"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.