gpa a factor after graduation?

"sibersmith" wrote in message
...
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?

Picture the scene: You are a recruiter for Boeing or Lockmart. In front of
you, you have a stack of 600 almost identical resumes, most of them using
the MS Word 'Resume' template. You have 5 positions to fill. Why would you
even bother with a 2.3GPA when the other 500 applications have a minimum
3.0? You can be as enthusiastic as you want, but with that number on, your
resume is going straight in the trash.

Frankly speaking, if you have a 2.3GPA you are not trying your hardest and
you know it. I suspect that, like me, you were one of the kids who coasted
through School on your native intelligence, and now the field has narrowed
you suddenly find that's not good enough. If you want your dream, pick your
ass up and start putting some serious work in instead of looking for
hand-holding on usenet.

Matt

I heard a radio news piece the other day that company recruiters are asking
about SAT scores to applicants 5, 10 even 15 years after college.

Les

"killfile" wrote in message
...
"sibersmith" wrote in message
...
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?

Picture the scene: You are a recruiter for Boeing or Lockmart. In front of
you, you have a stack of 600 almost identical resumes, most of them using
the MS Word 'Resume' template. You have 5 positions to fill. Why would you
even bother with a 2.3GPA when the other 500 applications have a minimum
3.0? You can be as enthusiastic as you want, but with that number on, your
resume is going straight in the trash.

Frankly speaking, if you have a 2.3GPA you are not trying your hardest and
you know it. I suspect that, like me, you were one of the kids who coasted
through School on your native intelligence, and now the field has narrowed
you suddenly find that's not good enough. If you want your dream, pick
your
ass up and start putting some serious work in instead of looking for
hand-holding on usenet.

Matt

If you are poor in math (and probably science as well) pack it in now and
switch to another major.
As it's obvious that you can't spell either other fields may be just as
tough.
Your command of English is also rotten:
"...Do good in school" ??? ('well' not not 'good)
Nobodys gona hire a medocree looser that doesn't excell in math.

"sibersmith" wrote in message
...
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. ....dirty minds! all around me!


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

Flying? He dreams of designing, not flying.

"WaltBJ" wrote in message
om...
Having been connected with airline training and selection in the past
- here goes. All the job applicants look alike. Clean, neat, dark
suit, sober ties, polished shoes, haircuts, mostly college grads, so
what is left? GPA is one of the distinguishing factors. Another factor
is 'desire to fly'. I recall one instance where two Ivy college grads
were rejected in favor of a comunity college (two year) grad simply
because the Ivy guys presented the attitude that they were doing the
compnay a favor in allowing themselves to be hired. OTH the 2-year kid
was like an eager puppy dog; he wanted to fly and exhibited the
willingness to take any flight anywhere any time in any conditions.
As for math - in my first attempt at college I never let homework take
precedence over sports and surfing . . . with predictable results.
Later on I discovered that if you ask questions and do the homework
college math is easy . . .Duh!
Walt BJ

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

"Not Nice Anymore" wrote:

If you are poor in math (and probably science as well) pack it in now and
switch to another major.
As it's obvious that you can't spell either other fields may be just as
tough.
Your command of English is also rotten:
"...Do good in school" ??? ('well' not not 'good)
Nobodys gona hire a medocree looser that doesn't excell in math.


The above post is pretty hilarious you know...

snortgaspsnickergroan

(...my poor ribs...)
--

-Gord.

"sibersmith" wrote...

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.

You will be competing against grads with good GPAs from good schools, good GPAs
from "mediocre" schools, and people with mediocre GPAs from both schools. If
you have the mediocre GPA from a "mediocre" school, you're probably going to be
at the bottom of the heap, unless you have something else going for you to
compensate.

Besides, I don't want "a medocree looser that doesn't excell in math" designing
any airplane that I fly!

You're young yet

Some bits of further advice. Pick one or more, take them to heart,
and discard those that don't apply.


Take a few years, work for a living, join the service, whatever.
Older, returning students who come back ready to focus on something
they want are famous for doing better than barely-adults who go
galloping off in all directions. (Especially if one of those
directions is toward the nearest party. Nothing personal; I'm just
trying to cover all bases.)


When the right opportunity comes up, take a course or two at whatever
college or trade school suits your fancy and REALLY APPLY YOURSELF.
This does more than convey facts and skills. It builds confidence at
the school game (something you're doubtless sorely lacking just now,
having at best fought your coursework to an armed truce and at worst
gotten your butt kicked), and keeps you in practice at kicking your
friends out, turning off the game, and cracking the books.


Talk to the advisors at said institution about what tests you can take
to find out whether your problem was nothing more or less than an
inadequate foundation for college-level math and engineering. Some
friends who went the faculty route can and do just go ON and on and on
about how much time they spend teaching remedial high school -- maybe
you came in behind the curve and never caught up.


Don't let middle-class circumstance put the golden handcuffs on you.
You are a work in progress and can drive an old car and live in a
smaller place while saving money and building skills for the
completion. These days, holding onto that attitude through an
advanced degree (once you have a vision of what that degree should be
in, of course) has a lot to recommend it.


Said vision is important. All this may reinforce your desire to
become an aircraft designer and prepare yourself for that rather hard
major. Or maybe you'll discover that you're happier and better suited
for another profession or trade -- where is it written that at 18 you
know what you want to do? This may be in the aerospace field or not;
it may consist of pushing a mouse around a desk or not.

Maybe the reason for your poor performance was personal. Maybe it was
inadequate preparation. Or maybe it was your inner self recoiling at
the difference between what you imagined the profession to be about
and what it really is about. Well, the world needs aerospace
engineers, and also aerospace machinists, history teachers, chefs, the
good honest car mechanic everybody seems to have so much trouble
finding, veterinarians, and a thousand other things.

Just keep in mind that the result of your education thus far is a
setback and something you'll have to explain now and then for a while,
but it is not a disaster. Work hard and you'll probably find
yourself able to direct people's focus toward the things you excelled
in as a focused and disciplined adult, not the things you fumbled the
first few years out of high school.


And it'll be good practice in case you realize many years from now
that Act II (or III) of your adulthood calls for another rethinking
and/or another increment of formal education. Maybe "completion of a
work in progress" wasn't the right thing to say earlier -- "completion
of the present phase" is more like it; and the designers are
notorious for barging in unexpectedly with a new set of prints.


One man's opinions, worth what you paid if your connect time is cheap,
--Joe

"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.