherhood of Operating Engineers.

While I was at
Northrop, the ex-mil aviators on the payroll where definitely "white
collar".

A delusion only, as militry pilots are inherently blue collar and in the
times Ed pretends to recall were a majority physical education majors.
Definately neither educated as "white collar", or skilled as managers.

The engineers were more rumpled polyester double-knit, plaids
and stripes sort of Goodwill eclectic. Maybe it was because the SME
("Subject Matter Expert") category of employee got paid better than
the engineers.

I go with levis and a Pendelton, most of the time.

As to the subject matter expert, the cocktail aviation circuit is pretty
well dead today. Although Keithie did comment to me on several ocasions
where Northrop, or the governemnt, had promoted a secretary to such a
position; based mostly on her ability to tie a knot in a cherry stem with
her tongue. The project manager for B-1 flight test was of that extraction.